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Al Qaeda In Iraq Threatens Iran

Juan Cole 07/09/2007

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“Al-Qaeda” in Iraq Threatens Iran
Thousands of Sadrists Demonstrate against al-Maliki

The “Islamic State in Iraq” led by Abu Umar al-Bagdadi, has theatened to target Iran unless it ceases its support for Shiite groups in Iraq.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a right hand man of Saddam who still leads a major Baathist cell in the north, isued a videocassette statement maintaining that the guerrilla movement is winning against the Americans; eh also called for more attacks on the latter. The Baathist component has been ignored or downplayed by most observers.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the crisis between the Sadr Movement and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has reached a nadir. It says that thousands of angry Shiites, followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, demonstrated against al-Maliki in Baghdad on Sunday. Al-Hayat says that big demonstrations in the Baya’ district of the capital by Sadrists protested the US arrest of two Sadrist commanders.

The Sadrists are complaining bitterly that al-Maliki has turned on them after they put him into power. They say that his role has effectively ended. Members of the movement were especially outraged by al-Maliki’s charge that Baathists and Saddamists are leading some factions within the Sadr Movement. One pointed out that if this allegation was true, then al-Maliki owes his position to Baathists and Saddamists. Sadrist Ahmad al-Sharifi accused al-Maliki of encouraging the Occupation forces to hit the Sadrists. He said al-Maliki’s Islamic Call [Da’wa] Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council had been going behind the Sadrists’ back to form a new coalition that would ensure political perquisites for the two parties.

Ahmad al-Shaibani, an aide to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said that the al-Maliki government was coming to an end, which would become apparent in the next few days.

Shaikh Hamad al-Rikabi, a Sadrist leader in the Karkh district of Baghdad, said that the American forces had detained Shaikh Nasir al-Sa’idi and three of his sons in a raid on the Shu’la District of the capital late on Saturday.

In other news, al-Zaman says, the Iranians shelled positions inside Iraqi Kurdistan. (There are Iranian Kurdish guerrillas from a group called PEJAK, who hit targets in Iran and then seek refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan).

Iraq’s Sunni fundamentalist Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi, on Sunday accused the al-Maliki government of weakness and inability to protect Iraqis, especially after the massive carbombing near Tuz Khurmato on Saturday. (-al-Zaman).

McClatchy reports that 29 bodies were found in Baghdad on Sunday. It adds, “Ten civilians were injured in a parked car bomb explosion near Ali Al Lami restaurant in Jadriyah neighborhood downtown Baghdad around 10:35 a.m.”

Reuters reports political violence for Sunday:

‘ BAGHDAD – One U.S. soldier was killed and three wounded on Sunday by a suicide car bomb near their patrol west of the Iraqi capital, the military said.

HASWA – A suicide truck bomber killed 23 new Iraqi army recruits and wounded 27 others near Haswa, 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, police and army sources said.

BASRA – A British soldier died on Saturday from wounds received during a fierce clash in the southern Iraqi city of Basra the day before, a military spokesman said on Sunday. . .

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb killed three civilians and wounded five others in a busy market in the Shurja, an important commercial district in central Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD – Six people were killed and seven wounded by a car bomb in Karrada, a busy Shi’ite area in central Baghdad.

BAGHDAD – Two people were killed by a car bomb in Jadriya, a southern district of Baghdad near the al-Hamra hotel, which is popular with westerners working in the city, police said.’

Pakistan developments covered at the group blog on global affairs.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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