Friday, December 01, 2006
Security developments
Security
In Samawa heavy clashes erupted between Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and police forces on Thursday, wounding seven people mostly civilians, eyewitnesses said. Officials at al-Shaheed al-Sadr (Martyr Sadr) office said intensive efforts were being exerted to halt the clashes and withdraw Mahdi Army fighters from the streets of Samawa.“We will hold an urgent meeting with Samawa seniors and we are working towards a seize-fire and pulling Mahdi Army force from the streets,” Sheikh Ahmad al-Asadi, of al-Shaheed al-Sadr office in Samawa, told Muthanna TV.Asadi blamed the clashes that broke suddenly this morning to “recent actions by security men in detaining and arresting a number of innocent people without a good reason or an excuse.” He did not elaborate.The office of al-Shaheed al-Sadr on Wednesday called for staging a civil strike to protest Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s visit to Amman to meet U.S. President George Bush.Mahdi Army has also paraded several thousands of its fighters in central Samawa two days ago in a show of force.
In Basra gunmen on Thursday shot dead a prominent official at the Sunni Endowment in Basra along with four bodyguards and wounded two other guards, the Islamic Party in Basra said.“Unknown gunmen opened fire at dawn on the motorcade of Sheikh Nasser Katami, assistant director of the Sunni Endowment in Basra, in al-Najibiya district in northern Basra, killing him instantly along with four of his bodyguards,” Sheikh Abdul-Karim Jarrad told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by telephone.
Near Ba'quba gunmen kidnapped more than 14 Iraqi civilians at a fake checkpoint a security source said. “Unknown gunmen set up a fake checkpoint on the main road between Katoun and Ba’quba, Diala province, kidnapped more than 14 civilians who traveling on the road and took them to an unknown destination.” The source, who declined to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Ba’quba lies 57 km east of Baghdad.
