18 Dead, 60 Wounded in bombings
Sunni Mosque Targeted
Al-Zaman/ AFP reports that on Friday guerrilla violence left 18 Iraqis dead and 60 wounded. The first car bomb in the Dora section of southern Baghdad killed at least 11 and wounded 38, according to Iraqi medical sources. Guerrillas then detonated a car bomb in Dora outside the Iskan Mosque (Sunni) while the worshippers were filing out, which killed 7 and wounded 22, according to the Iraqi ministry of the interior. On Thursday, a bomb killed two US Marines at Fallujah.
Muqtada al-Sadr spoke in Damascus on Friday with cadres of Palestinian youths. His interview, carried by Reuters, is part of his continued attempt to remake himself as a political mover and shaker in Iraq. In his speech to the Palestinians, he called for US and British troops to leave Iraq.
1. Muslims should unite across the sectarian divide of Sunni and Shiite to protest the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
2. But targeting Christians would be a mistake.
3. Iraq’s Sunni Arab neighbors need have no fear of the rise of the Shiites to power in that country. “I am here to dispel fear Arab countries have of the Shi’ites.”
4. The Sadr Movement bears a resemblance to the Hizbullah of Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine: ‘ “Our ideas are similar as far as standing to oppression and occupation and against the corruption that the entire West wants to spread in the region and in Islamic countries.”
5. For stability to return to Iraq, US troops must leave. ‘ “What is causing instability to Iraq is the occupation,” he said. “The exit of the occupier will be a victory for Iraq and not as it is said a victory for the terrorists.” ‘
The French ambassador in Baghdad announced in a letter to Muqtada that he “understands Muslim rejection” of “the caricatures that inflict injuriy,” and he acknowledged that they had been widely printed in Europe. He said, however, that they did not in any way represent the views of the French state.