Iraq Watch: June 14, 2006

Baghdad Security Crackdown Begins

A security clampdown aimed at stemming incessant violence in Iraq's capital city, home to approximately six million, began Wednesday and was met with sporadic insurgent violence.

The crackdown is seen as a watershed moment for Iraq's newly installed Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The operation, dubbed "Forward Together," involves a total of some 75,000 Iraqi and multinational forces and is the biggest of its kind since the U.S. handed over sovereignty to Iraq in June of 2004.

Iraqi forces set up additional checkpoints throughout Baghdad. A citywide 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew has also been put into place.

In the Baghdad's northern district of Qahira a car bomb exploded killing at least four civilians and wounding six. Elsewhere in the capital, a police commando was killed and two were injured in separate roadside bombings in western Baghdad.

In other violence Wednesday, Muqdadiyah town councilman Wathiq Mohamed al-Shaibani was assassinated along with a member of his security detail in the city 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Elsewhere, Ibrahim Seneid, an editor of the Iraqi al-Bashara newspaper was gunned down late Tuesday in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah authorities announced Wednesday.

In Basra, hundreds of followers of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani attacked the Iranian consulate in the port city 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. The demonstrators were angry over perceived derogatory comments made about al-Hassani yesterday on Iran's state-owned Al-Kawthar TV station.

Al-Hassani supporters stormed the compound, tore down the consulate's Iranian flag and replaced it with an Iraqi one.