80 people shot dead in Iraq sectarian bloodshed

BAGHDAD – Gunmen have killed at least 80 people in Iraq in sectarian violence that flared after the bombing of a revered Shi’ite shrine and reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques, officials said yesterday.

Amid warnings that sectarian violence could spiral further out of control, Iraqi political leaders went into an emergency meeting with President Jalal Talabani. The bloodshed is likely to complicate the task of Shi’ite and Sunni political leaders who have pledged to set up a government of national unity in the wake of the December elections which illustrated a deep sectarian split in Iraq.Eighty bullet-ridden corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the deputy director of the morgue, Doctor Kais Mohammed, told AFP.”I’ve only been able to carry out autopsies on 25 of them,” he said, adding that all had been shot.The bodies, which had been dumped in Baghdad and its suburbs, could not immediately be identified.Iraq has already placed its security forces on high alert and cancelled all leave.The night curfew in Baghdad was brought forward from 11pm to 8pm on Wednesday.The upsurge in killings came after suspected al Qaeda linked militants on Wednesday morning bombed the 1 000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, one of the countries’ main Shi’ite shrines, in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.Early Thursday the police also reported finding the bodies of three Iraqi journalists working for Dubai-based Arabiya satellite television who were kidnapped near Samarra on Wednesday evening while reporting on the shrine bombing.”The bodies of the presenter Atwar Bahjat, of cameraman Adnan Abdallah and of soundman Khaled Mohsen were found early this morning some 15 kilometres north of Samarra,” police said.In other violence, at least 12 people were killed in a powerful roadside bomb attack in Baquba, 60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, of which eight were Iraqi army soldiers and four other civilians, police said, adding 20 others were wounded.The shrine bombing prompted global condemnation and appeals for calm, but large-scale demonstrations turned violent with attacks on dozens of Sunni mosques nationwide.One Sunni was also killed and two wounded in a drive-by shooting outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, police said.The day earlier, at least six Sunnis were killed in sectarian attacks in Baghdad where one Sunni mosque was set ablaze and others fired upon.Gunmen also stormed a prison in the southern port city of Basra and lynched 10 suspected Sunni militants.Police said two of those killed were from Egypt, two from Tunisia, one from Saudi Arabia, one from Libya, one from Turkey and four were Iraqis.Two people were killed in Basra in an attack on offices of a Sunni political party.- Nampa-AFPThe bloodshed is likely to complicate the task of Shi’ite and Sunni political leaders who have pledged to set up a government of national unity in the wake of the December elections which illustrated a deep sectarian split in Iraq.Eighty bullet-ridden corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the deputy director of the morgue, Doctor Kais Mohammed, told AFP.”I’ve only been able to carry out autopsies on 25 of them,” he said, adding that all had been shot.The bodies, which had been dumped in Baghdad and its suburbs, could not immediately be identified.Iraq has already placed its security forces on high alert and cancelled all leave.The night curfew in Baghdad was brought forward from 11pm to 8pm on Wednesday.The upsurge in killings came after suspected al Qaeda linked militants on Wednesday morning bombed the 1 000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, one of the countries’ main Shi’ite shrines, in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.Early Thursday the police also reported finding the bodies of three Iraqi journalists working for Dubai-based Arabiya satellite television who were kidnapped near Samarra on Wednesday evening while reporting on the shrine bombing.”The bodies of the presenter Atwar Bahjat, of cameraman Adnan Abdallah and of soundman Khaled Mohsen were found early this morning some 15 kilometres north of Samarra,” police said.In other violence, at least 12 people were killed in a powerful roadside bomb attack in Baquba, 60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, of which eight were Iraqi army soldiers and four other civilians, police said, adding 20 others were wounded.The shrine bombing prompted global condemnation and appeals for calm, but large-scale demonstrations turned violent with attacks on dozens of Sunni mosques nationwide.One Sunni was also killed and two wounded in a drive-by shooting outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, police said.The day earlier, at least six Sunnis were killed in sectarian attacks in Baghdad where one Sunni mosque was set ablaze and others fired upon.Gunmen also stormed a prison in the southern port city of Basra and lynched 10 suspected Sunni militants.Police said two of those killed were from Egypt, two from Tunisia, one from Saudi Arabia, one from Libya, one from Turkey and four were Iraqis.Two people were killed in Basra in an attack on offices of a Sunni political party.- Nampa-AFP