Samarra Mosque Attacked Again
13 June AP - Iraqi Police Say Famous Shrine Attacked by Qassim Abdul-Zahra.
Quote:
Suspected al-Qaida insurgents on Wednesday destroyed the two minarets of the Askariya Shiite shrine in Samarra, authorities reported, in a repeat of a 2006 bombing that shattered its famous Golden Dome and unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for peaceful demonstrations and a three-day mourning period to mark the minarets' destruction. He appeared to take a conciliatory tone in a statement, saying that no Sunni Arab could have been responsible for Wednesday's attack...
Efforts to Avert Sectarian Reprisals After Shrine Attack
14 June NY Times - Efforts to Avert Sectarian Reprisals After Shrine Attack by John Burns.
Quote:
Two explosions on Wednesday that appeared to have been set by Sunni extremists with links to Al Qaeda toppled the twin golden minarets that were most of what remained of one of Iraq’s most revered Shiite shrines after a devastating bombing by Al Qaeda last year.
That bombing 16 months ago proved a watershed, engulfing the country in a wave of sectarian killing that pushed Sunnis and Shiites toward civil war. With American and Iraqi forces unable to restrain soaring levels of killing that saw as many as 3,000 Iraqi civilians dying every month by the end of 2006, President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional American troops deployed here, aimed at pulling the country back from the abyss.
But after Wednesday’s renewed attack on the shrine at Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad, appeals for calm by Shiite political and religious leaders, as well as by moderate Sunni politicians and the top two American officials in Iraq, appeared to have headed off the risk of a new sectarian convulsion, at least for now...
As Sunni Mosque Falls, Sadr Issues a Call
17 June Washington Post - As Sunni Mosque Falls, Sadr Issues a Call by John Ward Anderson and K.I. Ibrahim.
Quote:
Another Sunni mosque in the Basra area of southern Iraq was destroyed Saturday, as a leading Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, called on his followers to march to the Sunni town of Samarra next month to a revered Shiite shrine that was attacked Wednesday.
The call for a pilgrimage to the Askariya shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, could draw tens of thousands of Shiites into an area north of Baghdad that is a stronghold of the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq...