Mortar exchanges kill 21 in Baghdad
(AP)Updated: 2006-11-08 10:24
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shi'ites and Sunnis traded mortar attacks Tuesday on Baghdad neighborhoods across the Tigris, killing 21 as police found the bodies of 15 torture victims in the river south of the capital.
 Relatives of seven-year old Montathar Adil close his coffin outside Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital Tuesday Nov. 7, 2006. Adil and his five-year old sister Zainab were killed in Baghdad's Karkh district when their family was attacked by unknown gunmen. [AP]  |
Saddam Hussein, whose government favored the Sunni minority, called on Iraqis to "forgive, reconcile and shake hands" as he returned to court Tuesday for his Kurdish genocide trial two days after being sentenced to hang in a separate case.
The ousted dictator's former second in command, the fugitive Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has ordered bosses in Saddam's Baath party still in Iraq to cease attacks, according to government and parliamentary officials who claimed knowledge of the developments.
Former Baathists are thought to be a major component of Sunni resistance to the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government and foreign forces, but not the only component. Even if they halt their attacks, fighting could continue to rage in insurgent areas because there are many other groups attacking US and Iraqi forces as well as Shi'ite Muslim civilians and militias.
In the latest round of sectarian attacks, police said two mortar shells slammed into a coffee shop in a Shi'ite neighborhood in north Baghdad late Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 16. The attack appeared to have been in response to mortar fire on a Sunni neighborhood across the Tigris earlier in the day that killed seven people and wounded 25.
Authorities reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies of 15 apparent death squad victims floating in the Tigris south of Baghdad, all blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles. The victims apparently were tortured before being shot to death. Hundreds of such killings have been recorded in the capital since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February ignited revenge sectarian killings.
Torture is considered widespread among the poorly trained police force, which has suffered heavy losses at the hands of Sunni insurgents and criminal gangs, but Tuesday's announcement marked the first time the government has pressed charges. Iraqi police are accused of close ties to the Shi'ite death squads, whose daily abductions and killings fuel sectarian violence convulsing the country.
Some officers were accused of abetting the violence by allowing the gunmen to
violate curfews and pass through checkpoints.
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