Source: reuters // Reuters
(Adds details)
FALLUJA, Iraq, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed 22 Iraqi Shi'ite pilgrims in an ambush in the Sunni heartland province of Anbar on Monday, a police official said.
Bombings and killings remain a daily occurrence in Iraq more than eight years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion although violence has dropped from the height of sectarian fighting in 2006-7.
The pilgrims were travelling from the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala to Syria when they were shot at a checkpoint set up by the gunmen, said Major General Hadi Razij, head of Anbar police.
"There was a big bus and a mini bus containing 30 people, including 22 men and 8 women," he told Reuters. "They took the men and they left the women. They killed the 22 men."
A security source in Anbar police said the incident took place south of the town of Rutba, 360 km (225 miles) west of Baghdad.
The source said the remaining pilgrims, including 15 women, 12 children and two elderly men, had been put in the care of the head of Kerbala's provincial council.
Razij said a search was being conducted for the gunmen, whom he suspected were al Qaeda insurgents.
Iraq became a battlefield for al Qaeda after the 2003 invasion, but its numbers and the territory in which it operates have shrunk since 2006-07, when Sunni tribal chiefs joined forces with the U.S. military.
The sprawling desert province of Anbar was home to the Sunni Islamist insurgency after the invasion and its main cities, Ramadi and Falluja, witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war. (Reporting by Fadhel al-Badrani and Rania El Gamal; Writing by Serena Chaudhry)
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Aswat Al Iraq / Karbala , Security
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25 bodies of terrorist attack in Anbar Province arrives in Karbala
9/13/2011 10:13 AM
KARBALA / Aswat al-Iraq: About 25 bodies of victims of a terrorist attack against a group of pilgrims on their road to Karbala, shot dead by a group of terrorists on Monday night on the main road passing through west Iraq’s Anbar Province, have been received by al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Karbala, according to a member of its Security Committee on Tuesday.
“A terrorist group had stopped two buses, carrying pilgrims of Karbala citizens close to al-Nukheib township, 350 km to the west of Karbala, on the main highway from Syria, isolating women and children and shooting 25 of the male passengers,” Jassem al-Fatlway told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Fatlway expected that other victims would be driven to his hospital during the forthcoming few hours.
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Iraq army searches desert in Shi'ite pilgrim attack
13 Sep 2011 19:04
Source: reuters // Reuters
* Attack carried stamp of al Qaeda, police chief says
* Gunmen set up fake security checkpoint to stop buses
FALLUJA, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Iraqi soldiers searched insurgent hideouts in the vast western desert and arrested several people for questioning on Tuesday, a day after gunmen attacked Shi'ite pilgrims killing 22 people, security officials said.
Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi condemned the killings in the Sunni Anbar province as a "criminal plot" to divide Iraq. "Iraq's enemies continue to attempt to create confusion and revive antagonism and fighting among united Iraqi components".
The gunmen ambushed and killed the pilgrims on Monday south of the town of Rutba, which lies along the main highway between Baghdad and Jordan, 360 km (225 miles) west of Baghdad.
"Al Qaeda stands behind this crime. Its fingerprints can be clearly seen at the crime scene," said Major General Hadi Razij, head of the police in Anbar, a former al Qaeda stronghold.
"The army and the police are using vehicles to comb the desert in search of the hideouts of the gunmen ... Some suspects, who have sympathies with al Qaeda, have been detained, but we are still searching and have not captured the criminals yet. We are determined to solve the crime."
The pilgrims were travelling in a minibus and a larger bus from the southern city of Kerbala to Syria when they were stopped at a checkpoint set up by the attackers, police said.
Razij said the gunmen shot 22 men on the bus, including a Syrian driver and four off-duty policemen, while 15 women, 12 children and two elderly men were spared.
In Kerbala, relatives collected the bodies of the victims for burial on Tuesday. Some of the dead were wrapped in green cloth, only their shoes showing.
"When we came we found 22 bodies. The women brought them (but) they could not speak. They were stuttering. Of course. They slaughtered the men in front of the women," said Karim al-Haboubi, a relative of one of the victims. "It's a massacre."
"There's no security on the road. Where's the state? Where's the government? Where's the army?"
Anbar tribal leader Ahmed Abu Risha offered a reward of 50 million Iraqi dinars ($43,000) for information leading to the arrest of the attackers.
Anbar province is Iraq's Sunni heartland and a one-time stronghold for Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. Its main cities, Ramadi and Falluja, saw some of the fiercest fighting following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Violence dropped when Sunni tribal chiefs joined forces with the U.S. military against al Qaeda.
FEARS OF RETURN OF VIOLENCE
Fouad al-Doraki, a member of parliament, said the attack on the Shi'ite pilgrims showed a "hateful, sectarian direction".
"The remnants of the previous regime, in co-operation with al Qaeda, did this," he said.
Residents from Anbar province said they feared a return to sectarian violence.
"This operation is a crime. I fear that it might lead us to sectarian acts like those in 2006 and 2007. I don't wish for us to return to that period. If we do, I fear for Iraq," said 39-year-old Ramadi resident Ziad Hussein.
Violence across Iraq has dropped sharply after a peak in 2006-07 when sectarian bloodletting killed thousands of people. But U.S. military statistics indicate there are still an average of 14 bombings and other attacks daily as American troops prepare to leave by year-end.
Iraqi politicians are trying to decide whether to ask Washington to leave some troops in Iraq after Dec. 31 to continue to train the army and police.
The Anbar incident paralleled a similar attack in 2008, when gunmen seized 21 men from two buses at a fake checkpoint at a mainly Sunni Arab town near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Women on the buses were left alone. (Reporting by Fadhel al-Badrani in Falluja, Khaled Farhan in Najaf and Reuters Television; Writing by Jim Loney)
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..AP Exclusive: Iraqi girl recounts bus massacreBy QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA - Associated Press | AP – 6 hrs ago....tweet9Share0EmailPrint......Related Content.
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19 photos - 18 hrs ago...See latest photos »....KARBALA, Iraq (AP) — The trip was intended to give Tabarak Thaer a glimpse of the world beyond Iraq's violence and misery. Instead, it brought the 10-year-old face to face with terror when insurgents boarded the bus she was riding, forced the male passengers off, and killed them.
Although the attackers were dressed in military-style uniforms and initially said they were only checking the bus, Tabarak sensed danger right away. She slipped her cellphone into her shoe when the insurgents demanded all passengers hand them over.
"They claimed they wanted to help us, but I was suspicious," the cherub-faced Tabarak told The Associated Press in an interview this week. "I grew terrified when they start to beat and yell at the women."
Tabarak's story is the first account to surface by a survivor of Monday's hijacking in Iraq's Sunni-dominated western Anbar province that left 22 Shiite pilgrims dead. The passengers were from the Shiite holy city of Karbala in southern Iraq, and were headed to the Sayyida Zainab shrine in Damascus, Syria.
Although violence across Iraq has dropped dramatically in recent years, deadly attacks still happen every day — some in which dozens of people are killed. This week's bus massacre was particularly alarming because it recalled the worst days of the war, when extremists routinely posed as security forces and stopped cars at fake checkpoints, and either killed or kidnapped motorists.
Most of the fake checkpoints of years past were manned by al-Qaida agents, and Shiite officials this week blamed the Sunni-based terrorist network for masterminding the bus attack in an attempt to re-ignite sectarian violence.
It was to be Tabarak's first trip out of Iraq, a vacation with her grandparents, two aunts and her brother and sister that was promised after she aced her school exams this summer. Even though Syria has been hit by violent protests in recent months, that has not stopped pilgrims from visiting its religious sites.
Rumbling down the remote desert highway between Baghdad and the Jordanian border, the bus stopped at what looked like a checkpoint blocking the road, and the uniformed men climbed aboard.
The women and children were told to stay on the bus while the men were marched out. Tabarak's grandfather was among them but was soon allowed to return.
The insurgents led the men down the road and out of sight, but Tabarak could still hear their voices, begging to be let go. "The only answer they got was slander," she said.
A half-hour later, the sounds of shooting began — a steady
drumbeat of bullets fired one by one.
"I panicked when I heard the crack of the gunfire," Tabarak said. "I had the feeling that our turn would come."
"It was long moments of anxiety."
Once the gunmen left, the survivors frantically discussed how they could alert authorities. Tabarak shouted to the passengers that she still had her phone, and handed it to her grandfather to start making calls.
A few hours later, an Iraqi army patrol found the bus of weeping and wailing pilgrims, and they headed back to Karbala, 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Baghdad.
"This great and brilliant deed by my granddaughter saved us from an unknown fate," said Tabarak's grandfather, Mohammed Ali, 65.
Shiite pilgrims have been a favorite target for Sunni insurgents who are trying to revive the sectarian violence that brought Iraqi to the brink of civil war just a few years ago. Monday's attack comes less than four months before U.S. troops — who surged into Iraq in 2007 to stem the religious killings — are scheduled to leave.
On Thursday, Iraqi authorities arrested 10 men from the Anbar provincial town of Rutbah, near the Jordanian border, and accused them of being agents for al-Qaida. Karbala's provincial council chairman, Mohammed al-Moussawi, said the insurgents clearly "aimed at igniting sectarian tensions in Iraq."
There's been no violent response to the bus attack from Iraq's Shiite community against Sunnis — unlike the kind that used to spur endless volleys of retribution.
The arrest raised the ire of a prominent Sunni sheik in Anbar, who initially offered a reward of 50 million dinars (about $42,000) for information to help track down the insurgents but later accused the Shiite security forces of "abducting" the suspects in Rutbah.
"We believe this act is in revenge of the killing," said Sameer Abd Rasheed, spokesman for Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, whose family helped create the Sunni Sahwa, or Sons of Iraq militia that joined U.S. forces against al-Qaida.
Security officials initially said the women and children were forced off the bus and left at the side of the road, while the men were taken a few miles (kilometers) away and shot in a valley. On Thursday, a senior official who talked to the survivors immediately after the attack confirmed Tabarak's account, and said the men were told to get off and then walked a short distance away, where they were killed within earshot of the others.
Ali was spared, although initial reports said all male passengers were slain.
The senior official, who spoke to the AP as the tragedy unfolded late Monday and again Thursday, blamed the differing versions on conflicting accounts given by hysterical survivors.
Understandably, the trip scared Tabarak away from ever traveling though Iraq.
"I will not take this highway, never again," she said. "I will use the airport to go abroad next time."
Ali ruefully noted that the whole point of the trip was to reward his granddaughter's good grades.
"But this journey ended with tragedy," he said.
___
Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Lara Jakes in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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The Territorial Dimension of the Nukhayb Tragedy
Reidar Visser | Saturday, 17 September 2011
The Karbala claims to Nukhayb rest on shaky historical foundations. It is true that for a short period in the 1970s, Nukhayb was transferred to Karbala by the former regime (it can be documented that it was part of Ramadi in the 1960s) and then transferred back again in 1979. But for the overwhelming part of the twentieth century, Nukhayb has been administratively affiliated with Ramadi (or, before that, with the special desert police force) rather than with Karbala.
More fundamentally, the Nukhayb claim relates to the much bigger issue of “disputed territories” that threatens to polarise Iraqi politics along ethno-sectarian lines in years to come. This vexed idea of collective ethno-sectarian entitlement to land (as distinct from the right of individuals to seek redress for misdeeds and confiscations of land by the former regime) was unfortunately included in the US-sponsored Transitional Administrative Law in 2004, from where it made its way into the current Iraqi constitution. Exactly like the Karbala claim to Nukhayb, many of the claims under the “disputed territory ” heading have scant historical basis, but if granted, they could set the stage for a perpetual debate about real and imagined “disputed territories” across Iraq in the next years.
So far there are some positive signs that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is trying to rise above the claims of his partisans in Karbala in the Nukhayb case and will work for the transfer of those arrested to Baghdad and indeed for the release of some of them. The more important question is however this: Will he have the guts to come out loud and clear against the murky attempts by other Shiite Islamists to play the opportunistic territorial card in Nukhayb?
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