Iraq Watch: February 24, 2007
A massive truck bombing Saturday afternoon in the town of Habbaniyah, about 50 miles west of Baghdad, was aimed at sending a message to Iraq's Sunnis: You're either with us or you're against us.
A suspected suicide bomber maneuvered his explosives-laden truck into a crowd of worshippers strewing out of a local mosque following mid-afternoon prayers and detonated his payload. The blast left at least 50 civilians dead and over 70 wounded.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but residents reported the mosque's imam had recently spoken out against al-Qaida in Iraq. The blast, a rarity in that it targeted Sunni civilians, was in all likelihood a warning to the regions Sunnis of the deadly consequences of aligning against the al-Qaida network.
Free of much of the sectarian violence ravaging Iraq's mixed areas, the infighting in Anbar province – a vast swath of western Iraq dotted with towns and villages situated along the banks of the Euphrates – is pitted between the regions disparate tribes.
Many of the tribes originally welcomed al-Qaida at the onset of the U.S.-led invasion but later soured on the Salafist group, due in large part to their indiscriminate bombings of Iraqi civilians. Last year a number of Anbar's tribes banded together to form the "Anbar Salvation Council," an organization aimed at stemming al-Qaida's influence in the province.
Following the death of al-Qaida in Iraq's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his replacement, the Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), has reportedly worked hard on winning back a portion of Anbar's tribes. He is said to have achieved a measure of success on this front with at least three of Anbar's tribes now activelty supporting al-Qaida in Iraq's campaign.
In other violence across Iraq on Saturday, according to Retuers:
A suspected suicide bomber maneuvered his explosives-laden truck into a crowd of worshippers strewing out of a local mosque following mid-afternoon prayers and detonated his payload. The blast left at least 50 civilians dead and over 70 wounded.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but residents reported the mosque's imam had recently spoken out against al-Qaida in Iraq. The blast, a rarity in that it targeted Sunni civilians, was in all likelihood a warning to the regions Sunnis of the deadly consequences of aligning against the al-Qaida network.
Free of much of the sectarian violence ravaging Iraq's mixed areas, the infighting in Anbar province – a vast swath of western Iraq dotted with towns and villages situated along the banks of the Euphrates – is pitted between the regions disparate tribes.
Many of the tribes originally welcomed al-Qaida at the onset of the U.S.-led invasion but later soured on the Salafist group, due in large part to their indiscriminate bombings of Iraqi civilians. Last year a number of Anbar's tribes banded together to form the "Anbar Salvation Council," an organization aimed at stemming al-Qaida's influence in the province.
Following the death of al-Qaida in Iraq's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his replacement, the Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), has reportedly worked hard on winning back a portion of Anbar's tribes. He is said to have achieved a measure of success on this front with at least three of Anbar's tribes now activelty supporting al-Qaida in Iraq's campaign.
In other violence across Iraq on Saturday, according to Retuers:
BAGHDAD - Mortar rounds killed three and wounded four in Amil, in southwest
Baghdad, a police source said.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen in two vehicles stormed an Iraqi police checkpoint near
Baghdad airport, killing eight police officers and wounding two, the U.S.
military said. Two militants were also killed.
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb killed one person and wounded four in Jadriya,
in southern Baghdad, a police source said. The bomb exploded at a traffic circle
near the homes of Iraq's president Jalal Talabani and leading Shi'ite politician
Abdul- Aziz al-Hakim.
BAGHDAD - A rocket round killed two people and wounded three, all in the
same family, when it hit their home in Adil in western Baghdad, police and
residents said.
KIRKUK - Samir Menshed Shaheen, the owner of the weekly newspaper Al Aryaf
in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, was killed by gunmen, police said.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded seven near a bus
terminal in Alawi in central Baghdad, a police source said.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded three more when it
exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed by in Jamia in western Baghdad, a police
source said.
posted by Todd @ 10:30 PM
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