Security crackdown strains to quell violence
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Hundreds of Shiite Muslims, beating their chests in mourning, accompanied 17 coffins through Baghdad’s main Shiite Muslim district Monday, demanding that militiamen be allowed to protect them after a wave of attacks blamed on Sunni Arab insurgents.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the deaths of three American troops from the previous day.
Attacks against Iraq’s Shiite majority have persisted despite a month-old crackdown intended to clear the capital of Shiite and Sunni sectarian fighters and anti-U.S. insurgents.
More than 220 people were killed in the last week as Sunni insurgents unleashed suicide bombers and gunfire on the millions of Shiite pilgrims who converged on the holy city of Karbala for weekend rites commemorating the death of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson in a seventh-century battle.
In previous years, the powerful Mahdi Army, led by radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, helped protect the pilgrims. But this time they held back under intense pressure by the Shiite-led government to give the U.S.-Iraqi joint security plan a chance to succeed.
Iraqi officials have reported a slight drop in recent weeks in the number of execution-style killings that are a signature of the Mahdi Army. But some of the Shiite mourners at Monday’s funeral complained that the decision to rein in the militia has left them exposed to Sunni Arab militants aiming to intensify the country’s civil war.
“Despite the heavy security presence in Baghdad, we are seeing the terror and bombings escalate and more innocents being killed,” said one man, who identified himself by a traditional nickname, Abu Fatima Sadi. “When the Mahdi Army was providing protection, there were no violations.”
Mourners went to the morgue Monday to collect the bodies of 17 of the 34 Shiite pilgrims killed the previous day when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a flatbed truck that was carrying them home from Karbala.
Weeping relatives and neighbors placed the bodies in plain wooden caskets, draped them with the Iraqi flag, and lifted them on top of minivans for the drive home to the Sadr City district – the vast, teeming Baghdad slum that is a Mahdi Army stronghold.
They also criticized the joint security crackdown.
“This plan is not effective and has no results to show so far,” complained a man who gave his name as Abu Zahara Ghrayji. “You can see the evidence of the increasing bombings and terror every day.”
He demanded that police work with the militiamen to secure the neighborhood. U.S. officials, however, say that Mahdi militiamen, some of them operating under the cover of the country’s official security forces, are believed behind the execution-style slayings of scores of Sunni Arabs.
Iraqi security forces said they were making progress tracking down those responsible for the recent suicide attacks. Four suspects were captured Sunday in a raid on an ice cream factory in Hillah, about 200 yards from where two suicide bombers killed more than 100 pilgrims last week, officials said.
U.S.-led forces captured 22 suspects during raids Monday in and around Mosul, Baghdad, Habaniya, Tarmiya and Amiriya, the military said in a statement.
Despite the U.S. and Iraqi efforts, violence continued.
A roadside bomb exploded in east Baghdad as a convoy went to collect the agriculture minister to drive him to work. The blast killed one guard and injured another, police said.
Three other bombs targeted U.S. and Iraqi patrols in the city, injuring four Iraqis. They included two policemen, a soldier and a passing civilian, police said.
South of the capital, mortar rounds slammed into a street where children were playing Sunday night in Iskandariya, killing a 4- and a 6-year-old, police said. Two other children were injured in the blasts.