Iraqi official: 628 dead in 6 days of sectarian violence in Baghdad

[muriel_volestrangler]

'Neighbors Are Killing Neighbors'
Across Baghdad, Violence Leaves Residents Fleeing or Imprisoned at Home

"I left my boys in al-Jihad because they refused to leave their house. They said, 'We will never leave our home. We will fight for it,' " recalled Um Mustafa, too afraid to give her full name, as she stood outside her tent. "I ran away when the shooting started. We left with the clothes that were on our bodies."

"Neighbors are killing neighbors," she said. "We cannot trust anyone."

After more than a week of some of the most vicious sectarian violence of the war, Baghdad is a skeleton of a city: Many of its shops are shuttered, its streets drained of people.

The violence erupted July 9 when Shiite Muslim militiamen rampaged through the al-Jihad neighborhood and killed dozens of Sunni Arabs. By Friday, the sixth day, the death toll in Baghdad stood at 628 people, according to Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Nima of the Interior Ministry, citing a figure that far exceeded the numbers previously suggested by news reports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071701479_pf.html

I'm lost for words.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. I have two... Civil War

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before


Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
....

[babylonsister]

2. I'm lost for words myself; think about that number. The

majority of this country is none the wiser about the human toll our involvement has caused.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. Escalation of the sectarian war is a GOAL of all too many. Juan Cole:

Juan Cole, who knows more than just about anybody on the internet about the Middle East and what is REALLY going on, gives a depressing update:

http://www.juancole.com/2006/07/70-iraqis-killed-on-tuesday-massive.html
July 19, 2006

(snip)

Guerrillas attempting to provoke an escalation in the Iraqi civil war (http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-18T175059Z_01_L10437415_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&archived=False) bombed laborers in Kufa on Tuesday, killing 59 and wounding 134. The guerrillas lured the Shiite workers at a crowded market into a minivan with promises of employment and then detonated it. Kufa is a stronghold of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, and is in the vicinity of revered Shiite shrines, so this attack was extremely provocative with regard to sectarian sentiments.

Reuters reports that in the aftermath: ' Protesters gathered around the blackened mangle of vehicles. Blood-stained clothes lay amid the debris. "We want the Mehdi Army to protect us. We want Moqtada's army to protect us," screamed a woman dressed in a black abaya gown. Others chanted to the police: "You are traitors!" "You are not doing your job!" "American agents!" '

It would not have been good to be a Sunni Arab in Kufa on Tuesday. Maybe not to be an American there, either. I don't get the sense that people in Kufa like us very much.

Al-Hayat says (http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/levant_news/07-2006/Item-20060718-835971f4-c0a8-10ed-01ce-4de89e2082c8/story.html) that the Iraqi clans or "tribes," vast kinship networks with some political cohesion, are being drawn into the sectarian war, which may thus add a tribal and volatile element to the struggle. The persons massacred in Mahmudiyah on Sunday were mostly Shiites, and their relatives and clansmen have been flooding into the city and vowing tribal revenge. The tribes are notorious for long-lived feuds, and apparently they are increasingly convinced that the Iraqi government is feuding with them.

(snip)

[speedoo]

4. Yeah, but we got Zarqawi, and turned the corner.

:sarcasm:

Apparantly the MSM still buys that bullshit.

[mhatrw]

5. And the good news keeps right on coming.

The towels are in their last throws.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Gosh them USA trained and funded Iraq death squads are really efficient

Three cheers for John Negroponte.

Don