BAGHDAD — In a massacre that revived memories of Iraq’s
worst years of sectarian bloodshed, assailants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms
savagely killed 13 men and boys late Sunday near the restive city of Abu
Ghraib, according to Iraqi officials and villagers.
Most of the victims — some of whom reportedly were beheaded,
while others were shot and then mutilated — were members of the Awakening, a
Sunni Muslim movement that with U.S. backing and funding has fought the
terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq.
Residents and security officials said that shortly before
midnight, armed men in civilian vehicles raided two villages near Abu Ghraib —
a city to the west of Baghdad that houses a major prison — took captives to a
nearby cemetery named Seyid Mhimmed and killed them.
“I believe they were targeted because they formed
Sahwas (Awakening councils) in the area and fought back al-Qaida,” said
Ibraheem Ismail, who described himself as a first cousin of seven of the
victims and more distantly related to the rest.
Among the dead were a father and two sons, three brothers
and several local leaders, including the sheik of the local mosque, who was a
member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni political group.
By Monday evening, no one claimed had responsibility for the
killings.
They raised anew fears about the future of the anti-al-Qaida
in Iraq Awakening movement after U.S. troops withdraw from the country. Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-dominated government has resisted
incorporating members of the Sunni movement, some of whom previously cooperated
with al-Qaida in Iraq, into Iraq’s security forces.
While sectarian violence has dropped dramatically, it’s
still a daily occurrence, and there are concerns that the violence could grow
again in advance of national elections tentatively scheduled for January.
Fears that the planned American troop withdrawal from Iraq
next year will leave Sunnis who have worked with the U.S. vulnerable, as well
as the upcoming elections, appear to be fueling a resurgence of Saddam Hussein’s
Baath Party, a U.S. intelligence official said Monday.
“We’re … also seeing what appears to be al-Qaida (in
Iraq) regrouping and gaining or regaining some sympathizers, evidently in
preparation for the U.S. withdrawal, which of course will leave some of those
who chose to work with us very vulnerable, as we saw today,” said the
official, who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because the
intelligence he discussed is classified.
Iraq’s parliament approved a long-delayed election law Nov.
8, but it’s in limbo again, further unsettling the political atmosphere. Iraq’s
three-member presidency council must sign off on the legislation, but President
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, have
demanded changes to give greater representation to displaced Iraqis.
The Iraqi Islamic Party demanded that the government
investigate the Abu Ghraib killings, and it complained that government security
in the area has been lax.
The “barbaric massacre … brings to our minds the
crimes of the years of security breakdown,” the party said, referring to
the peak of violence in 2005-2007.
The area around the killings was still cordoned off Monday
evening, and residents complained that security forces were detaining people at
random.
The Iraqi military’s Baghdad Operations Center said the
perpetrators came from the area around the two villages where the victims
lived, Aabid and Khudhair.
Residents, members of the Zobae tribe, fiercely disputed
that. “If they had been from the area, we would have recognized them; we
are all related here,” Ismail said. “They want to believe that we did
this to ourselves, that it is a tribal matter, but it isn’t.”
So far, November has been the least violent month in Iraq in
recent memory. According to the Web site icasualties.org, political violence
has killed one U.S. soldier and, before Monday, 12 members of the Iraqi
security forces and 29 civilians. The site says that the civilian casualty
figures are incomplete, however, and the true numbers are undoubtedly much
higher.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
