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19 dead in violent attacks near Baghdad
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-03 21:09
Gunmen stormed an electricity substation and slaughtered
Shiite factory workers in separate attacks during a night of carnage that killed
at least 19 people in Baghdad's southeastern suburbs, police said Friday. The
attacks raised the toll from Thursday's violence to 58.
A U.S. soldier stands guard on an armored
vehicle, as an Iraqi civilian waits at a check point, in Baghdad, Iraq,
Friday, March 3, 2006. [AP] |
Iraqi police and soldiers took to the streets Friday to enforce a daytime ban
on private vehicles in an effort to blunt a surge of sectarian violence that has
pushed Iraq to the edge of civil war.
The assault began as a series of mortar shells slammed into the Nahrawan
power station, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majed said. Half an hour later, dozens of
gunmen arrived and set fire to the generating facility. Security guards returned
fire, and the Iraqi police and army sent in reinforcements, he said.
At least nine people were killed and three injured in the gunbattle, police
Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said. He identified the victims as guards and technicians
at the facility but did not know if any attackers were killed or wounded.
In the adjacent Maamil suburb, gunmen killed 10 Shiite southerners employed
at a brick factory as they slept in their shacks, said Maj. Falah
al-Mohammedawi, an Interior Ministry official. Police believed the gunmen may
have been part of the same group that attacked the power station, he said.
The government imposed the vehicle ban Friday in a bid to avert more attacks
on the day Muslims congregate in large numbers for the most important prayer
service of the week.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari warned preachers not to incite hatred or
violence in their sermons, threatening them with "severe measures."
"Our hope is that Friday sermons be sermons of unity," al-Jaafari said in a
statement late Thursday. "The street is angry and they should know how to calm
the people and reassure them that the government will do all it can to pass
through this period."
Security forces sealed off Baghdad, preventing most vehicles from entering or
leaving the city of 7 million, said Capt. Adil Mohan of the traffic police.
Armed police and soldiers in bulletproof vests manned checkpoints across the
capital, preventing most cars and motorcycles from leaving their neighborhoods.
Militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were also out in
force in the teeming Shiite slum known as Sadr City, helping police check cars
and patrol the area.
The collaboration was likely to raise alarm among Sunni Arabs, who accuse
followers of the firebrand cleric of numerous attacks against them in recent
days. U.S. officials have also been pressing for the disbanding of private
militias.
Downtown was largely deserted. Most shops and gas stations were closed,
though small neighborhood groceries stayed open. Dozens of young boys turned
parts of Baghdad's usually busy Saadoun Street into improvised soccer fields,
looking clearly unhappy when the odd car disrupted their games.
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