this is no conspiracy...this is a crime against humanity started by BUSH
41 are slain as gunmen attack market near Baghdad
The Associated Press, The New York Times
Published: July 17, 2006
BAGHDAD: Dozens of heavily armed gunmen raided an open air market Monday in a tense town south of Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and wounding 42, police and hospital officials said.
Some reports put the death toll far higher. Most of the victims were believed to be Shiites.
The attack in Mahmoudiya began about 9 a.m. with a brief mortar barrage, followed by an armed assault by dozens of gunmen. They killed three Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint, then stormed the market while firing automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades, Captain Rashid al-Samaraie of the police said.
Following the attack, police rushed to the market, arresting people at random in an attempt to find the assailants, witnesses said.
In Baghdad, lawmakers allied with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al- Sadr stormed out of a Parliament session to protest the killings.
The attack also sent shock waves through Mahmoudiya, an agricultural center with Shiites living in the town center and Sunnis in the outlying neighborhoods. Frantic relatives milled about the hospital, scuffling with guards and Iraqi soldiers who tried to keep order.
"You are strong men only when you face us, but you let them do what they did to us," one man shouted at a guard.
Some of the victims were transported to hospitals in Baghdad, where a Shiite television station, Al-Forat, put the death toll at 72.
Police said it appeared the raid was part of the escalating campaign of tit- for-tat sectarian killings that have put Iraq on the brink of civil war.
Mahmoudiya has long been a flashpoint of Sunni-Shiite tension and the scene of frequent bombings and shootings. It is located in the "triangle of death," an area of frequent attacks on Iraqi and U.S. troops and Shiites traveling between Baghdad and religious centers to the south.
Al-Forat aired quotes from Shiites blaming the attack on Sunni religious extremists and expressing outrage over the failure of mainstream Sunni politicians to stop them.
The attack occurred as the U.S. commerce secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, arrived in the Iraqi capital. Gutierrez signed an agreement with the Iraqis to encourage foreign investment, but acknowledging that deteriorating security made that goal a challenge.
Meanwhile, a bomb in east Baghdad killed two people and wounded nine Monday, according to police.
On Sunday, gunmen in Baghdad, driving vehicles resembling those used by Iraqi security forces, kidnapped the president of one of Iraq's state-owned oil companies, an Oil Ministry spokesman said.
The abduction, the second of a high- profile Iraqi official in two days, underscored the danger that high-level officials face and the power of criminal groups who strike at them seemingly at will.
In other attacks across Iraq on Sunday, at least 40 people - and possibly many more - were killed by explosions or gunfire, including 27 who died after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a cafe packed with Shiites in Tuz Khormato, a mostly Turkomen city 130 miles, or 210 kilometers, north of Baghdad. The dead included seven brothers and their father.
Near Baghdad, an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.
In the latest kidnapping, Adil Mohamed al-Qazaz, the president of the Northern Oil Co., was abducted at about 3:30 p.m. after gunmen in two vehicles forced his car to stop and assaulted his bodyguards, said Aseem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman. Qazaz had just left a meeting at the ministry.
On Saturday, about 60 gunmen in masks and government-style camouflage uniforms stormed a meeting of the country's top sports administrators, abducting about 30 people, including the president of the National Olympic Committee of Iraq.
Six of those hostages were released Sunday, an Olympic committee official said. But the committee's president was not among them, and his fate was unknown.
No one has claimed responsibility for the abductions. But two Olympic committee members, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect themselves from retaliation, said Sunday that they believed the abduction might have been orchestrated by Shiite militiamen intent on using the hostages to bargain for the release of a high-ranking militia commander captured by Iraqi and American forces eight days earlier.
The commander, known as Abu Deraa, ranks in the upper echelons of the Mahdi Army, the powerful Shiite militia controlled by the militant cleric Sadr. In an interview on Sunday, Naeem al-Kabi, a Sadr aide, said the group had not been involved in the kidnapping.
"We denounce such action and regard it as that of cowards," he said.
One of the hostages released Sunday, Nashat Mahir, a former manager of the Iraqi military's sports teams, was dumped blindfolded on the side of a road in eastern Baghdad, one of the Olympic committee officials said. Realizing he had been abandoned, Mahir, 77, removed his blindfold and hailed a taxi, which drove him home, the official said.
Those released also included a captain of the Talaba soccer club, a driver and two government security guards taken during the raid, the Olympic committee official said. It was unclear who the sixth person released was.
BAGHDAD: Dozens of heavily armed gunmen raided an open air market Monday in a tense town south of Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and wounding 42, police and hospital officials said.
Some reports put the death toll far higher. Most of the victims were believed to be Shiites.
The attack in Mahmoudiya began about 9 a.m. with a brief mortar barrage, followed by an armed assault by dozens of gunmen. They killed three Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint, then stormed the market while firing automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades, Captain Rashid al-Samaraie of the police said.
Following the attack, police rushed to the market, arresting people at random in an attempt to find the assailants, witnesses said.
In Baghdad, lawmakers allied with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al- Sadr stormed out of a Parliament session to protest the killings.
The attack also sent shock waves through Mahmoudiya, an agricultural center with Shiites living in the town center and Sunnis in the outlying neighborhoods. Frantic relatives milled about the hospital, scuffling with guards and Iraqi soldiers who tried to keep order.
"You are strong men only when you face us, but you let them do what they did to us," one man shouted at a guard.
Some of the victims were transported to hospitals in Baghdad, where a Shiite television station, Al-Forat, put the death toll at 72.
Police said it appeared the raid was part of the escalating campaign of tit- for-tat sectarian killings that have put Iraq on the brink of civil war.
Mahmoudiya has long been a flashpoint of Sunni-Shiite tension and the scene of frequent bombings and shootings. It is located in the "triangle of death," an area of frequent attacks on Iraqi and U.S. troops and Shiites traveling between Baghdad and religious centers to the south.
Al-Forat aired quotes from Shiites blaming the attack on Sunni religious extremists and expressing outrage over the failure of mainstream Sunni politicians to stop them.
The attack occurred as the U.S. commerce secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, arrived in the Iraqi capital. Gutierrez signed an agreement with the Iraqis to encourage foreign investment, but acknowledging that deteriorating security made that goal a challenge.
Meanwhile, a bomb in east Baghdad killed two people and wounded nine Monday, according to police.
On Sunday, gunmen in Baghdad, driving vehicles resembling those used by Iraqi security forces, kidnapped the president of one of Iraq's state-owned oil companies, an Oil Ministry spokesman said.
The abduction, the second of a high- profile Iraqi official in two days, underscored the danger that high-level officials face and the power of criminal groups who strike at them seemingly at will.
In other attacks across Iraq on Sunday, at least 40 people - and possibly many more - were killed by explosions or gunfire, including 27 who died after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a cafe packed with Shiites in Tuz Khormato, a mostly Turkomen city 130 miles, or 210 kilometers, north of Baghdad. The dead included seven brothers and their father.
Near Baghdad, an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.
In the latest kidnapping, Adil Mohamed al-Qazaz, the president of the Northern Oil Co., was abducted at about 3:30 p.m. after gunmen in two vehicles forced his car to stop and assaulted his bodyguards, said Aseem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman. Qazaz had just left a meeting at the ministry.
On Saturday, about 60 gunmen in masks and government-style camouflage uniforms stormed a meeting of the country's top sports administrators, abducting about 30 people, including the president of the National Olympic Committee of Iraq.
Six of those hostages were released Sunday, an Olympic committee official said. But the committee's president was not among them, and his fate was unknown.
No one has claimed responsibility for the abductions. But two Olympic committee members, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect themselves from retaliation, said Sunday that they believed the abduction might have been orchestrated by Shiite militiamen intent on using the hostages to bargain for the release of a high-ranking militia commander captured by Iraqi and American forces eight days earlier.
The commander, known as Abu Deraa, ranks in the upper echelons of the Mahdi Army, the powerful Shiite militia controlled by the militant cleric Sadr. In an interview on Sunday, Naeem al-Kabi, a Sadr aide, said the group had not been involved in the kidnapping.
"We denounce such action and regard it as that of cowards," he said.
One of the hostages released Sunday, Nashat Mahir, a former manager of the Iraqi military's sports teams, was dumped blindfolded on the side of a road in eastern Baghdad, one of the Olympic committee officials said. Realizing he had been abandoned, Mahir, 77, removed his blindfold and hailed a taxi, which drove him home, the official said.
Those released also included a captain of the Talaba soccer club, a driver and two government security guards taken during the raid, the Olympic committee official said. It was unclear who the sixth person released was.
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