Iraq wants US to cede control of security after 'cold blooded'
killing
IRAQ: Iraq's ruling parties demanded U.S. forces cede control
of security on Monday as the government launched an inquiry into a raid
on a Shi'ite mosque complex that ministers said saw "cold blooded"
killings by U.S.-led troops.
U.S. commanders rejected the charges and said their accusers faked
evidence by moving bodies of gunmen killed fighting Iraqi troops in an
office compound. It was not a mosque, they said.
As Shi'ite militiamen fulminated over Sunday's deaths of at least 16
people in Baghdad, an al Qaeda-led group said it staged one of the
bloodiest Sunni insurgent attacks in months. A suicide bomber killed 40
Iraqi army recruits in northern Iraq.
The Iraqi Defence Ministry said a suicide bomber wearing an explosive
belt also wounded 30 at a base near Mosul.
After 24 hours of limited communication, U.S. commanders mounted a
media offensive to deny Shi'ite accounts of a mosque massacre and
portray instead a bold and disciplined operation by U.S.-trained Iraqi
special forces that killed 16 fighters and freed a hapless Iraqi hostage
being held to ransom for $20,000.
Three gunmen were wounded and 18 people detained, he added.
"After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different
from what it was," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli said of footage
aired extensively on state television showing the bodies of apparently
unarmed civilians in a mosque.
"There's been huge misinformation," he said. He insisted he did not
know the religious affiliation of the group targeted, although the raid
was the fruit of lengthy intelligence work.
He did not spell out his criticism of the Shi'ite political groups
who made the massacre accusations.
Confrontation between the Iranian-linked Shi'ite leaders and U.S.
forces comes at a sensitive time when Washington is pressing them to
forge a unity government with minority Sunnis to avert civil war.Iraq's
security minister accused U.S. and Iraqi forces of killing 37 unarmed
civilians in the mosque after tying them up.
Residents and police, who put the death toll among the troops'
opponents at around 20, spoke of a fierce battle between the soldiers
and gunmen from the Mehdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
whose followers ran the mosque.
Though Chiarelli stressed his forces did not view the site targeted
as a mosque, neighbours and clerics insisted it was. It was not,
however, a typical religious building but a compound of former Baath
party offices converted by Sadr followers.
Despite confusions, one thing was certain: Shi'ite leaders are up in
arms against the U.S. forces who brought them to power by ousting Saddam
Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baathist regime.
"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security
matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of
the Shi'ite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari,
told a news conference. Baghdad provincial governor Hussein al-Tahan
said he would halt all cooperation with U.S. forces.
Aides to Sadr denied any Mehdi Army fighters were present.
But witnesses spoke of a lengthy gun battle: "The shooting lasted for
more than an hour," shopkeeper Ali Abdul Jabbar said.Meanwhile a suicide
bomber killed at least 40 people waiting outside an Iraqi army
recruitment center amid rising tension between the dominant Shiite
leaders and US forces over a deadly night raid in Baghdad.
The suicide bombing on the recruitment centre at an Iraqi army base
called Tamarat near the town of Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border was
the deadliest single attack in Iraq since a January assault on police
recruits in Ramadi.
Baghdad, Tuesday, Reuters, AFP |