By Patrick Quinn
The Associated Press, 20 February 2005.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiites stung by two days of suicide bombings that left nearly 100 dead attended services in fortified funeral tents on Sunday in hopes of avoiding a third straight day of attacks. U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces launched a joint operation to crack down on insurgents in troubled cities west of Baghdad, as the military announced the death of another soldier.
Shiite politicians, poised to take power for the first time in Iraq's modern history, have vowed not to allow the bloodshed to begin a civil war despite attacks Friday and Saturday that left at least 91 dead - including a U.S. soldier - and at least 100 wounded. The attacks came as Shiites celebrated their holiest day of the year.
"We built barriers, barricades and we are searching everybody who enters the funeral so that we do not meet the fate of my friend," Sattar Wahhab, a 35-year-old worker, said outside a funeral tent in western Baghdad.
Although 50 chairs were set up inside the tent in Baghdad's Bayaa district, only 10 people turned up.
On Saturday, a suicide bomber entered a similar tent in the same neighborhood and blew himself up, killing three people. Attackers also targeted such ceremonies Friday.
U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces launched a joint operation in several Euphrates River cities in Anbar province, including Hit, Baghdadi, Hadithah and the provincial capital Ramadi, where authorities imposed an 8 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew, the military said in a statement.
"The security measures in and around the provincial capital are designed to ensure the safety of the populace by controlling access into the city," the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement.
Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, has long been a center of insurgent activity.
Iraq's major Sunni Arab tribes and political parties met in Baghdad to discuss their role in Iraq's new government in the wake of landmark Jan. 30 elections. The tribes apparently are looking for a role in the new government and drafting of Iraq's new constitution.
The election was for seats in the 275-member National Assembly, which picks the president and two vice presidents, and drafts a new constitution.
Iraqi President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim and head of the Iraqis Party list of candidates that won five parliamentary seats in the election, was to attend. Sunnis largely stayed away from the polls, many because they feared threats of retribution from insurgents.
Iyad al-Sameria, a senior leader of the Iraqi Islamic party, a Sunni group that boycotted the elections, said his party was not invited to the meeting.
Iraq's interim national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said the recent suicide bombings were attempts "to create a religious war within Iraq. Iraqis will not allow this to happen. Iraqis will stand united as Iraqis foremost, and Iraq will not fall into sectarian war."
Al-Roubaie's Shiite clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which received nearly half the election votes, was to decide early in the week on their choice for prime minister. The alliance needs to form partnerships in the assembly because it received less than 50 percent of the vote.
On Saturday, eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites commemorated Ashoura, the holiday marking the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, in a seventh-century battle for leadership of the Islamic world.
Similar attacks Friday killed 36 people and injured dozens.
During last year's holiday, twin bombings in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala killed at least 181.
Insurgents appeared to have struck at will in some areas despite stepped-up security prompted by last year's blasts. But in Karbala, the Shiite holy city 50 miles south of Baghdad, no violence was reported Saturday.
The U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad when American troops responded to calls for assistance from Iraqi forces unable to cope with a slew of attacks. On Sunday, the U.S. command announced that a Marine was killed in action Saturday during an operation in Anbar. It gave no other details.
At least 1,478 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In other violence reported Sunday:
-In Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of Iraqi troops killed two Iraqi National Guardsmen, police 1st Lt. Ali Hussein al-Hamadani said.
-In the same area, coalition gunners in a convoy opened fire on a car that approached too closely, killing an Iraqi man, said police 1st Lt. Muthana Hussein.
-In a separate shooting in Baghdad, foreign troops killed a woman and injured another person traveling with her on the dangerous road to Baghdad's international airport, al-Hamadani said.
Associated Press Television News cited witnesses as saying the unidentified men who opened fire were in a convoy of three white sport utility vehicles, which are frequently used by foreign security contractors. The small white car the slain woman was traveling in could be seen on the road, its shattered windows splattered with blood.
-In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police found two corpses Saturday of men believed to be former police officers who were shot in the head, a morgue director said Sunday.
-Six charred bodies were discovered several days ago floating in the Tigris River in Suwayrah, about 25 miles south of the capital, hospital officials in Kut said. The six men were each found handcuffed and shot in the head, chest and back. Their identities were not known.
Citation: Patrick Quinn. "Iraqi Shiites Hope to Avoid More Attacks," The Associated Press, 20 February 2005.
Original URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4813906,00.html