Region | Iraq
Killings spread to more Shiite areas in Baghdad
In Sadr City, which is divided into 72 sectors with a population of three million, people speak of the arrest and detention of individuals to find out where their political sympathies lie.
- By Basil Adas, Correspondent
- Published: 00:45 April 25, 2008
- Image Credit: Reuters
- A man embraces his wife (right) and mother in Baghdad's Adhamiya district after being released from prison on Thursday.
Baghdad: The discovery of more than 30 decapitated bodies in the Shiite city of Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, and Baghdad Shiite neighbourhoods, seem to indicate an increase in political assasinations in these areas.
Residents of areas under Shiite control have expressed concern that their neighbourhoods have become political killing fields.
"The neighbourhood is seeing people disappearing. This is something new that we are not used to," Hatem Al Safar, a mechanic living in Baghdad's Shu'ala neighbourhood, told Gulf News.
"Assasinations between the Mahdi army, affiliated to the Al Sadr trend, and the Badr Organisation of the Supreme Islamic Council led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, do occur in the Shu'ala neighbourhood," he added.
In Sadr City, which is divided into 72 sectors with a population of three million, people speak of the arrest and detention of individuals to find out where their political sympathies lie.
"In some sectors of Sadr City, particularly in the Chawader area, gunmen from the Mahdi army stop buses. They stopped one I was riding. They then searched passengers' pockets looking for signs of their political sympathies and whether they carried ID's of the Badr Organisation," Bashir Al Barak, an employee at the Iraqi trade ministry, told Gulf News.
"They detained two persons and took them off the bus. I am certain their fate was execution," he added.
Stopping cars
In Karada and Arasat districts members of the Badr Organisation were stopping cars and checking their identities, whether they were members of the Mahdi army or ordinary citizens, he said.
Iyad Al Ansari, a shopkeeper in Arasat neighbourhood, told Gulf News: "People in civilian clothing stopped a car in front of my store. They detained three persons. I heard the detainees belonged to the Mahdi Army. I believe the situation is extremely tense because of the ongoing military campaigns against the Al Sadr trend."
In some Karada neighbourhoods which are controlled by the Islamic Supreme Council obituaries were posted on Thursday of martyrs from the Badr Organisation.
Similar obituaries were posted in the Al Ameen neighbourhood in memory of martyrs of the Al Sadr trend.
"From time to time we find bodies of members of both the Badr Organisation and the Al Sadr trend," said Faraj Hussain, an officer in the Interior Ministry, in a statement to Gulf News. "It is clear that there are assassinations going on between the two groups, mostly in Shiite neighbourhoods."
In some sectors of Sadr City, particularly in the Chawader area, gunmen from the Mahdi army stop buses. They stopped one I was riding. They then searched passengers' pockets looking for signs of their political sympathies and whether they carried IDs of the Badr Organisation."
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