trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni militants whose rise has alarmed Western powers.
A morgue official in Diyala province north of Baghdad said 68 people
had been killed in the sectarian attack staged on the Muslim day of
prayer. Ambulances took the bodies 60 km (40 miles) to the provincial
capital of Baquba, where Iranian-trained Shi'ite militias are powerful
and act with impunity.
Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a
deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where
violence has returned to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a
sectarian civil war.
Two
influential Sunni politicians, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq and
Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jibouri, quickly suspended participation in
talks with the main Shi'ite political alliance to form a new
government.
Lawmaker Nahida
al-Dayani, who is from Diyala, said about 150 worshippers were at Imam
Wais mosque when the militiamen arrived following a roadside bombing
which had targeted a security vehicle. "It is a new massacre," said
Dayani, a Sunni originally from the village where the attack happened.
"Sectarian militias entered and opened fire at worshippers. Most
mosques have no security," she told Reuters. "Some of the victims were
from one family. Some women who rushed to see the fate of their
relatives at the mosque were killed."
The bloodbath marks a setback for Prime Minister-designate Haider
al-Abadi, from the majority Shi'ite community, who is seeking support
from Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to take on the Islamic State insurgency
threatening to tear Iraq apart.
An army major who declined to be identified said the gunmen arrived in
two pickup trucks after two bombs had gone off at the house of a Shi’ite
militia leader, killing three of his men.
A Sunni tribal leader, Salman al-Jibouri, said his community was
prepared to respond in kind. "Sunni tribes have been alerted to avenge
the killings," he said.
MOSUL STONING
In the northern city of Mosul, Islamic State, which this week released a
video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley, stoned a
man to death after one of its self-appointed courts sentenced him for
adultery, witnesses said.
The parents of Foley, who was kidnapped
while covering the Syrian civil war, called on Friday for support to
free other foreigners still held by Islamic State fighters.
"We do pray, we beg the international community to help the remaining
hostages," Diane Foley said on MSNBC television. "We just pray that they
will be set free," she said after a long conversation with Pope
Francis, who the Vatican said called the couple on Thursday afternoon to
offer his condolences.
Abadi, Iraq's prime minister-designate, condemned Foley's killing on his
Facebook page and said Iraq would lead the fight against Islamic State
with the help of Washington and other allies.
"The barbaric murder of journalist James Foley demonstrates to the
world the lethal mindset and impending threat of ISIS & why they
must be eradicated," he wrote.
The U.N. Security Council also condemned Foley's killing, saying
Islamic State militants and their ideology of intolerance must be
defeated.
The stoning, which happened on Thursday, was the first
known instance of the punishment by Islamic State militants in Iraq
since it seized large areas of the country in a June offensive. Having
poured in from Syria across a desert border that it does not recognize,
the movement has declared its own caliphate.
Similar stonings by the radical Sunni group have been previously
reported in Syria, where it split from al Qaeda. Islamic State is the
most powerful rebel group fighting President Bashar al-Assad's forces in
a civil war which the United Nations said has claimed almost 200,000
lives at the very least.
U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to authorize air strikes in Iraq
for the first time since American troops pulled out in 2011 has helped
to slow the militants' offensive.
However, America's top soldier acknowledged that the internationally
recognized frontier between Iraq and Syria, over which the militants
have free passage, no longer meant much in the wider conflict.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
suggested Islamic State would remain a danger until it could no longer
count on safe havens in Syria.
The White House said on Friday the United States stood ready to take
further action against Islamic State fighters and reiterated that it
would not be restricted by the Iraq-Syria border. Deputy national
security adviser Ben Rhodes said the group is more dangerous today than
it was six months ago.
In an
article in the Washington Post on Friday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
said the advances made by the forces of the Iraqi government and
Kurdish fighters against Islamic State showed that "when its fighting
strength is eroded, it can be routed by local forces without U.S. boots
on the ground."
He said it
was critical for Iraqis to set aside their differences and form a
government. "We are also encouraging Iraq’s neighbors to refrain from
fueling sectarian divisions," which only plays into Islamic State's
hands, Biden said. He did not single out any of the neighbors, which
include Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
SYRIAN DEATH TOLL DOUBLES
Obama came close to ordering air strikes on Syria last year, but they
would have been against Assad's forces which are fighting Islamic State
in the complex war involving a range of factions battling each other.
At least 191,369 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict up to
April, more than double the figure documented a year ago and probably
still an underestimate, the United Nations human rights office said on
Friday.
Obama had intended
to punish Assad for using chemical weapons in the civil war - charges
Damascus denied - but the air strikes were canceled after a
Russian-brokered deal under which Syria surrendered its chemical
arsenal.
Sources familiar
with Syrian government thinking say Assad is wagering that Islamic
State's push to reshape the Middle East will eventually force a hostile
West to deal with him as the only way to tackle the threat.
Western governments which back the uprising have dismissed the idea of
rapprochement. But if the United States were to attack Islamic State in
Syria, it would find itself - however reluctantly - fighting a common
enemy with Assad.
British
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said dialogue with Assad would not
advance the Western cause. "We may very well find that on some occasions
we are fighting the same people as he is but that doesn't make us his
ally and ... it wouldn't be practical, sensible or helpful to even think
about going down that route," Hammond told BBC Radio.
His Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans said the fight against Islamic
State could be successful only if it was confronted in Syria as well as
Iraq.
Iraq also faces hard
decisions. The government has promised to release from prison a former
defense minister of ousted president Saddam Hussein, a senior Sunni
official said.
In an
interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Deputy Prime
Minister Mutlaq did not say why the promises to free Sultan Hashem and
other Sunni military and political leaders had been made.
Hashem's release could appease the Sunnis who dominated Iraq until a U.S.-led invasion overthrew Saddam in 2003.
But it would mark a major concession by the government led by Shi'ites
and probably upset the Kurdish community. Hashem was sentenced to death
for a campaign under Saddam that included gassing Kurds in the town of
Halabja in 1988.
The conflict may also mean other old enemies
working together, albeit with hard bargains being struck. This includes
regional Shi'ite power Iran, which has long been at odds with the United
States over its nuclear program.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was quoted on Thursday by the state news
agency IRNA as saying Tehran was ready to help tackle Islamic State in
Iraq, but first wanted progress in negotiations with world powers over
the nuclear program.
However, perhaps reflecting the sensitivity of the issue, IRNA later
reported foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham as dismissing
"reports by some news agencies about Iran and U.S. cooperation in Iraq".
France, one of the six nations in nuclear talks with Tehran, said this
week it wanted Arab states, Iran and the five permanent members of the
U.N. Security Council to coordinate a comprehensive response against
Islamic State.
The West fears the program aims to develop a nuclear weapons capability, while Iran insists it is peaceful.
(Reporting by Raheem Salman and Alexander Dziadosz; Additional
reporting by Michael Georgy in Baghdad, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva,
William Maclean and Michelle Moghtader in Dubai, John Irish in Paris,
Anthony Deutsch and Thomas Escritt in Amsterdam, Belinda Goldsmith in
London, James Mackenzie in Rome and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing
by David Stamp; Editing by Alastair Macdonald, Howard Goller, Eric Beech
and Mohammad Zargham)
No comments:
Post a Comment