Iraqi hostage crisis 'grossly exaggerated'
Leading Sunni cleric charges 'hostage taking' invented to 'inflame sectarian conflict.'
At first it looked like a very tense situation. Media reports indicated that over 150 Iraqi Shiites
had been taken hostage by Sunni insurgents in the town of Madain, 30 kilometers south of Baghdad. The town of 100 families is evenly divided between Sunni and Shiite families.
Then
Iraqi security forces launched a dramatic raid on Sunday, backed by US forces, who conducted door-to-door searches. And what did they find?
The
BBC reports that the Iraqi forces found some
explosives but
no hostages in the town. They also said there was no resistance offered when they entered the town.
The Associated Press reports that it appears events in the town had been "
grossly exaggerated."
On Sunday, former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said "an Al Qaeda-affliated group" had taken over the town. But the same day, the leading Al Qaeda group in Iraq said on its website that it had
nothing to do with the events in Madain.
And now a leading Sunni cleric, Sheikh Abdulsalem al-Qubaisi of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, is charging that the raid was an attempt to "inflame
sectarian violence" against Sunnis in the mixed towns.
Reuters that there are also charges that some Shiite politicans intiated the raid
in order to divert attention from their repeated failures to form a government following election in January.
The confusion has underlined just how jumpy Iraq's authorities are amid a political vacuum since the January election, with no government yet formed. Rival political factions are jockeying for position in the new government and desperate to secure the defense and interior ministries. Some officials suggested the situation in Madain was being exaggerated for political gain, with groups trying to show by a hostage crisis that the interim government was incompetent.
"The lack of a government is making everyone try to show that they know something and that they are influential," said Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to the interior minister.
A spokesman for the radical shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr blamed the incident in Madain, which "had threatened to spiral into all-out national crisis," on attempts by members of the "
former regime operating in the interior and defense ministries to sow instability."
The Washington Post reports that the Shiite Muslim block that will control the new Iraqi parliament, wants
all top government and security officials who were in their positions during the regime of Saddam Hussein to be purged from their jobs.
The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance also will insist on trials for every former official, soldier or worker suspected of wrongdoing during that time, Hussain Shahristani, who helped form the Shiite alliance, said in an interview that outlined plans for handling members of Hussein's Baath Party in the armed forces and intelligence services. Last week however, US Secretary of Defense
warned the new government not to "clean house" in the security services.
The Los Angeles Times reports that a wave of new violence has "
dampened a mood of cautious optimism" that many Iraqis felt after the January elections. Although six US soldiers died over the weekend in Iraqi, the majority of recent casualties have been Iraqi security forces.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that
a car bomb killed Marla Ruzicka, founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, on Saturday. Ms. Ruzicka had been in Iraq going door to door trying to determine who many Iraqi civilians had been killed during the Iraqi war and the US occupation. She also played a key role in obtaining millions of dollars for damaged Iraqi businesses.
Finally,
Business Week looks at the new Iraqi police force the week after US government officials said that training was "going so well" that larger troop withdrawals may be possible by next year, and finds the police force "largely untrained, frequently unreliable, and
all too ready to abuse civilians." The magazine writes that after interviewing more than a dozen private-contractors and government officials working with the new police force, "it's clear that putting into place a force that can operate effectively without backup from coalition forces remains a long way off."
Also...
•
Bolton often blocked information, officials say (
Washington Post)
•
Tillman findings won't be revealed (
azcentral.com)
•
Despite citizenship promise, US military recruiting slips among foreigners, (
Reuters)
•
Iran says 200 arrested in ethnic unrest (
Reuters)
•
Wolfowitz wins European backing (
BBC)
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Tom Regan
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