NASIRIYAH, Iraq, 20 January 2008 — Security forces yesterday overran a mosque in southern Iraq where Shiites belonging to a cult were holed up, ending two days of clashes in two cities that killed at least 70 people, police said. The fighting came as millions of Shiites across Iraq marked the climax of 10-day Ashura rituals.
Wearing yellow headbands, they attacked police simultaneously early Friday afternoon in the southern port city of Basra and in Nasiriyah, about 350 kilometers south of Baghdad. Fighting raged in both cities through the afternoon, during which, according to officials, police posts and several Shiite processions marking Ashura were attacked with machine-guns and assault rifles.
The clashes died down in Basra during the night but continued sporadically in Nasiriyah. A police official in Nasiriyah said Iraq’s security forces raided hide-outs of the Shiite faction at daybreak yesterday, flushing them out of the mosque and houses they had occupied in Al-Salhiyah suburb. “Some of the insurgents were killed and arrested while others fled during the raid,” the police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The security forces had found the mosque to be booby trapped and disposal experts later triggered a blast, which destroyed the building, he said. Amid the rubble were found yellow headbands and anti-government literature.
Two policemen were killed by teenage snipers during yesterday’s clashes in Nasiriyah. The snipers, two 14-year-old boys, were quickly arrested, police said. Police officials said at least 35 cultists were killed in Basra and 18 in Nasiriyah. A total of 12 police, two Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were also killed, according to the latest police figures.
More than 120 cultists were arrested in Nasiriyah, Basra and in a raid yesterday in the town of Musayyib, 50 kilometers south of Baghdad.
Aziz Alwan, governor of southeastern Dhi Qar province of which Nasiriyah is the capital, told a news conference that modern weaponry had been seized from members of the cult.
Attacks in northern Iraq killed nine people yesterday. Seven Iraqis were killed in a rocket attack after observing Ashura in Tal Afar, 420 km northwest of Baghdad, police Brig. Gen. Najim Abdullah said. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a bomb killed two pilgrims heading to a mosque for the annual ceremonies.
South of Baghdad, authorities raised the death toll from clashes in two predominantly Shiite cities to at least 72, including security forces, civilians and gunmen, but said the situation had been brought under control after troops stormed a mosque to end a standoff with members of the cult who were holed up inside.
West of Baghdad, three suicide bombers targeted a police station in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. Guards killed one of the attackers, but two others detonated their explosives at the entrance, killing at least five officers and wounding 10 others, authorities said.
Two bombs hidden under trash also struck a procession in the city of Kirkuk yesterday, killing at least two and wounding five, police Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayeb Taha said. Kirkuk, 290 kilometers north of Baghdad, has seen a rise in violence as militants have fled security operations elsewhere and ethnic tensions rise over the status of the oil-rich city.
And a rocket attack struck a busy market in the northern city of Tal Afar, killing at least seven people and wounding 17. Mayor Najim Abdullah said the victims were struck as they were gathering after performing the Ashura rituals. Provincial Gov. Aqil Al-Khazali estimated that the main procession in the holy city of Kerbala drew some 2 million pilgrims, including hundreds from Iran, Pakistan, India and other regional countries, and no violence was reported.
Basra police chief Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf said at least 44 people were killed in Iraq’s second-largest city — seven officers, two civilians and 35 gunmen — while dozens more were wounded and 100 gunmen were arrested. Video footage broadcast on Iraqi state TV showed several dead or wounded men lying on bloodstained streets in Basra, where officials said the situation was under control.
