al Qaida assassinates Shi'ite Ayatollah

[HershOstropoler]

German protestants are mostly in the EKD, which comprises reformed, lutheran, and unified. Besides that there's a dozen or so free churches, which are quite small.

[Dinner]

So there is actually a unified protestant church hiearchy in Germany?

[HershOstropoler]

"Hierarchy" is too strong a word. It's a common institution for 24 regional protestant churches with 26 million members. Excluding roman catholic and orthodox, there are 360000 other christians, mostly protestant.

[Ned]

Originally posted by germanos
I get the feeling al-Qaeda is being used to find a scapegoat: nothing works better to rally people behind a single goal/nation/leader than a foreign enemy.

....

One should be very carefull not to put blame on al-Qaeda at an instant, since it may well obscure ones view on the situation.

Al-Qaeda being the culprit here sounds way to convenient. The fact that some Saudi's and /or Palestinians being arrested sounds more like Xenophobia.

This post is consistent with the media's party line 'til now. This act was, according to media spin, Shi'ite on Shi'ite violence in a power struggle among Ayatollahs. However, the attack appears to have been carried out by al Qaida - this is a third in such major attacks by that group: the Jordanian embassy, UN HQ in Iraq, and now the Ali Shrine and the Ayatollah Hakim.

Will Arab media report this accurately, or will it blame the attack on "unknowns" and then blame Bush and America for lack of security? It appears, 'til now, that the anti- American party line is prevailing:

From the most recent story http://apnews.excite.com/article/200...D7T8RMI00.html

"However, many Shiites blame the cleric's death on Saddam Hussein loyalists and the U.S.-led coalition, which they say has failed to provide adequate security in the country since the dictator's fall.

"Saddam and Bush will not humiliate us," read another banner."

[Dinner]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
"Hierarchy" is too strong a word.

Give me a break on the spelling man. It's 3am here.

[HershOstropoler]

Sure, but don't expect me to copy your spelling. (the quotation marks are there because it's about the term, not your spelling. I'm not even 100 % sure my spelling is correct.)

Edit it back, that's ridiculous.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Ned


This post is consistent with the media's party line 'til now. This act was, according to media spin, Shi'ite on Shi'ite violence in a power struggle among Ayatollahs. However, the attack appears to have been carried out by al Qaida - this is a third in such major attacks by that group: the Jordanian embassy, UN HQ in Iraq, and now the Ali Shrine and the Ayatollah Hakim.

Will Arab media report this accurately, or will it blame the attack on "unknowns" and then blame Bush and America for lack of security? It appears, 'til now, that the anti- American party line is prevailing:

From the most recent story http://apnews.excite.com/article/200...D7T8RMI00.html

"However, many Shiites blame the cleric's death on Saddam Hussein loyalists and the U.S.-led coalition, which they say has failed to provide adequate security in the country since the dictator's fall.

"Saddam and Bush will not humiliate us," read another banner."

[off topic]Good God, what an incoherent piece of writing. Jumping back and forth at will [/off topic]

To say it was an al-Queda attack, based only on information from

a senior Iraqi investigator ... speaking on condition of anonymity.

is pretty bold. Who is the police anyway in Najaf? Suddenly the Iraqi police is a reliable source? How?

"They are all connected to al-Qaida," the official said.

How do you establish that on such short notice?

The bomb at the Imam Ali shrine - the burial place of the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad - was made from the same type of materials used in the Aug. 19 truck bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 23 people, and the Jordanian Embassy vehicle bombing Aug. 7, which killed 19, the Iraqi official said.

...

The FBI said the U.N. bomb was built from ordnance left over from Saddam's regime, most of it made in the Soviet Union. Many explosives were wired together, including a 500-pound Soviet-era bomb, the agency said.

Sounds to me that anyone who wants to plant a bomb somewhere in Iraq would make use of these, probably not to difficult to obtain, explosives.

The article fails to produce any evidence the Embassy and UN bombs are linked however, so the claim all three are connected is a bit premature, I would think.

[:) Smiley]

If they are though, whoever does it hates the UN, hates other Arabs, and hates other Muslims. That doesn't leave one much of a support base.

[GePap]

Well, i was right that this was not an Iranina attempt to undermine the US and moderates in Iraq.

The million dollar question is what the Shi'ite response is, if any, becuase getting a violent response out of the Shi'ia is probably one of the expectations behind this attack. If factional fighting starts, Sunni's would have to decide whether to trust the US, which would posotion itself as a fair arbitrer, or move towards their "champions" in the old Baathits and Al qaeda. At the same time, it undermines trusts between Shi'ia and the Occupation.

Lets hop factional fighting is NOT the end result.

[Ned]

Well, GePap, the Iraqi's are demanding their own security force - or else.

"The attack, coupled with the repeated assaults on Americans and Iraqis here, has prompted leaders of several political parties to declare that they have lost confidence in the ability of the Americans to protect their leaders and sacred places.

Today, they began to demand that Iraqis become more involved in security. Indeed, some political leaders said they might be unable to keep their own followers from moving against their enemies, especially if the attacks continued.

"The knife is at our neck," Said Nael Musawi, a Shiite religious leader, told a group of American soldiers guarding the gate of the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as thousands of demonstrators swirled about them. "I don't know how much longer I can control my people."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/international/worldspecial/31IRAQ.html?th