Three Islamic Clerics Killed in Baghdad

[ECH1969]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three Islamic clerics _ a Shiite and two Sunnis _ have been shot dead in Baghdad, police said Tuesday, a day after Iraq's prime minister vowed to use an "iron fist" to end sectarian violence. Iran's foreign minister pledges to secure his country's borders to stop militants entering Iraq.

The targeting of religious leaders is a disturbing development in Iraq's relentless insurgency, which has seen more than 470 people killed since Iraq's Shiite-led government was announced April 28. A senior police officer, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that two more Sunni clerics had been shot and their bodies found in Baghdad within a 24 hour period.

The two Sunni clerics, Sheik Hassan al-Naimi and Sheik Talal Nayef, had been kidnapped Sunday from different mosques in Baghdad's northern Shaab neighborhood by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, said the police officer and Sheik Hamed al-Khazraji, a spokesman from the Sunni Muslim Association of Muslim Scholars.

"If these measures continue, they will lead the country, God forbid, into sedition that some foreign and internal groups seek," the association said in a statement that also demanded the defense and interior ministers resign.

http://www.challengernky.com/articles/2005/05/17/ap/headlines/d8a557l81.txt
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This kind of stuff is sending the country quickly into civil war.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Didn't you read the article? These are Negroponte death squads

>>>The two Sunni clerics, Sheik Hassan al-Naimi and Sheik Talal Nayef, had been kidnapped Sunday from different mosques in Baghdad's northern Shaab neighborhood by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, said the police officer and Sheik Hamed al-Khazraji, a spokesman from the Sunni Muslim Association of Muslim Scholars.<<<

[ECH1969]

2. Negroponte death squads

wouldn't be wearing Iraqi military uniforms, that is the point, sanctioned hits try to blame it on someone else, they don't wear big red letters saying we did this.

[bemildred]

3. So, what do you think they wore in Nicaragua?

Police uniforms is exactly what they wear.

[ECH1969]

6. For killing religious leaders?

One would think that would be the kind of thing they would have done by dressing up like the enemy. Unless they are trying to terrorize the Sunnis.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Thats what death squads do for chrissake. KILL RELIGIOUS LEADERS!

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/elsalvador2/

Members of the Salvadoran Army's First Brigade salute on Soldiers Day, May 6, 1990, in Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador. Photograph © Jeremy Bigwood.



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From the Carter presidency through the Bush administration, El Salvador was an obsession of United States policy. As a brutal civil war raged on the ground, Washington's cold war concerns ensured massive and continued U.S. support for the Salvadoran government and military against the guerrilla forces of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Now, the National Security Archive's collection of declassified U.S. government records charts for the first time the complete course of Washington's role in the war, from the conflict's earliest years to the United Nations- brokered peace accord of January 1992 and beyond.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sample Document: Excerpt from the "Woerner Report," a secret Pentagon document produced in 1981 by Brig. Gen. Fred F. Woerner, provides an early, critical blueprint for U.S. assistance to the Salvadoran armed forces, recommending support for a "strategic victory" against the guerrillas. The report was declassified after an eight-year effort, including litigation, by the National Security Archive.
Sample Document: Secret cable from Ambassador William Walker to Assistant Secretary of State Bernard Aronson on the Salvadoran military's stonewalling of investigations into the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests. (2/19/91)

[bemildred]

10. Jesus, don't bother, he thinks they want to hide it. nt

[ECH1969]

11. When did I say they didn't?

You seem to be getting emotional about this and shouldn't.

I said that unless they want civil war which is a possibility I don't think they wouldn't try to deflect blame.

[NNN0LHI]

13. Emotional? I feel like I am talking to a brick fucking wall n/t

[ECH1969]

15. Don't swear

There is no need.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

17. Death Squad = Terrorist

[NNN0LHI]

5. What, you think they would be dressed up as Santa Claus? Sheesh

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/deathsquads_ElSal.html

Death Squads in El Salvador:
A Pattern of U.S. Complicity
by David Kirsch
Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1990



In 1963, the U.S. government sent 10 Special Forces personnel to El Salvador to help General Jose Alberto Medrano set up the Organizacion Democratica Nacionalista (ORDEN)-the first paramilitary death squad in that country. These Green Berets assisted in the organization and indoctrination of rural "civic" squads which gathered intelligence and carried out political assassinations in coordination with the Salvadoran military.

Now, there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members of the U.S. military and the CIA have helped organize, train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador.

In the last eight years, six Salvadoran military deserters have publicly acknowledged their participation in the death squads. Their stories are notable because they not only confirm suspicions that the death squads are made up of members of the Salvadoran military, but also because each one implicates U.S. personnel in death squad activity.

The term "death squad" while appropriately vivid, can be misleading because it obscures their fundamental identity. Evidence shows that "death squads" are primarily military or paramilitary units carrying out political assassinations and intimidation as part of the Salvadoran government's counterinsurgency strategy. Civilian death squads do exist but have often been comprised of off-duty soldiers financed by wealthy Salvadoran businessmen.

more

[ECH1969]

9. For high profile assissinations?

That is the point. Sure they wore uniforms. But, did they kill high ranking people whose killings they didn't want linked to them in public while wearing their standard uniforms? Unless they want to spread terror into the Sunni community which is possible.

[bemildred]

12. The point of terror is to terrify people.

You WANT them to know. You want them to know WHY.
Duh.

[bemildred]

18. My apologies if I offended you.

But you can understand it's an offensive subject,
it does upset people, it upsets me.
:hi:

[Roland99]

7. Why would the U.S. want to incite a civil war?

Wouldn't be to give justification to level the entire country and re-rebuild it, would it?


Maybe even stock Iraq with some southern Baptists and some Methodists?

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Besides getting rid of 25 million people

who happen to be sitting on your oil is good for business.

[jpak]

4. Remember the $3.5 billion that the CIA spent

to establish an Iraqi Secret Police force????

Your tax dollars at work...

[ConfuZed]

16. and man was that $3.5 billion well spent!

:sarcasm:

[warrens]

19. While it's Negroponte's style (pity they weren't raped, that would seal it

I think I go with the revenge cycle starting to go out of control. There is no upside to killing Sunni clerics from our POV. All it will do is make the peaceful-er Sunnis madder. I think Iraq is in a death spiral. The Shiites are sick of being killed at random and are going after the most visible people they can find, because no Sunni will rat out the insurgents.

Religion is SO cool.

[NNN0LHI]

20. Three Islamic clerics _ a Shiite and two Sunnis _ have been shot dead n/t

[jazzjunkysue]

21. Just a neocon wet dream.