Refleksi : Untuk melihat video footage, click situs Aljazeera seperti berikut :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/11/201011134724982931.html Hostages die in Iraq church raid Al-Qaeda-linked group claims responsibility for attack on Baghdad church that resulted in deaths of 47 people. Last Modified: 01 Nov 2010 11:11 GMT An al-Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Catholic church in the Iraqi capital, which resulted in the deaths of 47 people. The Reuters news agency reported the death toll on Monday, a day after attackers stormed the Our Lady of Salvation church in the Karrada neighbourhood of central Baghdad. The assailants took more than 100 people hostage in a standoff that ended after police stormed the church two hours later. At least 25 of those killed were hostages. "Right from the very beginning their phone calls were fully intercepted and we strongly believe there were non-Iraqi people among the group. We will investigate their nationalities," Abdul Qader al-Obeidi, the Iraqi defence minister, said. Al-Qaeda affiliate The kidnappers were demanding the release of al-Qaeda prisoners from Iraqi and Egyptian jails, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reported from Baghdad. Al-Baghdadiya television station said it had received a phone call from someone claiming to be one of the attackers, who demanded the release of all al-Qaeda prisoners in Iraq and Egypt. That person spoke classical Arabic, "perhaps an attempt to conceal his identity," Rageh said. The Islamic State of Iraq, a group which is linked to al-Qaeda, later claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted online after the incident. The group alleged that female Muslims were being held against their will in Coptic Christian monasteries in Egypt. "[There is] some sort of Egyptian involvement there, but authorities are not confirming that," our correspondent reported. Operation 'successful' Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, a Baghdad security spokesman, told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that the operation "has finished successfully". Sunday's attack began with at least one loud explosion followed by bursts of gunfire. Streets around the church were quickly cordoned off. Earlier the assailants, wearing suicide vests, killed two guards who tried to stop them from raiding the stock exchange building. After battling security forces at the stock exchange, the men fled to the nearby church, where they held the building's construction and cleaning crew hostage inside. Abdullah Hermiz, the head of Christian Endowment, a state body that oversees Iraq's chruches, told The Associated Press news agency that only part of the building was under construction and that Sunday services were being held as usual in another part of the church. "When they were about to leave and heard the shooting outside and because of the scary situation, some ran outside the church while others remained inside," he added. Our correspondent said that according to the US military the attackers were al-Qaeda operatives, based on their "tactics, techniques and procedures". 'Attempted robbery' Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Bloom, a US army spokesman, said about 100 people had been in the church when the attackers came in, but some 19 of them managed to escape. "They [Iraqi forces] went into the church and rescued the hostages," Bloom said. "They have control of the church". He said US forces provided air support but did not have soldiers on the ground going into the church. Iraqi Special Forces stormed the church around 9 pm. Bloom later told Al Jazeera that the incident was a "robbery gone wrong". "We've seen them resort to robbery to get financed. It has been very challenging for them to get outside financing, so they are resorting to small, petty crimes to try to finance themselves" ++++ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?ref=global-home Death Toll Rises in Iraq Church Bloodbath By JOHN LELAND Published: November 1, 2010 BAGHDAD - Iraqi antiterrorist forces stormed a church where gunmen had taken close to 100 hostages on Sunday in an afternoon of chaos that became a bloodbath. At least 30 hostages and 7 security officers were killed, and 41 hostages and 15 security force members were wounded, according to a source at the Ministry of the Interior. Officials said on Monday that the death toll had risen to around 50, according to news reports. Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, the minister of defense, said that most of the hostages were killed or wounded when the kidnappers set off at least two suicide vests as they took over the church. He defended the decision to storm the building, saying, "This was a successful operation with a minimum of casualties, and killing all the terrorists." He added that an unspecified number of suspects were also arrested. The source at the Ministry of the Interior said that the police had arrested eight gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant organization connected to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. In a statement posted on a Web site operated by militants late on Sunday , the Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility for the attack on what it called "the dirty den of idolatry," Reuters reported. The posting said its actions had been prompted in part by the behavior of the Coptic Church in Egypt, which it accused of detaining two women who converted to Islam. The group also said it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women in Iraq were not freed, The Associated Press said. Hussain Nahidh, a police officer who saw the interior of the church, said: "It's a horrible scene. More than 50 people were killed. The suicide vests were filled with ball bearings to kill as many people as possible. You can see human flesh everywhere. Flesh was stuck to the top roof of the hall. Many people went to the hospitals without legs and hands." The violence began shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday. The gunmen first attacked the Baghdad stock exchange in the Karada neighborhood, killing two security guards and wounding four others, setting off two bombs and then taking refuge in the nearby Sayidat al-Nejat church. The church - one of six bombed in August 2004 - was filled for Sunday services. A local television channel, Baghdadiya, reported receiving a telephone call from someone claiming to be one of the attackers and demanding the release of all members of Al Qaeda imprisoned in Arab countries. Karada is an area dotted with federal police checkpoints, local police patrols and political parties with security details, as well as security guards attached to the stock market and the church. Mr. Obeidi, the defense minister, said, "It seems like there was negligence by the security forces, which we will investigate later." The attack came two days after a suicide attack at a cafe in Diyala Province killed 21 people, the worst assault in more than a month, and as members of Iraq's four political blocs planned to meet in the heavily fortified Green Zone to try to break the impasse that has left Iraq without a new government nearly eight months after the national election. Major acts of violence have not proliferated during the political deadlock, as many have feared, but smaller, focused attacks have been commonplace, stirring fears of a return to high levels of bloodshed. The Iraqi antiterrorist unit, known as the Golden Force, which has been criticized for not being able to stop attacks, moved quickly to end the siege. Its forces swarmed the church by helicopter and sent in grenades and smoke grenades, but were rebuffed by the terrorists. Security officers then stormed the church from the ground, breaking through the gates. Spokesmen from the police and the Ministry of the Interior would not give details of the final assault on the church, or say how many kidnappers were involved. It was unclear whether the attackers' main target was the stock market or the church, or whether they planned to attack both. The church, with a huge cross visible from hundreds of yards away, was already surrounded with concrete bollards and razor wire, and church leaders have been fearful of attack since the Rev. Terry Jones in Gainesville, Fla., threatened to burn a Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr. Jones decided not to burn the Koran. Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting. ++++ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: prole...@egroups.com Subscribe : proletar-subscr...@egroups.com Unsubscribe : proletar-unsubscr...@egroups.com List owner : proletar-ow...@egroups.com Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: proletar-dig...@yahoogroups.com proletar-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: proletar-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
