An Iraqi Interior Ministry commando inspects the inside of the mosque after a shoe bomber blew himself up during Friday prayers inside the Buratha mosque, one of Baghdad's most important Shiite Mosques, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20 in northern Baghdad, Iraq Friday, June 16, 2006. The Imam of the Buratha mosque, a leading politician and deputy with the governing Shiite coalition who often spoke out against the late terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the attack, which came despite a massive security operation in the capital, including a vehicle ban, aimed at restoring order. (AP Photo / Khalid Mohammed)This is from Yahoo News:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A shoe bomber blew himself up inside an important Shiite mosque during Friday prayers, killing at least 13 people and wounding 28, as violence persisted in the capital despite a massive security operation aimed at restoring order.
The imam of the Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad, a leading politician and deputy with the governing Shiite coalition who often spoke out against the late terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, blamed al-Qaida in
Iraq for the attack.
The security operation in Baghdad has imposed a driving ban during Friday prayers to prevent suicide car bomb attacks, as well as a curfew. About 75,000 troops are in the streets of the capital.
It was the second time the Buratha mosque has been hit in just over two months. It also was attacked during Friday prayers on April 7, when four suicide bombers, including a woman, killed 85 worshippers as they left the mosque after the main weekly service.
The U.S. military blamed that attack on al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was killed June 7 in a U.S. airstrike. The group issued a statement Tuesday vowing to avenge al-Zarqawi's death and threatening horrific attacks "in the coming days."
What you are looking at here is the continued sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis--with a little al Qaida terrorism thrown in to ratchet up the violence for their hopes of creating a civil war in Iraq. It is anarchy and chaos in Iraq, where a weak Iraqi central government has no hopes of controlling the country without the presence of U.S. occupation troops. It is a country divided by religious and ethnic sects--with each sect wanting to control as much territory and resources as they can gain. For decades, Saddam Hussein has been able to control the country by keeping this bubbling cauldron of ethnic and religious strife submerged below the surface of Iraqi society. But once Saddam was removed by the U.S. invasion, that strife has been released within society--old scores and hatreds are being settled between the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. That is the Iraq of today.
2 comments:
"That is the Iraq of today."
That is the Iraq that we intentionally avoided at the end of the liberation of Kuwait.
From the movie "Stupid is as stupid does".
There are countries that can only be held together through brutal repression.
When we leave, and one day we will, someone more brutal than Saddam will take charge.
One thing I will say about George Bush Senior--he was right for not going into Baghdad to take out Saddam. When the first Gulf War ended, I was certainly one of those who wanted the U.S. to "finish the job" in taking out Saddam. I didn't like the fact that the U.S. stopped the war after retaking Kuwait. George Bush Senior was right in stopping the war when he did.
When Dubya came on the scene advocating an American invasion of Iraq, my own views on the subject had changed. I actually didn't like the idea of invading Iraq. We had Saddam contained with the oil embargo, the no-fly zone, and plenty of American military assets in the Gulf region to apply military pressure--short of invasion. In the ten years between the First Gulf War and the Second Gulf War, our containment policy against Iraq was working. There wasn't much Iraq could do, without our knowing it, and applying pressure to Saddam. And as for the Bush administration's claims that Saddam was building a huge supply of WMDs, I was open to support any option, with the exception of invading Iraq, to either force pressure against Saddam to give up the WMDs, or to take them out. And these options could have included military air strikes against suspected Iraqi WMD sites. I did not want the U.S. to invade Iraq.
It is ironic at how my views have changed in those ten years.
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