Iraqi Tribal Leaders Are Kidnapped After Banding With U.S. Troops
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 -- Eleven tribal leaders who had banded with U.S. troops to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq were kidnapped Sunday morning, the latest in a string of similar attacks, fellow tribesmen said.
The Shiite and Sunni sheiks, members of the al-Salam Support Council, a group fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq in volatile Diyala province, were taken from their cars by gunmen as they returned home from a meeting in Baghdad with a government official, a tribesman said.
Hadi al-Anbaki, a spokesman for the mostly Shiite council, said the attack was carried out by the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "This was an ambush," Anbaki said.
The kidnapping highlighted the complex and quickly shifting nature of the bloodshed convulsing Iraq, with Shiite and Sunni groups increasingly targeting members of their own sects who align themselves with U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, Turkish troops reportedly killed 15 Kurdish separatist guerrillas in southeastern Turkey in the predominantly Kurdish province of Tunceli. The attack took place hundreds of miles from the increasingly tense border with northern Iraq, which Turkey has threatened to cross to root out the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a guerrilla group.
Violent attacks continued unabated across Iraq.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 -- Eleven tribal leaders who had banded with U.S. troops to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq were kidnapped Sunday morning, the latest in a string of similar attacks, fellow tribesmen said.
The Shiite and Sunni sheiks, members of the al-Salam Support Council, a group fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq in volatile Diyala province, were taken from their cars by gunmen as they returned home from a meeting in Baghdad with a government official, a tribesman said.
Hadi al-Anbaki, a spokesman for the mostly Shiite council, said the attack was carried out by the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "This was an ambush," Anbaki said.
The kidnapping highlighted the complex and quickly shifting nature of the bloodshed convulsing Iraq, with Shiite and Sunni groups increasingly targeting members of their own sects who align themselves with U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, Turkish troops reportedly killed 15 Kurdish separatist guerrillas in southeastern Turkey in the predominantly Kurdish province of Tunceli. The attack took place hundreds of miles from the increasingly tense border with northern Iraq, which Turkey has threatened to cross to root out the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a guerrilla group.
Violent attacks continued unabated across Iraq.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home