3 US, 1 Polish– Soldiers Killed
Protests Against Adhamiya Wall
Iraqi guerrillas killed three US soldiers and wounded 6 others on Saturday.
In a separate attack, guerrillas killed a Polish soldier and wounded others. The attack occurred near Diwaniya in Shiite south Iraq. US troops also came under attack in that area.
A city council member in Fallujah was killed by guerrillas on Saturday. He is the fourth member to be assassinated. The mayor of the city of Musayyib was also killed.
Some Iraqis are voicing criticism of the new wall being built by the US military around the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that many Iraqis, including several members of parliament, are worried that the new US military tactic of erecting concrete walls around troubled Baghdad districts will turn the city into a series of isolated cantons and actually reinforce sectarian divisions. An official in the Iraqi Department of Defense told the Saudi-backed London daily, “The districts that will be isolated by barriers after the isolation of Adhamiya and Dura are al-Amiriya, al-Amili, al-`Adl on the Karkh side of the capital, and Sadr City on the Rusafa side.”
The article says that the US will deploy sonar bomb detectors at checkpoints in the Iraqi capital.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in an interview that he looked with favor on the idea of establishing a separate province for Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq. This statement is controversial, since the way I figure it, it would have to be carved out of Kirkuk province, which is claimed by the Kurds. Assyrians and Kurds generally don’t get along, at all.
State Department official David Satterfield, Condi’s man in Baghdad, let Massoud Barzani and the Kurds have it in an interview on al-Arabiya on Saturday, over Barzani’s inflammatory threats against Turkey and the harboring of 5,000 PKK guerrillas in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Members of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) staged a small demonstration at the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah on Saturday to protest the demonstration held last Monday in Basra, sponsored by Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters, that called for the resignation of Virtue Party governor Muhammad al-Wa’ili. The Iranian ambassador to Iraq visited Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Virtue Party, on Saturday, in an attempt to mediate the dispute among southern Shiite factions.