Is it a civil war yet?

[ChumpDumper]

Attack on Baghdad Shiite slum kills 160

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 42 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the deadliest attack on a sectarian enclave since the beginning of the
Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used five car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 160 people and wound 257 on Thursday, police said.

The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya, killing one person and wounding 14 people in an attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad. It blew a three-foot hole in the dome and did severe damage to some inside rooms.

Eight mortar rounds fired in Baghdad also slammed into the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni organization in the country, causing no injuries, police.

Beginning at 3:10 p.m., the three suicide car bomb attackers in Sadr City blew up their vehicles one after another, at 15 minute intervals, hitting Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square. At about the same time, two mortar rounds struck al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, said police Col. Hassan Challoub.

Two other parked car bombs exploded around the same time, one at the edge of Sadr City and another behind the main office of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Challoub said. A sixth car bomb was detected and detonated out of harm's way by Iraqi police, he said.

As the fiery explosions sent up huge plumes of black smoke up over northeastern Baghdad, and left streets covered with burning bodies and blood, angry residents and armed Shiite militiamen flooded the streets, hurling curses at Sunni Muslims and firing weapons into the air.

Sadr City is the home of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.

Ambulances raced to burning wooden fruit and vegetables stalls in Jamila market to rescue dozens of wounded people. Rescue workers also removed burned bodies from mangled cars and minibuses and took them away on wheeled carts. But many other corpses of adults and children remained in the streets.

Shortly after the attack, Mahdi Army militiamen deployed around the area, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks in the area to keep all strangers away.

Challoub said the coordinated attack killed 160 Iraqis and wounded 257.

The government imposed a curfew on Baghdad beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday, saying that all people and vehicles must stay off the streets of the city until further notice. The government also closed Baghdad International Airport to all commercial flights, said Brig. Abdul-Karin Khalaf, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

In addition, top government officials held an emergency meeting at the home of Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim that also was attended by Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, an aide to al-Hakim said.

Afterward, the three Iraqi officials appeared on national television, with al-Hashimi reading a statement from them calling for calm and self-restraint and urging politicians to work hard to reduce sectarian tensions. "We call for a revision of the government's existing security plans for Baghdad to better protect innocent civilians," he said.

The coordinated attack was the deadliest in Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in March 2003.

It surpassed a bombing in the southern city of Hillah that targeted mostly Shiite police and National Guard recruits, killing 125 and wounding more than 140 in February 2004. On March 2, 2004, coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives struck Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing a total of at least 181 Iraqis and wounding 573. But that attack occurred in two separate cities.

Police Col. Hassan Chaloub said at least 150 people were killed and 238 wounded in Thursday's attack.

Sectarian fighting also broke in another part of northern Iraq on Thursday, when 30 Sunni insurgents armed with machine guns and mortars attacked the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building. After a three-hour battle, during which Iraqi soldiers and U.S. military helicopters intervened, the attackers were repulsed. But at least seven guards of the ministry were wounded, said police 1st. Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq.

The Sadr City and Health Ministry attacks were the latest example of widespread sectarian fighting involving Sunnis and Shiites that is leaving Iraq either on the verge of a civil war or already fighting one.

At about noon Thursday, heavy clashes broke out between about suspected Sunni insurgent gunmen and guards at the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building in northwest Baghdad, security officials said.

State-run Iraqiyah television said the Health Ministry was being attacked with mortars by "terrorists who are intending to take control of the building."

Security officials said about 30 gunmen, believed to be Sunni insurgents, had launched the attack. Iraqi troops were being rushed to the area and all roads leading to the ministry in Bab al-Muadham neighborhood were closed, said the security officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

Police Lt. Ali Muhsin said the attack began at 12:15 p.m. when three mortar s s hit the building, causing damage. After that, gunmen on the upper floors of surrounding buildings opened fire.

Ministry workers were trapped in the building.

"The gunmen fled as American helicopters and Iraqi armored vehicles arrived. Employees were able to leave starting about 3:15 p.m.," Health ministry spokesman Qassim Yehyah said.

Health Minister Ali al-Shemari is a follower of al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier also had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.

The raid was the fourth in six days that coalition forces have raided Sadr City, which is home to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.

The militia is suspected of having kidnapped U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident as he was was visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on Oct. 23.

The Mahdi Army also is suspected of having kidnapped scores of people during the raid on a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad on Nov. 14. The ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab.

In the raid on Sadr City at about 4:30 a.m., coalition forces searched houses and opened fire on a minivan carrying Iraqi workers in the al-Fallah Street area, killing four of them and wounding eight, said police Capt. Mohammed Ismail. Iraqis often pay a small fee to crowd such vehicles and travel early in the morning to sites where they hope to get work as day laborers.

Ismail said the coalition raid also detained five Iraqis.

In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed the raid and said it was conducted in the continuing effort to find al-Taayiean. It confirm the detention of five Iraqis and that a vehicle was shot at by Iraqi forces after "displaying hostile intent." But the coalition did not report Iraqi casualties.

In another development, the U.S. military on Thursday reported the deaths of three Marines who were killed while fighting in Anbar province, where many Sunni-Arab insurgents are based.

So far this month, 52 American service members have been killed or died.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061123/...q_061123185117

If it's not a civil war, what exactly would it take to call it one?

[Bob Lanier]

WTF are you talking about? The Civil War killed over 558,000 of our troops - the Iraq
liberation has yet to cost us 3,000. I know every one of those heroes' lives is a tragedy,
but have some goddamn perspective. Every one of those deaths was knowingly and
honorably given in defense of the Homeland and in the hope that the trillions and trillions
of Iraqi sperm are not mindlessly butchered by an evil tyrant but live out their potential
lives in the peace and freedoms spoiled lieberals like you take for granted - buying
American cars, watching American television, and selling Americans oil on the free market.

You have to break a bunch of eggs to properly glaze a donut, and to say otherwise is
delusional and racist. The best way to honor and give thanks to our troops is to honor and
support their mission - not to exaggerate their suffering in an attempt to force them
to suffer the shame of a retreat. This is no more a "civil war" than the quarantine areas
at Guandanmo bay are Buchenwald and Auschwitz - oh wait, the Dimmocraps are
claiming that too! I guess when there's a fascist under every bed and a
"big government" agent over every shoulder and not one of them working on behalf of
We The People then everything's blown out of proportion But while you're cheering
for the deaths of "those babykillers" in uniform who are better men than you'll ever
be, I can promise you that they'll be coming back, and this time you'll be the only one spitting
on them because they'll have freed every Arab from the Mediterranean to the Chinese
border without racking up even a tenth of the casualties they suffered in the Civil War.

So cheer on your traitor s , but I think most of THIS 600,000 will outlive you and
piss on YOUR grave.

I really have to stop drinking so much. That wasn't even funny the second time around.

[bendmz]

WTF are you talking about? The Civil War killed over 558,000 of our troops - the Iraq
liberation has yet to cost us 3,000. I know every one of those heroes' lives is a tragedy,
but have some goddamn perspective. Every one of those deaths was knowingly and
honorably given in defense of the Homeland and in the hope that the trillions and trillions
of Iraqi sperm are not mindlessly butchered by an evil tyrant but live out their potential
lives in the peace and freedoms spoiled lieberals like you take for granted - buying
American cars, watching American television, and selling Americans oil on the free market.

You have to break a bunch of eggs to properly glaze a donut, and to say otherwise is
delusional and racist. The best way to honor and give thanks to our troops is to honor and
support their mission - not to exaggerate their suffering in an attempt to force them
to suffer the shame of a retreat. This is no more a "civil war" than the quarantine areas
at Guandanmo bay are Buchenwald and Auschwitz - oh wait, the Dimmocraps are
claiming that too! I guess when there's a fascist under every bed and a
"big government" agent over every shoulder and not one of them working on behalf of
We The People then everything's blown out of proportion But while you're cheering
for the deaths of "those babykillers" in uniform who are better men than you'll ever
be, I can promise you that they'll be coming back, and this time you'll be the only one spitting
on them because they'll have freed every Arab from the Mediterranean to the Chinese
border without racking up even a tenth of the casualties they suffered in the Civil War.

So cheer on your traitor s , but I think most of THIS 600,000 will outlive you and
piss on YOUR grave.

I really have to stop drinking so much. That wasn't even funny the second time around.

[spurster]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...001442_pf.html

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; A12

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

...

[Burly_Man]

WTF are you talking about? The Civil War killed over 558,000 of our troops - the Iraq
liberation has yet to cost us 3,000. I know every one of those heroes' lives is a tragedy,
but have some goddamn perspective. Every one of those deaths was knowingly and
honorably given in defense of the Homeland and in the hope that the trillions and trillions
of Iraqi sperm are not mindlessly butchered by an evil tyrant but live out their potential
lives in the peace and freedoms spoiled lieberals like you take for granted - buying
American cars, watching American television, and selling Americans oil on the free market.

You have to break a bunch of eggs to properly glaze a donut, and to say otherwise is
delusional and racist. The best way to honor and give thanks to our troops is to honor and
support their mission - not to exaggerate their suffering in an attempt to force them
to suffer the shame of a retreat. This is no more a "civil war" than the quarantine areas
at Guandanmo bay are Buchenwald and Auschwitz - oh wait, the Dimmocraps are
claiming that too! I guess when there's a fascist under every bed and a
"big government" agent over every shoulder and not one of them working on behalf of
We The People then everything's blown out of proportion But while you're cheering
for the deaths of "those babykillers" in uniform who are better men than you'll ever
be, I can promise you that they'll be coming back, and this time you'll be the only one spitting
on them because they'll have freed every Arab from the Mediterranean to the Chinese
border without racking up even a tenth of the casualties they suffered in the Civil War.

So cheer on your traitor s , but I think most of THIS 600,000 will outlive you and
piss on YOUR grave.

I really have to stop drinking so much. That wasn't even funny the second time around.

How many Iraqis have died since the start of this Desert Adventure?

[whottt]

It's more like a religious gangwar...

And so what if it is a Civil War?

Their perogative.

Remember, Islam is a relgion of peace.

[whottt]

Bump...

[ChumpDumper]

And so what if it is a Civil War?

Their perogative.

Our soldiers.

I shouldn't expect you to care about them.

[whottt]

Our soldiers.

I shouldn't expect you to care about them.

True...that draft was an evil thing.

[ChumpDumper]

So you have no trouble seeing our soldiers die unnecessarily as long as they are volunteers. You truly have no shame.

Pathetic.

[whottt]

So you molest children...

Sickening.

[ChumpDumper]

Change the subject much?

Sorry I upset you so much by pointing out how little you value American lives.

[whottt]

Sorry I upset you by pointing out how you violate children.


Demonization...love it.

[ChumpDumper]

Hey, they were your words. You didn't deny them.

[whottt]

I get tired of your elementary attempts to put me on the defensive....it's a poor subs ute for a coherent argument...it's trite, lame, and it's never worked on me....still you try.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah, but you still didn't deny those words. It just fits your general disdain for life, so we can just leave it at that.

[whottt]

You haven't denied being a pedophile either....way to kick your own ass.

[ChumpDumper]

There was nothing I wrote that suggested it, and it was obviously a lame attempt by you to change the subject. Since you just made it up out of nothing, there was no need to respond.

[whottt]

And just when you thought he had kicked his own ass as badly as humanly possible.....



Sincerely, 90% of the arguments you have ever had with anyone on this board, you .

[whottt]

bump

[ChumpDumper]

Well, I was hoping you'd actually respond to that to reassure me that you put some value on our soldiers' lives, but I understand it's more important to you to make up lies about me. I'm not what you claimed; seems it would be simple for you to refute my claim as well.

[whottt]

Took you long enough....


I notice you still haven't denied it...therefore it must be true[/chumpology101]

[ChumpDumper]

I'm not what you claimed

RIF, dip .

[whottt]

That could mean any number of things since I have claimed you are many things...both in all seriousness and in jest...

A little more specificity here would be appropro....


Ped.

[whottt]

Bump....


Run out of energy?


Exactly why you don't need to be giving advice on wars.


I'll give you some time to recupperate...lightweight.