[NYTr] 24 die in Iraq peace meeting blast

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

CNN - Sep 25, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/25/iraq.main/index.html?eref=rss_world

24 die in Iraq peace meeting blast

By CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide bombing in Iraq's volatile Diyala
province ripped through a "reconciliation meeting" on Monday night
attended by Sunni and Shiite militia leaders -- a brazen attack that
killed and wounded dozens and fractured an effort to foster amity
between the rival sects. 

Iraq's Interior Ministry and the U.S. military counted 24 dead and 37
wounded.

The attacker detonated a suicide belt inside the Shifta Shiite mosque
in western Baquba during the daily breaking of the Ramadan fast,
Interior Ministry officials said.

Abstention from eating is religious duty for Muslims during the present
holy month of Ramadan and the hiatus is broken during an evening meal.

Families recovered bodies from the local morgue on Tuesday and funerals
were held in Shifta for both the Shiites and Sunnis, who were among the
dead.

The dead included Baquba police Chief Ali al-Deylan and Brig. Gen.
Abdul Karim al-Obaidi, commander of Diyala's police operations -- both
Sunnis. Another slain official was Ahmed al-Tamimi, the head of the
local Shiite Endowment, which administers Shiite religious facilities
in the province.

Two guards of the Diyala's Shiite governor, Raad Rashid Mullah Jawad,
were killed. Jawad was wounded, and one of the two slain guards was
Jawad's brother.

They had been attending the meal with members of the United Jihad
Factions Council, a Sunni coalition of militias, and Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army -- a powerful Shiite militia. They were
sitting down in an effort to bridge their differences when the strike
occurred.

The United Jihad Factions Council leaders, includes the Islamic Army,
the 1920 Revolution Brigades and other one-time insurgent groups that
are now cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

Others slain in the bombing were members of two of the council's
factions -- Sheik Ahmed al-Tamer, one of the 1920 Revolution Brigades
leaders, and Sheik Kanaan al-Faraj, a leader of a Sunni militia called
Hamas al-Iraq Brigades.

 At least 28 others were wounded in the strike, which at least one
Shiite sheik is blaming on al Qaeda in Iraq, the homegrown
Sunni-dominated insurgent group that gets its inspiration from Osama
bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.

The U.S. military on Tuesday issued a statement about the incident,
calling the breaking of the fast meal "a brotherhood festival" that
included more than 800 people, including senior provincial leaders,
coalition forces, as well as Shiites, Sunnis, and various tribal
leaders.

"Once again, al Qaeda demonstrated the hatred they have for the
citizens of Iraq by conducting a despicable attack against its people
during one of their most revered celebrations -- Ramadan," said Col.
David W. Sutherland, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division
commander, whose remarks were quoted in the military statement.

Diyala province -- which sprawls north and east of Baghdad -- has been
a major front in the Iraq war since the U.S. troop escalation called
the "surge" began earlier this month. U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent
months have embarked on offensives targeting al Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraqi and U.S. officials, attempting to end the country's Sunni-Shiite
sectarian strife, have been trying to promote reconciliation efforts
across Iraq. Such efforts have been well-publicized in Anbar province
west of Baghdad but they have been occurring in other areas, such as
Diyala and Baghdad as well.

In other developments, bombs ripped through two commercial areas in
Baghdad Tuesday, killing seven people, Iraq's Interior Ministry told
CNN.

Two parked car bombs exploded in quick succession in the southeastern
mixed neighborhood of Zayouna, killing six people and wounding 24
others.

A roadside bomb in the Kamaliya neighborhood of eastern Baghdad killed
one person and wounded three others. The incident took place near an
outdoor market in the Shiite neighborhood.

Another roadside bombing wounded seven people, including a police
officer in the central neighborhood of Karrada. U.S. soldiers have
sealed off an area where a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. convoy in
the northwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya.

Police found 12 bullet-riddled bodies across the capital on Monday,
bringing the number of bodies found this month to 263. Authorities
believe the presence of dumped bodies is a sign of Sunni-Shiite
sectarian strife.

Also Tuesday, Coalition forces killed five suspected insurgents and
detained 22 during operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in the central
and northern parts of the country, the U.S. military said. One of those
arrested in a raid in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, is a close associate
of a leader in al Qaeda in Iraq's car-bombing network in Baghdad, the
military said.

Troops conducting that raid shot and wounded a gunman who confronted
them at a building. As others emerged from the structure, coalition
forces called in an airstrike, which killed four suspected insurgents.
Another suspected insurgent was killed and seven detained at another
building in the same operation, the military said.

In southern Baghdad, four suspects were detained in an operation, the
military reported.

Farther north in Baiji, coalition forces captured three suspected
terrorists in a raid targeting an al Qaeda in Iraq associate
responsible for coordinating insurgent meetings in the Tigris River
Valley, the military said. During the operation, a woman and a child
were wounded, it said.

Two suspected insurgents were captured in a raid in Mosul, in northern
Iraq. One is believed to be an al Qaeda in Iraq attack cell leader and
is believed to help move senior terrorist leaders in and out of Iraq,
the military said.