- (Note - Most Iraqis believe car bombing of mosques it
usually the work of CIA/Mossad agents trying to keep
Shia and Sunnis split. -ed)
-
- Yesterday, before the usual morning gunfire in the streets
which has become my morning alarm clock, Abu Talat phones me. There is
very heavy fighting over in al-Adhamiya. Two giant explosions occurred
around 6:15am, followed by mortar blasts, then constant, heavy gun battles
that went on into late morning.
-
- The Hamid al-Alwan mosque, a small Shia mosque in the
predominantly Sunni area of Adhamiya had been hit with a car bomb.
-
- Witnesses reported that the car had been left there at
6am, and detonated remotely.
-
- After the first blast, people in nearby homes, hearing
the screaming of the wounded, ran outside to help. As a group formed around
the wreckage, a secondary, much larger explosion went off. In the end,
14 were killed, 19 wounded.
-
- Smoldering vehicles, including a destroyed minibus http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
set_albumName=album23&id=PICT0015,
-
- lay about the street in front of the damaged mosque http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
set_albumName=album23&id=PICT0004_001
-
- Pools of blood http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
set_albumName=album23&id=PICT0009
-
- and body parts lay strewn about the scene. Nearby homes
were damaged http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
set_albumName=album23&id=PICT0003
-
- from the blast as well.
-
- Residents
- http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
- set_albumName=album23&id=PICT0005
- took it upon themselves to evacuate most of the bodies
and wounded to nearby al-Numan hospital, because ambulances failed to arrive
until 45 minutes after the blast.
-
- The interesting detail is that while US military are
usually some of the first to arrive on the scene at bombings, they never
showed up for this one. The Iraqi National Guard, who have a base in the
ex-presidential palace less than one kilometer from the bombing, never
showed up either.
-
- The Iraqi Police, however, did show up at the scene.
Most of them wearing facemasks to protect their identity (this is Adhamiya)but
one man, a muscular, arrogant, loudspoken policeman, unmasked, was yelling,
"Of course this happened because this is a Shia mosque! The Sunni
hate the Shia!"
-
- Members of the crowd perceived his actions as deliberately
provocative and inflammatory.
-
- Aisha Dulaimy, a resident of al-Adhamiya said, "The
reason for this car bomb is the Americans want to cause a split between
the Shia and Sunni. But there has never been fighting between the Shia
and Sunni in the history of Iraq. They want to make a struggle between
us, but it will never work. They tried this before and people responded
by making demonstrations together against the occupiers. So they will never
make it. We are living as brothers-Shia and Sunni. There is no difference
because we all live in the same home, which is Iraq."
-
- She references an attack last winter in the large Shia
mosque across the river in the Khadamiya district, which was followed nearly
immediately by an attack on a Sunni mosque in Adhamiya. The attacks were
perceived by both residents and religious leaders as attempts to divide
the religious sects, so they held mass demonstrations together, Shia and
Sunni, in a show of solidarity. They also prayed in one another's mosques.
-
- The nearly immediate reaction from the bombing yesterday
was an intense mortar barrage on the nearby US military base followed by
fierce clashes in Adhamiya.
-
- Military helicopters and fighter jets roared overhead,
scaring many people who feared they would be bombed.
-
- A 16 year-old resident of al-Adhamiya, Ahmed al-Dulaimey,
said, "The US jets are so loud, only flying 50 meters above our homes.
They dropped three groups of many flares. When I saw them I ran to my house
because I was afraid they would bomb us."
-
- In other news, Thursday the director of Fallujah General
Hospital was shot and wounded by soldiers while he and two other doctors
attempted to enter Fallujah in an ambulance in order to provide aid to
families trapped there. They had gone into the city after having been granted
permission by the military and Ministry of Health.
-
- A friend of mine here who is a doctor told me that recently
the Ministry of Health issued a directive instructing doctors not to talk
to any media, particularly about patients who are wounded by the military.
-
- Salam stayed the night last night since we worked late...hence
we slept late today. Until 9:30 anyhow, when a huge blast nearby shook
the hotel and rattled windows. I sat up quickly in bed, looked at him over
on the couch and he said, "Good morning Dahr."
-
- I said, "Morning man, who needs coffee," as
I dressed and grabbed my camera and ran to the roof of a nearby hotel to
locate the blast. A building blocked the exact locale, but the plume of
black smoke
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_album
Name=album24&id=smoke
rose above it-just over near the "green zone." Interesting to
have the photo then 10 minutes later in my hotel see it replicated on the
TV http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?
- set_albumName=album24&id=tv.
-
- It was a police station which was bombed. 6 Police dead,
at least 60 cops and civilians wounded.
-
- Photos dated from May, 2003 have been shown all over
Jazeera today-showing Navy Seals torturing Iraqis. Up close shots of men
with bloodied mouths with guns held to their heads, etc. You know the drill
by now.
-
- They were put on the net by the wife of a soldier who'd
returned from Iraq.
-
- John Hutson, a retired rear admiral who served as the
Navy's Judge Advocate General from 1997 to 2000, said the photos suggested
possible Geneva Convention violations, as international law prohibits souvenir
photos of prisoners of war.
-
- Hutson said, "It's pretty obvious that these pictures
were taken largely as war trophies."
-
- Not too surprising, however, because there are also eyewitness
reports now from refugees that some soldiers in Fallujah were tying the
dead bodies of resistance fighters to tanks and driving around with their
"trophies."
-
- _____________
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-
-
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