Iraqi forces seize Baghdad headquarters of powerful Sunni group, huge blast rocks central Baghdad
The Associated Press Tuesday, November 13, 2007 http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8327234 BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities seized the headquarters of the country's most influential Sunni clerical group Wednesday, sealing off its west Baghdad compound and accusing the organization of supporting al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a huge roadside bomb struck a U.S. patrol near the Green Zone in the tightly controlled heart of the city - a chilling reminder that Baghdad remains dangerous despite recent improvements in security. At least two Iraqis were killed in the morning blast, police said. A U.S. spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, spoke of "multiple military and civilian casualties" and said a statement would be issued later. Hours later, a car bomb exploded in northeastern Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding seven others, police said. Iraqi security forces dispatched by the Sunni Endowment, a government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, surrounded the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars at the Um al-Qura mosque about 9 a.m. and demanded the staff leave by noon, the association said in a statement posted on its Web site. Troops shut down the association's radio station, which operated from the mosque, and told employees to remove all personal belongings and furniture, the statement said. "The association has always justified killing and assassinations carried out by al-Qaida," the head of the Sunni Endowments, Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor al-Samarraie, told reporters at the mosque, built by Saddam Hussein to commemorate the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Al-Samarraie said the association had opposed the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, which began last year in Anbar province and is spreading throughout the Sunni heartland. He said the association opposed any group formed "to purge their neighborhoods of al-Qaida elements." The association has long opposed the U.S. military presence in Iraq and has often been at odds with the Shiite-dominated government. The association spearheaded the Sunni boycott of the January 2005 elections and has often taken public positions in support of Sunni insurgent goals. But the timing of the move suggests that the government is more confident that it can take action against the hardline Sunni clerics without risking a backlash within the Sunni community and reprisal attacks by al-Qaida and other insurgents. U.S. officials say American and Iraqi forces have taken control of all major Sunni neighborhoods where al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents once held sway, including Ghazaliyah where the Um al-Qura mosque is located. Last week, U.S.-backed Sunni volunteers seized control of the Sunni neighorhood of Azamiyah, which had been among the most dangerous for U.S. and Iraqi forces. Speakers used mosque loudspeakers to call on the citizens to renounce al-Qaida. The association said it held al-Samarraie, himself a Sunni cleric, personally responsible for the safety of its employees and condemned the "blatant assault," saying it was carried out "for the benefit of many parties which see the association as an obstacle to their projects." A spokesman for the association, Mohammed Bahsar al-Faydhi, told The Associated Press that he believed the troops raiding the mosque were not government forces but al-Samarraie's personal guards. "We don't understand why the Sunni Endowment acted this way," al-Faydhi said by telephone from Jordan. The blast near the Green Zone was the biggest in central Baghdad in weeks and raised questions how a bomb could have been planted in such a heavily guarded area, which includes a police station and the Foreign Ministry. "There has been significant progress and accomplishments by the combined efforts of Iraqi and coalition forces in Baghdad," Smith, the spokesman, told reporters. "But this progress is fragile and far from irreversible." Smith said extremists have "both the will and the capacity to cause significant loss of life and destruction of property." Although violence in Baghdad appears down, al-Qaida extremists have been escalating attacks in recent days against Sunni groups outside the capital that have thrown their support to the Americans. In one of the latest attacks, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside the guest house of an anti-al-Qaida sheik, Amad al-Gartani, near Iskandiriyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Baghdad - killing the sheik and two other people, according to provincial police and al-Gartani's colleagues on the North Babil Awakening Council. Such so-called Awakening councils began with Sunni tribesmen fighting to oust al-Qaida from their hometowns in Iraq's western Anbar province. The movement has spread across much of Iraq, and is credited with helping wrest many dangerous areas back from the terror network's control. Elsewhere, fighting between al-Qaida and local defense groups erupted Wednesday in two villages east of Baqouba, Diyala's provincial capital. Police said al-Qaida in Iraq used to control both villages - one Sunni and the other mixed - until U.S. and Iraqi forces drove them out weeks ago. About 40 displaced families had begun to return to their homes, when al-Qaida attacked early Wednesday, trying to reclaim the area, police said. Five people were killed - two civilians and three al-Qaida members - and six others wounded in the fighting, police said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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