Gunmen kill 56 in grisly Iraq hostage siege

[marmar]

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press – 34 mins ago

BAGHDAD – Wearing military uniforms over explosives belts, gunmen held a local Iraqi government center hostage Tuesday in a grisly siege that ended with the deaths of at least 56 people, including three councilmen who were executed with gunshots to the head.

The five-hour standoff in Tikrit, former dictator Saddam Hussein's home town, ended only when the attackers blew themselves up in one of the bloodiest days in Iraq this year.

First they set fire to the bodies of the three slain Salahuddin province councilmen in a brutal, defiant show of how insurgents still render Iraq unstable — even if it has so far escaped the political unrest rolling across the Arab world.

"Why did they shoot him and set fire to his poor body?" said Salahuddin government spokesman Mohammed al-Asi, trying not to weep when confirming the killing of lawmaker Mehdi al-Aaran, an elderly man who headed the council's religious affairs committee. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. The war in Iraq isn't over, it's just taking a little rest.

[sabrina 1]

2. Horrible.

But that whole war has been nothing but hell on earth from day one. May all those slaughtered in that country R.I.P.

But this sentence struck me from the article about Iraq:

even if it has so far escaped the political unrest rolling across the Arab world.

This is completely false. Last week protesters in Iraq, announcing their nationwide protest as a 'Day of Rage', went out to peacefully demonstrate against their government. The government brutally cracked down on them, killing 29 protesters and throwing untold numbers of them in jail.

Odd how this story has been virtually ignored here in the U.S. media. Those Iraqis were inspired by the other revolutions and although they were not demanding the government step down, they were demanding an end to corruption, jobs, and all the other promises made that have not been kept.

What the crackdown demonstrated was that there is no 'democracy' in Iraq, a fact noted by one of the protesters who stated that while he had not initially asked for the government to step down, he may have to add that to his list of demands.

Silence on Iraq's protests in the U.S. We clearly are not interested in their 'human rights'. But then, were we ever?