The Shiites in Power Accuse the US of "Organized Crime"

[kpete]

The Shiites in Power Accuse the US of "Organized Crime"
Le Figaro with AFP

Monday 27 March 2006

Argument swells in Baghdad the day after a raid conducted against Shiites that left twenty of them dead. While the American Army denies any involvement, the Governor of Baghdad announces the suspension of his cooperation with the United States. The Shiite alliance in power demands a transfer of responsibility for the maintenance of order in the country.
The bloody raid conducted Sunday in north Baghdad against Shiites assembled in a mosque in the country's capital continues to elicit reactions. Shiite leaders, who suggest there were around twenty deaths, denounce an American bungle. The Unified Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition in power, describes that operation as a "massacre" and demands that the American government cede responsibility for the maintenance of order to the Iraqi government.

"American forces and Iraqi Special Forces committed an odious crime when they attacked the Al-Mustapha Mosque in the Ur neighborhood," the Shiite bloc asserts in a communiqué. "It's an organized crime with serious political and security implications. It aims to incite a civil war," the Shiites insist. "To kill such a great number of the faithful of the family of the Prophet after handcuffing and torturing them is indefensible. It's an attack on the dignity of Iraqis that strips away any credibility from the slogans of freedom, democracy and pluralism flaunted by the American administration," the communiqué concludes.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032706A.shtml



Iraq ruling Shi'ites demand control over security
27 Mar 2006 13:11:55 GMT

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, March 27 (Reuters) - Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc demanded on Monday that U.S. forces return control of security to the Iraqi government after what it called "cold-blooded" killings by troops of unarmed people in a mosque.

"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior Alliance spokesman and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC747056.htm

[bleever]

1. This war isn't looking very civil.

Lord help us.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Sounds a pretty fair assessment of the situation

Appropriate word "odious" - something smells out there