Sunnis wage online war over killings

[T_i_B]

I would recomend clicking on the link and reading the entire article for this one. And I must admit that I'm a bit woried that no mention is made of where this discussion actually is on the internet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/08/wirq08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/08/ixnews.html

A heated internet debate has developed among militant Sunnis over the tactic of murdering large numbers of Shia civilians. The outcome of the website exchanges could be crucial in deciding whether Iraq can pull back from the brink of civil war.

The discussions were prompted by a bomb attack last Saturday that killed at least 66 people in the Baghdad slum district of Sadr City. A statement claiming responsibility gave a sense of the bitterness felt by many Sunnis, now an angry minority in a country they used to dominate.

It said the bombing was carried out in response to the actions of Shia militias - the Mahdi Army, which dominates Sadr, and the Badr Brigade - which are accused of abducting and killing hundreds of Sunnis.

The statement, issued in the name of the hitherto-unknown Supporters of the Sunni People, said: "A day or two later their bodies are found in the streets after suffering various forms of torture, from the breaking of limbs, perforation by electric drills, burning with acid, gouging out their eyes and fingernails. Even after torturing them they do not give them a swift death by shooting them but leave them to die a slow death."

[magellan]

1. Wow

Here's more:

A contributor called Wahm said: "Those infidels, traitors and slaves of the English who wished ill on the Muslims, God has destroyed them and made them booty for the mujahideen."

But a contributor called Mo2 said: "Whoever committed this act wants to ignite the sectarian crisis again. The occupier will not be ousted by our fighting one another. Target the killers only and do not target civilians just because they are Shia."

Mo2's views were shared by Kattan: "If they are oppressors and killers, we do not have to be like them."

Stung by such liberal sentiments, Abu Mohammad, who posted the original message, hit back angrily: "This is just the beginning. The punishment will continue until the last dirty cockroach is slaughtered."

If such sentiments prevail, more deadly attacks are inevitable. So too is further action by the powerful Shia militias.

The split between the Sunnis is not a little ironic in that it amounts to the same split that exists between liberals and the RW here: the liberals see restraint is needed to stop further escalation, while the extremists label anyone unlike themselves as the enemy and vow to continue until total victory is theirs.

What a friggin' nightmare....

[MrPrax]

2. hitherto-unknown?

Interesting forum board they have over in Iraq. Luckily for us they post in English one presumes.


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Pro-US Shi'i sectarian militias burn 14 Sunni students with sulfuric acid, drill holes in their heads with electric drills. Families must bribe ambulance drivers to get bodies of tortured murdered loved ones.

In a dispatch posted at 8:55pm Makkah time Sunday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that fourteen bodies of Sunni youths who had been savagely tortured and murdered were delivered on Sunday to the Forensic Medicine Center in central Baghdad’s Bab al-Mu'azzam district.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported families of the victims area said that all 14 were college students who were about to finish up and graduate. But on Friday, 23 June, pro-American Shi'i sectarian militiamen, wearing the uniform of the American-backed Iraqi puppet army, arrested them from their homes in the predominantly Hur Rajab section of Baghdad and took them away.

Their bodies showed up Sunday in the Forensic Medicine Department where the medical experts issued a report saying that the victims had been burned with concentrated sulfuric acid and electric drills were used to punch holes in their skulls.

Uruknet from June 25, 2006

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"In one Sunni neighborhood, Sababkar, residents said the Iraqi Army surrounded the neighborhood and took away 11 of its Sunni men in July. Most of the bodies were found the next day; television stations here showed pictures of bodies that had been burned with acid and drilled with holes by electric drills. Most of the men had been shot in their temples.

"How did these killers get police uniforms?" Mr. Taha asked of the details surrounding many of the killings. "How was it that they were operating freely after curfew? That they had police cars?"

CommDreams reprint of a NYTimes story November 2005


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"International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." -- Bush
SOTU Address 2003


The outcome of the website exchanges could be crucial in deciding whether Iraq can pull back from the brink of civil war.
Oh and to think the situation was a little more complicated