Oil Official Killed
Jarba’s Home Attacked, 8 Dead
Ahmad Seif of Reuters reports that An Oil Ministry official, “Ali Hameed, was shot outside his home as he left for work, police said.”
He adds that guerrillas in Mosul attacked the home of Fawwaz al-Jarba, killing 8 persons before US troops backed by helicopters came to his rescue. Al-Jarba is from the same Shamar tribe as Vice President Ghazi al-Yawir, but he ran for parliament on the United Iraqi Alliance list, which is dominated by religious Shiites and was endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Al-Jarba was rejected by other Sunnis in parliament for any high government post that might be taken to represent Sunni interests. I.e. they now see him as a quisling. The attack on his home is another sign of growing Sunni-Shiite tensions, such that even Sunnis associating closely with the Shiite-dominated government are being targeted.
Seif adds,
“In Baghdad, a university professor was shot dead, an Iraqi soldier was killed in a suicide bombing, and four others were kidnapped. A roadside bomb also killed an American soldier in the capital, the U.S. military said . . . Four bodies were found on Thursday, this time just south of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit. Police said they had been shot.”
The bodies near Tikrit were presumably those of Sunnis?
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