Stupid Taunting Leads To Rare Sunni-Shiite Battle In Baghdad Neighborhood
BAGHDAD — Sectarian clashes erupted today between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims, a rare outbreak of religious violence in a formerly volatile southern district of the capital, said security officials.
The violence in the religiously mixed Dora district left at least three civilians dead and 36 injured, almost all of them Shiite pilgrims, according to security and hospital officials.
The victims were among the thousands walking to the southern shrine city of Karbala to commemorate the religious holiday of Arbaeen. The gathering, which culminates Thursday, marks the 40th day after the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and the spiritual lynchpin of the Shiite faith.
Two members of the Shiite-dominated Ministry of Interior’s commando group were also injured in grenade explosions and a homemade-bomb attack.
Witnesses recovering at the capital’s Yarmouk hospital said suspected Sunni insurgents tossed grenades on walking pilgrims from a bridge over a road running through Dora toward Karbala.
Until six months ago, Dora was a major flashpoint of the sectarian warfare that killed nearly 100 Iraqi civilians a day. The bloodshed subsided after the addition of 28,500 U.S. troops in Baghdad and other volatile stretches of the country.
American forces also co-opted some Sunni militants, transforming former anti-government insurgents into neighborhood watch groups that confronted the most extreme elements in their ranks.
U.S. and Iraqi forces feared violence ahead of the annual pilgrimage to Karbala. More than 200 died in suicide attacks during religious festivities around the shrine city last year.
Some Sunnis in Dora said the Shiites provoked today’s fighting by chanting, “Damn the Sunnis. The highway is now ours,” as they marched through the area.
One leader of a U.S.-backed Sunni militia in Dora said in an interview today that the violence broke out Saturday evening after Sunnis complained to the Iraqi soldiers about the taunting.
“The army forces overreacted and had a serious brawl with the local residents,” said the leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Army forces started shooting randomly at locals.”
This morning, he said, pilgrims arrived accompanied by members of the Mahdi Army militia, a loosely organized Shiite group loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. Clashes broke out soon afterward, he said.
“It’s a big disgrace for Iraqis to kill each other like this,” said the Sunni militia leader. “We worked hard to secure this area.”
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