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Violence marks anniversary of Iraq war

By Alissa Rubin
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BAGHDAD
Thursday, Mar 22, 2007, Page 9

As the fourth anniversary of the start of the war weighed on the minds of Iraqis, there was just one bomb explosion here in the capital on Monday, but violence persisted in the northern city of Kirkuk and in Tikrit, Al Kut and turbulent Diyala Province.

The war began in the early morning of March 20, 2003, in Baghdad, but it was still March 19 in Washington.

While no single event stood out Monday, the day was in many ways emblematic of the violence that Iraqis suffer daily -- two car bombs, several assassinations, at least one kidnapping and a number of roadside bombs. Each attack claimed only a few lives, but the pervasiveness of the violence is part of what has eroded Iraqi hopes for the future.

Thirty bodies were found in Baghdad, more than in recent days, raising the possibility that there is a renewal of the sectarian killings that people hoped were diminishing.

In Monday's violence, a bomb exploded at a Shiite mosque near the Shorja market, one of Baghdad's busiest. In a measure of how inured residents here have become to violence, within two hours the market area was again so crowded that it was difficult to walk around.

"There is nothing we can do but pray and ask God to rescue us from the occupiers and devils."

Ahmed Shamkhi, 24-year-old Iraqi

The explosion, which killed four and wounded 25, occurred during midday prayers and happened despite efforts to search everyone who entered the mosque. Yacoub Abu Alay, 26, one of the mosque guards who was searching people and confiscating any packages they carried, said the bomber must have had a collaborator inside who helped get the bomb in through the back door.

"I searched all the people from 11:30 in the morning, before the call to prayer," he said. "I think the terrorist has a friend who supported him from the back door which leads to the ladies' toilets, and that he handed his friend the bag. Otherwise there was no way to take anything into the mosque."

The bomb was placed near the preacher's pulpit, he said.

Others who were there blamed the US troops in the country, whom they view as occupiers.

"What is our connection to the occupation?" asked Ahmed Shamkhi, 24. "We are against the occupier. There is nothing we can do but pray and ask God to rescue us from the occupiers and devils."

Late on Monday night, US troops raided two Shiite mosques in the Huriya neighborhood in West Baghdad, according to neighbors and to reports on Al Iraqiya Television. The neighborhood contains a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites, but the area that was raided is Shiite, and the two mosques are linked to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The Shiite Endowment, which supervises Shiite mosques, said soldiers had stormed the mosque during evening festivities commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

"The US raided the mosque, and when some people tried to run away because they were frightened, the soldiers shot them," said Salah Abdul Qadir, the spokesman for the endowment.

"The US soldiers said, `We are here looking for a Mehdi Army commander,"' Qadir said, adding that the endowment was upset because this was an entirely US operation, unlike the rest of the security plan for Baghdad, which has been a joint effort by the Iraqis and the US military.

The endowment called on the Iraqi army to intervene to stop the raid.

The US military command said it had no information on the raid, but there is often a delay of several hours between the time events happen and the military's public discussion of them.

In Kirkuk, an oil center near the semiautonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan in the north, two car bombs exploded and a mortar round hit a residential area. The three incidents occurred in less than an hour, just after 1:30pm.

The Kirkuk police commander, Burhan Habib Tayeb, said the first bomb, which exploded near several government buildings and two mosques, took 13 wounded, injured 15 people and burned several cars.

The second bomb, which exploded near the home of the chief of a large Sunni tribe, did not harm anyone, and may have been detonated as a warning. Kurds and Arabs are in a pitched battle for control of Kirkuk. The Kurds would like to include it in Kurdistan, while the Arabs and many Turkmen would prefer to see the city remain part of the rest of Iraq.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the violence focused more specifically on police officers and other government figures. In Dhuluiya, 90km north of Baghdad, 20 gunmen attacked three police stations and planted explosive devices around them, threatening to detonate the devices unless the police officers gave up their jobs.

A member of the Joint Security Station there, which is run by Iraqi and US security forces, said they believe that al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was behind the attack. Another insurgent Sunni group, the Islamic Army, spoke up in defense of the police, releasing a statement saying that they should not have been targeted. The Islamic Army is believed to be close to former Baathists.

Also in the Tikrit area, a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol, killing one soldier. And in Dujail, a Shiite village north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a bus passed, killing the driver and a passenger and setting the bus on fire.

South of Baghdad, in the heavily Shiite province of Kut, the mayor of Wasit was kidnapped. His body was found a few hours later, and police said that he had been shot to death.

In Diyala Province, which is now the most violent place in Iraq outside of Baghdad, the Iraqi security forces skirmished with gunmen in several areas. Near Hibhib, gunmen attacked a civilian bus, killing seven people, the police said.

Near Khanaqin, which is an area populated primarily by Shiite Kurds near the Iranian border, a roadside bomb detonated under a car. All three people traveling in it were killed.

Police said they have seen similar incidents five times in the past month, and each time the bombs had been placed on roads leading to villages from which families have been forced to flee. The explosions appear to be a way of stopping anyone from trying to return to those villages, police said, even after the areas have been stabilized by the Iraqi army.

Additional reporting by Iraqi employees of the New York Times in Kirkuk, Tikrit, Diyala, Al Kut and Baghdad
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