Tag Archives: Iraqi Shiites

News, Politics, Government

Iraq cannot stop Iran arms transfer to Syria: FM

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Iraq lacks the means to stop Iranian arms deliveries to Syria through its airspace, if there are any, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments published on Saturday.

“Last September we started to inspect Iranian and Syrian planes at random. We have found non-lethal materials, like equipment, medicine and food,” Zebari said in an interview published by the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

“In all honesty, those planes might be carrying other stuff, but we have neither the deterrent means, nor the air defences and fighter jets to prevent… arms shipments,” he told the pan-Arab daily.

Zebari said he had urged Western governments to take action themselves if they were convinced that Iran was smuggling weapons to its Syrian ally.

“I told the West: If you want to stop Iran’s air bridge to Syria over Iraq, go ahead.”

Zebari said Western governments were convinced such an air bridge existed and that his response was: “This does not have my consent, and I do not have the means to prevent it.”

He said the Shiite-led government in Baghdad had urged Tehran “not to use relations with (Iraq) to send arms to others.”

“We reject and condemn the shipping of arms through our airspace, and we will tell the Iranian side of that officially, but we cannot stop it,” Zebari said.

The conflict in Syria has become increasingly sectarian as it has entered its third year, with the mainly Sunni rebels receiving support from the Gulf Arab monarchies, and the Damascus regime getting backing from Shiite Iran.

Zebari, himself a Sunni Kurd, said last month that he could not deny that Iraqi Shiites were fighting in Syria alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

But he stressed that their involvement in the conflict “does not come under government policy.”

…read more

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News, Politics, Government

Bomb kills 19 in northern Iraqi city, officials say

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A bomb struck a crowded coffee shop late Friday in the ethnically disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least 19 and wounding more than two dozen in the latest in a string of bloody attacks pounding Iraq since the start of the holy month of Ramadan this week.

Iraq is being rocked by its deadliest and most sustained wave of bloodshed in half a decade. More than 2,600 people have been killed since the start of April, raising fears that the country is once again edging toward the brink of civil war a decade after Saddam Hussein was toppled in the U.S.-led invasion.

The blast exploded in the Classico Cafe in southern Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, as patrons were enjoying tea and water pipes hours after the sunset meal that breaks the daylong Ramadan fast, police said.

Kirkuk is home to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen — all with competing claims to the oil-rich area. The Kurds want to incorporate it into their self-ruled region in Iraq’s north, but Arabs and Turkomen are opposed. Sunni Arab extremists, aiming to exacerbate ethnic tensions in the region, are believed to be behind frequent attacks in the area that pose a challenge to Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.

In addition to those killed, the attack wounded 26, a police officer and a hospital official said. It brought to 24 the number of people killed in attacks in the country on Friday.

Hours before the Kirkuk attack, Sunni cleric Salah al-Nuaimi urged calm among Iraqis during a joint Sunni-Shiite sermon Friday in Baghdad aimed at easing sectarian tensions.

“Enough is enough,” al-Nuaimi told worshippers at a Baghdad mosque. “We all love Iraq, we are all Iraqis and we want to be united. We want to stop the bloodletting, and develop and build Iraq.”

Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol outside the northern city of Mosul, killing four policemen, a police officer and a medical official said. Mosul is 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of the Iraqi capital.

And outside the northern city of Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, drive-by shooters armed with pistols fitted with silencers killed a senior police officer. The attack took place in the town Shirqat, a police officer said.

Officials also provided details of new attacks on Iraqi Shiites late the previous night.

In one of the attacks on Shiites, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden motorcycle into a funeral tent for a Shiite family in the town of in Muqdadiyah, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, officials said. The late Thursday evening explosion killed 13 people and wounded 24, the officials said.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

In the northern town of Dujail, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Baghdad, a parked car bomb went off outside a Shiite mosque late on Thursday. As people gathered around the blast site, another bomb went off. That twin bombing killed at least 11 people and …read more

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News, Politics, Government

Officials: Blast hits northern Iraqi city; 19 dead

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Iraqi officials say a bomb has exploded inside a crowded coffee shop in the ethnically disputed northern city of Kirkuk, killing 19 and wounding 26.

A police official who provided the casualty toll says the blast happened around 10 p.m. Friday in the Classico Cafe in the south of the city as patrons were enjoying tea and water pipes hours after the sunset meal that breaks the daylong Ramadan fast.

A hospital official confirmed the casualty toll. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information to reporters.

It is the latest in a string of attacks that has left more than 2,600 Iraqis dead since the start of April.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

New attacks on Iraqi Shiites killed at least 24 people while assaults Friday against policemen killed five, officials said, as insurgents press their campaign to exacerbate the country’s renewed sectarian tensions.

In one of the attacks on Shiites, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden motorcycle into a funeral tent for a Shiite family in the town of in Muqdadiyah, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, officials said.

The late Thursday evening explosion killed 13 people and wounded 24, the officials said.

In the northern town of Dujail, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Baghdad, a parked car bomb went off outside a Shiite mosque late on Thursday. As people gathered around the blast site, another bomb went off.

The twin bombing killed at least 11 people and wounded 25, said the town mayor, Nayif al-Khazrachi. Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures.

The two attacks raised the overall death toll Thursday from a series of attacks, which included assaults on police stations in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah west of Baghdad, to 40.

Sunni cleric Salah al-Nuaimi urged calm among Iraqis during a joint Sunni-Shiite Friday sermon in Baghdad aimed at easing sectarian tensions.

“Enough is enough,” al-Nuaimi told worshippers at a Baghdad mosque. “We all love Iraq, …read more

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News, Politics, Government

Gunmen kill 10 Iraqi security forces in 2 attacks

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Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed.

The attack on the army intelligence soldiers in the former insurgent stronghold of Ramadi drew a quick response from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Shiite-led government has been the target of rising Sunni anger over perceived mistreatment.

The attackers stopped a vehicle carrying the soldiers near the protest camp, prompting a gunbattle that left the five soldiers dead and two of the attackers wounded, police officials said.

Al-Maliki vowed his government would not keep silent over the killing of the soldiers. Iraqi officials have repeatedly claimed that insurgent groups, such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam regime, have infiltrated the Sunni demonstrations.

“I call upon the peaceful protesters to expel the criminals targeting military and police,” al-Maliki said in a statement posted on his official website.

Authorities announced a curfew in the whole province of Anbar. They also gave the protest organizers in Ramadi, the provincial capital, a 24-hours deadline to hand over the gunmen responsible for killing the soldiers or face a “firm response,” said Maj. Gen. Mardhi Mishhin al-Mahalawi, the army’s Anbar operations chief.

Members of Iraq‘s Muslim Sunni minority have been rallying for the past four months in several Iraqi cities to protest what they describe as unfair treatment by al-Maliki’s government.

Tensions spiked earlier this week when fighting broke out in the northern town of Hawija during a security crackdown on a protest encampment. That provoked a series of clashes nationwide that left more than 170 people dead over the past five days.

In Cairo, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group, from which Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi hails, condemned the Iraqi government‘s actions in the crackdown. The Sunni political and religious organization decried the Iraqi government‘s “violence in dealing with the peaceful demonstrators and protesters that resulted in the killing and wounding of many innocent people, which is rejected by Islam and humanity.”

It added: “this is not the way people are governed or the way to achieve security and reform.” Morsi’s government has itself come under criticized as scores of Egyptian protesters have been killed or wounded in police crackdowns and street clashes since the Islamist leader was elected after Hosni Mubarak‘s ouster in 2011.

For many Iraqi Shiites, the months of protests coupled with the latest unrest raise worrying parallels to the civil war engulfing neighboring Syria.

There, Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s regime is fighting largely Sunni rebels who draw support from Turkey and Sunni Gulf states. Assad’s Alawite sect is a branch of Shiite Islam, and his regime is backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran, which also has significantly bolstered ties with Iraq in the years since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In a speech Saturday, al-Maliki warned that sectarianism is an “evil thing” that can swiftly spread from country to country in the Islamic world — an apparent reference to the divisions in

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