Iraq “resistance” blows up Sufis

Emulating recent jihadi tactics in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Iraqi resistance has targetted a gathering of Sufis for a suicide attack, as well as escalating attacks against Shi’ites.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of Sufi Muslims north of Baghdad June 2, killing 10 and injuring at least 12. The attack took place at a house in the village of Saud, near the northern town of Balad as Sufis gathered for a religious ceremony, Interior Ministry officials said. Ahmed Hamid, a Sufi witness, told the AP: “I was among 50 people inside the tekiya [Sufi gathering place] practicing our rites when the building was hit by a big explosion. Then, there was chaos everywhere and human flesh scattered all over the place.”

The bombing brought the day’s death toll to 49. That evening, two gunmen shot dead Ali Abdul-Hussein, the imam of a Shi’ite mosque in the southern city of Basra, as he stood outside his house, police and relatives said.

In Kirkuk, where ethnic tensions have been building between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen who all lay claim to the strategic oil city, gunmen killed a leading Turkmen official in a drive-by shooting as he left Friday prayers, police said. The victim, Brigadier General Sabah Qaratun, worked for Kirkuk’s local government and was a member of a leading Turkmen party. Over the past month leading officials in all three ethnic communities have been assassinated in the city.

Since a new Shi’ite Islamist-led government was named on April 28, more than 800 Iraqis and 80 US troops have been killed, making May the deadliest month since January. (Reuters, London Times, June 4)

A suicide car bomber also wounded nine Iraqi soldiers and two women after attacking an Iraqi army checkpoint near the U.S. 42nd Infantry Division base in Tikrit, 130 km north of Baghdad, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi said. He added that police also pulled the body of a man who had been shot in the head from the Tigris River. His hands had been bound.

In Baghdad, men in three speeding cars sprayed gunfire into a crowded market in the northern neighbourhood of Hurriyah, killing nine people, the interior and defence ministries said. Two other Baghdad attacks killed four people and injured three.

As part of the anti-insurgent campaign, Iraq’s new government (backed up by US forces) has launched its biggest offensive since Saddam Hussein’s fall two years ago. Iraqi officials have said the operation, which began Sunday, involves 40,000 soldiers. (AP, June 3)

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  1. AMERICAN DEATH SQUADS IN I

    AMERICAN DEATH SQUADS IN IRAQ

    I am surprrised that progressive gus like yo do not pay any attention to the fact that Iraqi resistance do not kill Iraqui sophis, we were living together for centiries,we had brotherly fights but we never did what you Americans do pure and brutal force to subjegate.You have done it from the oblitarion of Natives in merica, to Massacre in Phiollipines to you name it where!
    Threfore, remember oyur government is pre-empting insurgency, it is making the the Insurgents by importing them from Plastine and anywhere outside to kill Iraqis and in a perverted fashion
    making them kill each other and by massive propaganda blame the ressistance and ocnfuse the issue that American would never go out of Iraq. There are here and would stay for as long as it takes. The only hting which is going to hunt the American Occupation force is the Depleted Uranium residues in their lungs and reproductive organs but nobody cares for the the American sick and wounded they are collateral damages and the giant corporations owuld be the winners!!

    INSURGENTS ARE US!!

    FARHAT QUAM MAQUAMI

    The American staged election in Iraq, which was designed to sub-contract their Death Squads and provide a façade of legitimacy for an otherwise illegitimate phenomenon, is three month old. Yet behind the armored walls of the protected Green Zone, with all the pressures from Rumsfeld, Rice and Khalilzad and fear of assassination and Mosque bombings they have not still succumbed to the American choice of appointees.

    American occupiers arranged the election so the desired personnel composed of outsiders like Malawi and Jaffari thugs of traitors, murderers and thieves would run Iraq for America. The Corporate Media, pronounced this ploy to the world as the Iraq “ historic election