Baghdad toll at 47 as sectarian attacks go on

[tocqueville]

By Alastair Macdonald
1 hour, 1 minute ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Forty-seven people were killed in Baghdad in the 24 hours since the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine sparked the worst sectarian violence the country has seen since the fall of Saddam Hussein, police said on Thursday.

Gunmen sprayed a Sunni mosque in the city of Baquba, northeast of the capital, killing one person in the latest of dozens of such incidents that have left religious and political leaders scrambling to halt a descent into all-out civil war.

Three journalists working for Al-Arabiya television were found shot dead after being attacked while filming in Samarra, where the bloodless but highly symbolic bombing of the Golden Mosque at dawn on Wednesday provoked widespread protest.

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest site, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects, including two Egyptians, from a prison in the mainly Shi'ite city of Basra and killed 11 of them.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060223/ts_nm/iraq_dc_26

[Erika]

1. As Nightline says, it is now Civil War n/t

[neweurope]

2. And the Cheney snake is hissing with glee.

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