ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, 24 June 2006 — Iraq released 500 detainees from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison yesterday, the fifth batch of security suspects to be freed under reconciliation moves ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. “About 2,300 detainees have been released since June 7,” Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, spokesman for US-run detainee operations told AFP. “The detainees have denounced violence and pledged to be good citizens of Iraq. They were not guilty of violence like bombing, kidnapping, torture or murder.”
The detainees, the majority of them Sunni Arabs from insurgent hotspots around Baghdad and the western city of Ramadi, were boarded on buses after listening to a pep talk under the blazing sun by Abed Mutlaq Al-Juburi, a Sunni MP who was deputy prime minister in the previous transitional government. “We as government and leaders must provide them with jobs so they can start a good life in society. Otherwise they may return to crime as they can be sucked in by many groups,” he told AFP.
At least 22 people were killed in two bombings in Iraq yesterday, including one targeting a Sunni mosque, as authorities imposed a sudden curfew in Baghdad. At least 12 people were killed and 20 others wounded when the bomb went off outside the Hibhib Al-Kabir Mosque in the village of Hibhib, north of Baghdad, as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers, police said.
The bomb was planted close to the rear door of the mosque, police said, adding that the front gate of the shrine was closed for security reasons. Hibhib, close to the restive city of Baquba, hit world headlines after US forces killed Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in the village on June 7.
Baquba and its surroundings have seen widespread violence in the past few months given the city’s mixed ethnic background, with US forces also carrying out extensive raids in the area since Zarqawi’s killing. In Baghdad, authorities imposed a sudden curfew from 2:00 p.m. yesterday to 6:00 a.m. today to thwart any attacks on the Muslim day of prayers.
Baghdad is normally under curfew from 8:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. The additional curfew is part of the ongoing security operation in Baghdad that already includes a Friday ban on vehicular traffic from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 pm. Last Friday, a suicide bomber carrying explosives in his shoes bombed the Shiite Baratha mosque, minutes before worshippers were to pray, killing 11 people.
Attacks continued yesterday as rebels threw a grenade at a car carrying two of the mosque’s security guards and wounded them. In a daylight battle four members of Mehdi Army, the militia associated to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, were shot dead in Baghdad’s restive Sunni neighborhood of Haifa Street, as they led Shiite worshippers from Sadr City to the Baratha Mosque for prayers.
Another Shiite worshipper was killed and three wounded when gunmen ambushed them in central Baghdad’s Al-Fadhr neighborhood, also while on their way to the mosque. Worshippers were heading to the mosque in large numbers after Sadr called for a special prayer yesterday to show solidarity with the victims of last week’s bombing.
