Middle East News
Another Iraqi mosque is targeted in Basra attack
Jun 16, 2007, 10:55 GMT
Baghdad - Reprisal attacks between Shiites and Sunnis continued Saturday as gunmen clad as police commandos attacked a Sunni mosque in Basra during the early hours.
A witness told the Independent News Agency (formerly known as Voices of Iraq): 'We heard a huge sound of explosion, early today, and rushed to see the al-Ashra al-Mubashra mosque blown up.'
The mosque, which lies in al-Shamshomiyah area in central Basra, suffered severe damage, according to local people.
A curfew had reportedly been imposed Friday in the predominantly Shiite city after the 7th-century tomb of Sahabi (companion of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad) Talha bin Obaid Ellah was bombed.
The bombing enraged Sunnis. It destroyed large portions of the holy site which acts as a marqad (holy tomb) and a mosque, in addition to damaging its minaret and four domes.
Friday's and Saturday's bombings of Sunni mosques were evidently in response to Wednesday's attack on the minarets of one of the holiest Shiite religious sites in the northern city of Samarra.
Extremists there blew up the two towers of the Mosque of Imams Hassan al-Askari and Ali al-Hadi, destroying them.
A previous attack in February 2006 on the Golden Mosque, which contains the tombs of two of Shia's most revered imams making it a major pilgrimage site, unleashed a wave of sectarian violence.
The Golden Mosque contains relics of the imams Hassan al-Askari and of Ali al-Hadi who lived in the 9th century and who are regarded by Shiites as the 10th and 11th imams after the Prophet Mohamed.
Meanwhile, the Association of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni Authority in Iraq, published a report Saturday claiming that at least 20 mosques were targeted since last week's Samarra bombing.
'Death squads and sectarian militias that are backed by the US military continued with their preset plan to destroy and bomb mosques, marqads, and worship houses in different areas in Iraq,' said the report.
Sunni mosques in Baghdad, Hilla, Basra and Baquba were said to have suffered the worst damage, according to the report.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
One failed strategy after another. The surge has failed. The Civil war gets worse. Last month was the deadliest in 2 years - 120 troops dead. What's next Mr Bush? Oh, yeah sorry - the 'Iraq Czar'. That magic genie will make it all better. All we need is more time right?
'The surge has failed.'
It just started in full force on Friday... I can't believe the idiots in our government and elsewhere who are so quick to pronounce our efforts a failure... You don't have any idea wwhat you are talking about.
'The surge has failed.'
It just started in full force on Friday... I can't believe the idiots in our government and elsewhere who are so quick to pronounce our efforts a failure... You don't have any idea wwhat you are talking about.
A question to the naysayers and the Do Nothing Europeans : What should we do ? Sit back and let the world burn ? Whan I ask that question to the average Clueless Canadian they say ' Darfur ! '
But Darfur is the same thing and Canadian troops will be the target of suicide bombers there as they are everywhere else in the world .
And why did Canada refuse to go to the Congo ? We simply said ' no , we are not going to lift a finger to help the Congo ' .
Let us be honest , let the world burn or do something ?
Vin---the answer to your question is, if it costs us 3500 + dead and 25,000 wounded all for nothing---let the world burn. Keep our troops home protecting our soil!
'let the world burn. Keep our troops home protecting our soil!'
You would then be whining that they were infringing on your civil rights. Anything they tried to do you would be complaining that 'Bush' was turning us into a police state. Meanwhile, the world WOULD burn.
So I guess that means that you are a blow-hard idiot...
Any little kid can throw his hands in the air and say I quit when they don't get their way or the way becomes hard. Any coward can justify turning and running. Any fool can talk. The cut-and-run, we can't win, I give up, it cost too much, foolish cowardly little kids that want us to just bring the boys home have a lot to learn. Islamist don't care which side you are on, they hate because they feel superior. They kill because they feel justified. They only accept Muslims from their sect, that do exactly as they say, as worthy of life. If you differ with them, you must be an apostate, infidel, occupier, Crusader, Jew-lover, Bush follower, Chaney worshipping spawn of Satan. They do not care that you want to go home and hide your head in the sand while they burn the world down and remake it in their sick image. They laugh at negotiating and tell their followers that you are weak and pathetic for even trying. They tell their follower that negotiation is a sign of pending victory. Fight harder. They don't respect you for your soft-heartedness. They see it as cowardly weakness. They smell fear and they know how to twist it to their advantage. They have no mercy. Look at Hamas, their first priority, seize power, second, seize all the weapon, third, set up their version of Sharia Law. No freedom, no defense and no appeal. Hamas or die. No beard, die. No vail, die. No green headband, die. This is their dream, mission and only thought. They have already made it clear that the only end to this will come through Jihad. No measure of civility or amount of negotiation will sway them. They only beleive in victory through war. Compliance through intimidation. They have no intention of living in peace with anyone other than their compliant followers. They don't care that you take their side. You will never be with them. Your compassion will not stop them from cutting your head off. Your sympathy will not keep them from blowing up your market, church, or school. You are a non-Muslim from outside their orginization, which in their world means you are a non-human and you are not worthy enough to live. If you die or if your children die, it's not like you really deserved to live. You were weak and got what you deserved. Only the strong, only the followers, only the one's they say are worthy get to live.
'Your mind has failed'
'You don't have any idea wwhat you are talking about.'
Wrong on both counts. I'm dealing with facts and my mind knows exactly what's going on. It's cheerleaders like you that are the problem.
The hawks on Iraq have ZERO credibility. Every major decision has been a disaster. From the initial invasion and the lies that led to it, to the disbandment of the Iraqi army, to entirely ignoring the Iraq Study Group's recommendations.
YOU live in a fantasy my friend. The USA is not omnipotent. The world IS burning, and we cannot stop it with military force. Winning the hearts and minds of the moderates through diplomacy and example is essential. Why? Because extremists cannot survive without popular support. You win the moderates you win the war. Brute force only provides the fuel for propaganda that creates new generations of extremists.
'Wrong on both counts.'
Again, moron, the 'surge' was just completed on Friday. You, and your drooling, ill informed arrogance have already declared it a 'failure'. What possible conclusion could any one come to other then you do not know what you are talking about?
'I'm dealing with facts and my mind knows exactly what's going on.'
Obviously not. You are just ranting on an internet soapbox. You believe that your little political tribe would benefit from a humiliation of the US armed forces in Iraq because you want to see 'Bush's war' lost. What imbeciles like you can not get your idiot heads around is that it is the United States' war, It doesn't just belong to Bush. A loss there is going to have severe consequences for our ENTIRE country.
'YOU live in a fantasy my friend. '
I am not your friend and no, I am right down here in the ugly reality of the situation.
'The USA is not omnipotent. '
No, but we have beaten bigger enemies before then the thugs that want to build their caliphate in Iraq.
'The world IS burning,'
How dramatic.
'and we cannot stop it with military force.'
Not alone. But force 'IS' a component that we are going to have to employ.
'Winning the hearts and minds of the moderates through diplomacy and example is essential.'
Another reason why we need to support democratic governance in the middle east and especially in Iraq. The ones we are fighting have no minds and certainly no heart, they just want to kill infidels.
' Because extremists cannot survive without popular support. '
Sure they can, they can survive on intimidation and violence. An overwhelming majority of Afghans reject the Taliban, but they murder and intimidate their way around the country. Most Iraqis just want to rebuild their lives, but the terrorists want to fight it out to see who is going to get control over them and their oil money to export their jihad.
' Brute force only provides the fuel for propaganda that creates new generations of extremists.'
Not as much as victory for 'extremists', eer, Terrorists will. 'New generations' will get on board with the winning side. Useful idiots like yourself are helping the terrorists cause with your nonsensical, 'support anyone other then our own country' blather.
Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, former dean of the shari'a and law faculty at Qatar University, has recently published several articles in Gulf papers about terrorism and its root cause. In an article titled 'How the Arabs Explain the Terror Phenomenon' in the Qatari daily Al-Raya, he is the first moderate Muslim I have heard who didn't excuse murderers, gangsters and suicide bombers as heros.
'...I don't understand the personality split in some people; they depict the terrorist in Iraq as a martyr and a resistance fighter…How can we term someone a martyr when he blows up schools and hospitals, does not respect the sanctity of religious sites, and, worse, blows himself up in restaurants and bus stations full of workers?!... '
'Terrorism is the fruit of hatred - hatred of life, hatred of civilization and the [modern] era, hatred of society and state, hatred of living people. The young people who have become tools of murder and human bombs are the sons of the culture of hatred, and the outcome of a fanatical culture and extremist ideology that sees life, its pleasures, and its beauty as unimportant. Ultimately the political, economic, social, and religious motives that push [the young people] to blow themselves up lie in a single main cause - and that is the culture of hatred.'
'These young people, at the age of flowering, have become the enemies of their society, avenging, hating, and exploding. They are our terrorist sons, raised in our bosoms, suckled by our culture, taught in our schools, and taught religious law from our religious pulpits and by the fatwas of our clerics.
'What, then, has made them prefer death to life? I have no answer except the fact that we have not managed to make them love life. We have taught them to die for the sake of Allah, but we have not taught them to love, to build, to create, and to help society for the sake of Allah. We have taught them that nationalism [means] attacking America and opposing imperialism, but we have not taught them that nationalism is love, loyalty, and belonging to the homeland...'
'Go to hear a Friday sermon, and you will find a preacher who is enraged at the world, angry at civilization, spreading the poison of hatred and enmity. Then you will leave the mosque tense and angry.'
'The world's young people engage in music, art, and enjoyment of the pleasures of life. They create, discover, and participate in building the strength and the culture of their society - while we engage our young people in religious law disputes on the veil, the beard, how long garments should be, and how to greet Christians - or we engage our young people in adults' political and ideological disputes, or push them to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to commit suicide!'
How can this be so obvious to an educated and clearly faithful Muslim, and be lost on Al Jezeera?
Why aren't there more Muslims of true courage standing up against this insanity. One more quote that left me stunned:
'...throughout history it has not been proven that any terrorist operation has [ever] restored what was plundered or achieved any political goal. With regard to [the claim that] the lack of democracy and freedoms causes terrorism, [the fact is that] nothing in any of Al-Qaeda's publications includes any demands for democracy - and furthermore, Al-Qaeda hates democracy and sees it as heresy.'
I don't know how to say it any better. Why isn't this point of view on the news? Why aren't these voices being heard? Where is the Life-Loving Muslim heart of compassion?
page: 1
NeilJun 16th, 2007 - 14:05:12
Our guys and gals are supposed to stand between these brawling factions in a civil war between religious sects? And, it's 'unpatriotic' to complain about that, or say it isn't working out? Who is really patriotic, and cares about our own interests, around here?
Check out www dot juancole dot com.
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