Saturday, September 23, 2006
Car bomb kills many in Sadr city
Security
In one of the deadliest attacks in weeks, 26 people were killed in the eastern Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr city by a bomb hidden in a barrel near a kerosene tanker where scores of people were lining up to buy fuel. The blast wounded another 29 people. This latest deadly attack came on Saturday, the first day of fasting for the month of Ramadan for Sunni muslims. The attack comes a few days after the U.S. military warned that the violence would increase over the fasting period.
Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement posted on the internet that the bombing was in retaliation for the "crimes" of the Mahdi Army, the authenticity of the statement could not be immediately confirmed. Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba has claimed responsibility for earlier attacks against Shias. Police spokesman Colonel Sa'd Abd al-Sada said the bomb was hidden in a small barrel near a kerosene tanker where scores of people were waiting to purchase fuel. He said that when the bomb went off, it exploded the kerosene tanker.
The attacks follows an assault on Sunni homes and mosques on Friday in the northern Hurriyah district where a Shia brigade openly threatened Sunni Muslims last week. Ahead of the attacks a previously unknown group calling itself Brigade of Two Sadrs Shula threw leaflets in the streets threatening to kill 10 Sunnis for every Shia death in Baghdad. In a separate incident, police found the bodies of nine men from the al-Duleimi Sunni tribe, blindfolded with their hands and legs bound.
COMMENT: This attack is likely to be a response for the attacks on the Sunni mosques and families yesterday and today's assault will probably lead to reprisal killings of Sunnis - likley to be by the Shia Mahdi militia - who police Sadr city and are the militant wing of Al Sadr's organisation. Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions is a Sunni extremist organisation that is responsible for two high-profile attacks on Shia targets, including the bombing of a mosque during funeral services in Mosul, Iraq. The group has major grievances with Shia Muslims, who they believe to have a disproportionate amount of power in the newly-created Iraqi government and security force. They seek to defend Sunnis from what they see as a corruption of true Islamic doctrine. In a statement issued following one of their attacks, the group expressed their hostility towards the Badr Corps, a Shia militia that serves the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Party, the al-Da’wah Party, a Shia political party, and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a prominent Shia cleric. A secondary goal of the Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions is to expel the “Jews and Crusaders” from Muslim territory. COMMENT ENDS.
