Gunmen kill two Shi'ite families in Baghdad massacre

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen stormed into the homes of two Shi'ite families in a predominantly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad on Sunday, killing nine people, police said.

Police said about 20 gunmen had killed a father and three sons of one family and five brothers of another. No women were hurt in the attack in the southwestern Jihad district.

On Saturday Shi'ite militiamen raided the religiously mixed Hurriya district in western Baghdad, killing two people and forcing dozens of Sunni families to flee, police and witnesses said.

In July, militiamen rampaged through Jihad, shooting at least 42 people. Many of the victims were killed after being pulled from their cars at fake police checkpoints.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061210/wl_nm/iraq_jihad_dc

[maddezmom]

1. Shi'ites storm Sunni area of Baghdad; 2 are killed

Scores flee homes; Hussein nephew escapes a prison
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post | December 10, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Gangs of roving Shi'ite Muslim gunmen stormed a west Baghdad neighborhood yesterday, burning houses and killing at least two people in broad daylight, authorities said.

By evening, more than 100 Sunni Arab families had fled their homes, carrying their belongings and furniture in trucks in one of the worst-known incidents of sectarian attacks to grip the capital in recent weeks.

According to a senior Iraqi army commander and residents, Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched the attack on a section of the mixed neighborhood of Hurriyah, which means freedom. The rampaging began at 2:30 p.m. and lasted an hour before Iraqi army soldiers entered the neighborhood.

"They attacked the people, shooting at them," a senior Iraqi commander who was involved in the operation said of the militiamen. "They were threatening people. They were telling them to leave or else we will burn your house down and kill you."

more:http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/12/10/shiites_storm_sunni_area_of_baghdad_2_are_killed/

[rodeodance]

2. Gunmen kill Shi'ite families in Baghdad after raid

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10594936.htm


Gunmen kill Shi'ite families in Baghdad after raid
10 Dec 2006 13:52:49 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed nine members of two Shi'ite families in Baghdad on Sunday a day after militias raided a mixed neighbourhood and forced dozens of Sunni families to flee in a serious escalation of sectarian violence.

Officials and relatives of the victims said about 30 gunmen stormed a home in a mostly Sunni area in southwestern Baghdad and killed five brothers from one family after separating them from the women. A father and three sons from another family, all of them policemen, were also killed.

"The gunmen broke into the house. They locked the mother and the sisters in one room and killed the five brothers in another room," a cousin, who identified himself as Haider, told Reuters. Haider, who spoke to the women after the attack, said the brothers were all Shi'ites.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf confirmed the attack in Jihad neighbourhood and said he was unaware of the victims' sectarian affiliation. A source at Yarmouk hospital said all victims were Shi'ites.

The attack came a day after gangs of Shi'ite militiamen burned homes and killed at least two people in broad daylight in the religiously mixed Hurriya district in western Baghdad, officials and witnesses said.

[Why Syzygy]

3. This is not our fault . for ONCE . Human beings are killing other human beings ..

because they have a disagreement about Mohammed's uncle. Or cousin.

We are responsbile for plenty of disgraceful things. But this isn't one of them.

[Stella_Artois]

5. Perhaps...

But the current state of anarchy is a direct result of our removing the previous government and replacing it with a vacuum.

[uppityperson]

6. indeed it is. Remove the power, leave a vaccum and hell breaks loose.

Wherever this happens it has happened and could happen.

[Barrett808]

7. As the occupying force, we're legally responsible

Bush broke it, but he still hasn't bought it.

[uppityperson]

8. Recommendation?

I agree but don't have a good answer for what to do. Removing the stabilizing force and leaving a vacuum while trying to install a puppet gvt didn't work. More of the same won't work. Saying "you Iraqi's just won't settle down like we want you to" isn't working. I think we are seeing Democracy in process. The People are deciding, in a deathly way, what to do. Might will win rather than Right, puppet isn't working. What a mess.

[Barrett808]

9. That's the real trick.

I would have to go with Juan Cole's recommendation, as the least bad among a number of worse options. Essentially, withdraw to the fortresses, and provide Iraqi army units, such as they are, with limited close air support. I'd specify that only US embeds be permitted to call in air and artillery strikes.

Simultaneously, I'd start an aggressive diplomatic campaign with all of Iraq's neighbors, to forestall a Sunni-Shi'a cold war (or hot war) with proxy armies slugging it out on Battlefield Iraq. I would buy the insurgency: "What's it going to take? $2 billion? $5 billion? $10 billion?" Whatever the figure, it will be vastly less expensive than the current hemorrhaging of $8 billion per month. I'd start a immediate "re-baathification" project, since the insurgency will demand that anyway as a condition of the armistice. Once the insurgency is out of the picture, we can concentrate on the militia violence.

I also advocate paying reparations, but that can't be done until a viable Iraq government is in place, which may look very different than the current unstable political arrangement.

Would any of this stand a chance of working? Probably not. I think events will overtake any plan to get on top of the catastrophe. Like the Plague, this conflagration will have to burn itself out. It may engulf the whole world before it does.

[uppityperson]

10. re-baathification project indeed, and put money where it would be more usefull

I agree with your assessment all the way around, thank you.

[Barrett808]

11. Thank you -- let's hope sane heads prevail. n/t

[maddezmom]

4. At least 26 killed in Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 26 people have been killed in Iraq, including nine Shiites in sectarian attacks on two Baghdad families, a security official said.

Another 17 corpses, three of them headless, were recovered by police in nothern Baghdad's Al-Hurriyah neighbourhood, the official added Sunday.

In the attack on the families, gunmen broke into a home in the southwestern Jihad neighbourhood and killed five Shiite brothers, one of them a policeman, after separating them from their sisters, the official said.

The women were unharmed.

more:http://au.news.yahoo.com/061210/19/11q4d.html