Iraq: Parties Call For Calm After Golden Mosque Bombing

Security was tight in Ba'qubah today (AFP) The 22 February bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Shi'ite Islam's most holy sites, has profoudly shaken Iraq's sensitive Shi'ite-Sunni fault line. Political leaders from across the country have been scrambling to call for calm, even as a wave of anti-Sunni retaliatory violence swept over the country. The unrest comes as political leaders continue to try to forge a government more than two months after the country's December legislative elections.

PRAGUE, 23 February 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Iraqis today continued reacting -- often violently -- to the previous day's bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra.

The Interior and Defense ministries announced a nationwide state of alert late on 22 February, Al-Sharqiyah television reported. The alert went into effect at 6 a.m. on 23 February and requires all off-duty security forces personnel to return to their posts.

Extended curfew hours -- from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. -- have also been put into place in Baghdad and other cities.

Call For Unity

Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), called on Iraqis to unite to drive terrorism from the country at a 22 February press briefing in Baghdad, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reported.

"There must be unity among Iraq, the Arab nation, the Islamic nation, the Islamic peoples, and Arab peoples to produce a unified bloc against terrorism, which is a dangerous disease in Iraq," al-Hakim said.

Al-Hakim stressed that any disruption to the process of trying to form a national-unity government must be temporary.

"Dialogues are supposed to continue," al-Hakim said. "Of course, Sunnis, Shi'ites, and political blocs are grief-stricken.... We cannot continue our dialogue in a normal manner while we suffer from this calamity."

Al-Hakim also commented on remarks by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on 20 February urging Shi'a to form a national-unity government.

"The ambassador's remarks were not made responsibly...," al-Hakim said. "These statements were a reason for more pressure and for giving a green light to terrorist groups. Consequently, [Khalilzad] shoulders part of the responsibility."

Calls For Protection For Sunnis

The Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front said it would not attend a 23 February meeting called by President Jalal Talabani to discuss an easing of tensions, RFI reported.

Iyad al-Samarra'i, a senior official with the front told Reuters that the front boycotted the meeting after the government failed to protect Sunni mosques from the violence that broke out across Iraq following the Samarra bombing.

At least 54 Sunnis, including three imams, have been killed in reprisal attacks across Iraq in the past 24 hours, Iraqi officials announced on 23 February.

In Al-Basrah, gunmen wearing police uniforms stormed a prison and dragged out 11 Sunni Arab detainees who were all later found dead of gunshot wounds. Egyptian and Saudi nationals were among the detainees killed, Al-Jazeera television reported on 22 February.

Tariq al-Hashimi, the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said at a 22 February press briefing in Baghdad that Sunni Arabs were under siege in Iraq after Shi'a launched retaliatory attacks in a number of cities, RFI reported.

At Least 50 Sunni Mosques Attacked

Al-Hashimi said at least 29 Sunni mosques had been attacked across Iraq. According to the latest media reports, that number is now at least 50.

Tariq al-Hashimi (RFE/RL)

"All types of weapons, including rockets and hand grenades were used in the attacks," he said.

The Al-Basrah office of the Iraqi Islamic Party was attacked by some 700 people, al-Hashimi said, charging that police had aided the demonstrators in setting fire to the building. He said the party's Baghdad office in Al-Rasafah was occupied by a mob and later burned to the ground, and he blamed the government for failing to provide protection to Sunnis.

"We told [the authorities]: 'You are responsible for security in the country and the situation is getting out of control. This crisis must be contained,'" al-Hashimi said. "Despite these appeals, attacks on mosques increased with time."

The Sunni-led Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, another party in the Iraqi Accordance Front, said in a 22 February statement read by Salih al-Mutlaq that the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra was carried out by parties that have "absolutely nothing in common with Islam and Muslims," Al-Sharqiyah television reported.

"We will not be divided by such criminal and spineless acts that seek to rattle Iraq's security and endanger the lives of innocent Iraqis," the statement said.

The front called on the people of Iraq and the Arab and Islamic world "to stand as one in the face of these vile conspiracies, whose only goal is to destroy the homeland and security of its people."