CNN (?) : Al-Askariya Mosque was inside job

[k-robjoe]

CNN

"BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Authorities have evidence that
Wednesday's bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra
was an inside job, and 15 members of the Iraqi
security forces have been arrested, a U.S. military
official said.

(...)
The U.S. military official, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon,
told CNN's Karl Penhaul that he believes members of the
Iraqi security forces who were guarding the site
either assisted or directly took part in helping
al Qaeda insurgents place and detonate explosives
at the mosque's minarets."





The CNN article was then replaced by another article that didn´t mention "inside job" at all.

More :

http://propagandamatrix.com/articles/june2007/140607inside.htm

[CGowen]

1. the first bombing was fishy too

.....

New Clues in the Bombing

New clues have surfaced in the case of the bombing of the Golden Mosque which suggests that the claims of the Bush administration are false. An article by Marc Santora, ("One Year Later, Golden Mosque is still in Ruins", New York Times) provides eyewitness testimony of what really took place one year ago:

"A caretaker at the shrine described what happened on the day of the attack, insisting on anonymity because he was afraid that talking to an American could get him killed. The general outline of his account was confirmed by American and Iraqi officials. The night before the explosion, he said, just before the 8 p.m. curfew on Feb. 21, 2006, on the Western calendar, men dressed in commando uniforms like those issued by the Interior Ministry entered the shrine. The caretaker said he had been beaten, tied up and locked in a room. Throughout the night, he said, he could hear the sound of drilling as the attackers positioned the explosives, apparently in such a way as to inflict maximum damage on the dome".(NY Times)


Clearly, if the men were men dressed in "commando uniforms like those issued by the Interior Ministry", then the logical place to begin an investigation would be the Interior Ministry. But there's never been an investigation and the caretaker has never been asked to testify about what he saw on the night of the bombing. However, if he is telling the truth, we cannot exclude the possibility that paramilitary contractors (mercenaries) or special-ops (intelligence) agents working out of the Interior Ministry may have destroyed the mosque to create the appearance of a nascent civil war.

Isn’t that what Bush wants to divert attention from the occupation and to show that the real conflict is between Shiites and Sunnis?

It's unlikely that the mosque was destroyed by "Sunni insurgents or Al Qaida" as Bush claims. Samarra is predominantly a Sunni city and the Sunnis have nearly as much respect for the mosque as a cultural icon and sacred shrine as the Shiites.

The Times also adds, "What is clear is that the attack was carefully planned and calculated".

True again. We can see from the extent of the damage that the job was carried out by demolition experts and not merely "insurgents or terrorists" with explosives. Simple forensic tests and soil samples could easily determine the composition of the explosives and point out the real perpetrators.

The Times even provides a motive for the attack: "Bad people used this incident to divide Iraq on a detestable sectarian basis."

Bingo! The administration has repeatedly used the incident to highlight divisions, incite acrimony, and prolong the occupation.

........

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=JAM20060302&articleId=2050

[ima_sinnic]

3. I've been saying since Day One that *Co was behind it

--as with 9/11, who really benefited?

at the time the Golden Mosque was bombed, Sunnis and Shia were about to organize to throw out the invaders.

* and his cronies are a despicable plague on the world. when the %#@(*& are they going to be hauled into war crimes court?

[CJCRANE]

2. Just like so many "outrages"

this one seems to benefit the PowersThatBe and bring more violence onto the minority community (in whose name we are meant to believe it was committed).

[CGowen]

4. The Iranian press blames Negroponte

On Sunday informed sources reported that the US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had planned the attack on the holy Shia shrine in Samarra, a measure to sow discord between Shias and Sunnis as the main Islamic schools of thought.

The blast in Samarra which destroyed the minarets of the sacred shrines of the Shia Imams was performed with the assistance of the former Saddam regime's security agents, the sources added.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13538§ionid=351020201