Baghdad daytime curfew ends, but fears remain

[shugah]

Baghdad daytime curfew ends, but fears remain
Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:57 AM ET13

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities on Monday lifted a curfew in Baghdad imposed to halt a sectarian bloodbath caused by the bombing of a Shi'ite holy site, but a mortar attack that killed four people kept fears of civil war alive.

As traffic returned and shopkeepers removed padlocks to open for business, the city waited to see whether the three-day daylight curfew had ended Iraq's gravest postwar crisis.

~snip~

"We are happy. It seems this crisis created by fanatic infidels has ended," said Ali Jabr, who owns a small store in central Baghdad's Tahrir Square, which had been closed off to traders who flock there every day from outlying cities.

Tensions between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs had led Iraqi leaders, still trying to form a government after a December 15 poll, to voice civil war fears for the first time.

The daytime curfew may have bottled up sectarian rage but not all was calm at the weekend. Mortar fire killed 15 people and shooting erupted around two Baghdad mosques on Sunday.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-27T125747Z_01_MAC231520_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&archived=False

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. THE DAYTIME curfews were not lifted- they failed because everyone

simply ignored them.

The only reason that violence decreased is because the religious leaders asked for calm. The daytime curfew was a complete failure.

What does that tell you about the radically diminshing control and power the US has outside of the green zone? Yes, we have air superiority, but we control or create peace over little or none of the country. I wonder how Condi will spin this good news.

[gratuitous]

2. "It seems this crisis . . . has ended"

Yeah, maybe the fanatic infidels "forgot" what they were so mad about over the last four days.

[Village Idiot]

3. Am I alone in wondering...

if there is a tie-in between the British troops masquerading as Iraqi insurgents last year (remember the "prison break?") and the initial mosque bombing / resulting hysteria?

I just find it strange that this stuff just "erupted" out of thin air...

Have Sunni extremists been attacking Shia mosques all along and vice-versa, or have I just been missing the reports?

It seems really odd, and WRONG in a fundemental way, that's all...

I'll go get a new AFB, I suppose. Perhaps the one I have on is not working correctly.