5 suspects being held in Samarra mosque blasts

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Maj. Gen. Dhaya Hussein Al-Kanany, general director of the Iraqi Police’s Criminal Investigation Department, discusses the arrests last week of five men suspected of carrying out bombings of a Shiite mosque in Samarra in 2006 and 2007.


5 suspects being held in Samarra mosque blasts
By Vince Little, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, January 15, 2008

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have detained five men suspected of helping orchestrate bombings of a Shiite mosque in Samarra in 2006 and 2007, according to the general director of the Iraqi Police’s Criminal Investigation Department.

Maj. Gen. Dhaya Hussein Al-Kanany said the Iraqi police and army, acting on information from local citizens, made the arrests early last Thursday during a joint raid in Samarra. They apprehended the alleged ringleader of the bombings and also found items taken from the mosque, he added.

He wouldn’t identify the suspects but said they confessed to being members of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The first bombing, which occurred in February 2006, destroyed the Askariya mosque’s famed Golden Dome. No one died but the incident angered Shiite Muslims and triggered a wave of retaliatory killings aimed at Sunnis. The bombing is widely marked as the beginning of a wave of sectarian violence that raged for much of 2006.

“People thought Iran was behind it. Al-Qaida was behind the bombings,” Al-Kanany said through a translator. “Their goal was to divide the Iraqi people.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51631