Arrests Made in Mosque Bombing

Newsday.com
By Borzou Daragahi
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
August 30, 2003, 9:58 PM EDT

Najaf, Iraq -- Iraqis here arrested at least four men Saturday in the bombing that killed Iraq's top Shia Muslim cleric. One report said 19 men linked to the al-Qaida network, many of them foreign Arabs, had been rounded up.

U.S. military forces had four men in custody who were initially picked up by Iraqi police or local residents. A senior Iraqi investigator quoted by the Associated Press said those four -- two Iraqis and two Saudis -- gave information that led to the arrest of 15 others. Those detained also included Kuwaitis and Palestinians, the official said.

The Iraqi investigator said the suspects were adherents of the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, a movement that dominates Saudi Arabia and that has energized Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida movement. But U.S. officials did not immediately confirm those details.

<snip>

Many Shias so far have been tolerant of the U.S.-led occupation, largely because the Americans toppled Hussein's Baath Party regime, a great oppressor of Shias. But they blamed America for failing to establish security in Iraq and letting the bombing take place. Some young mourners chanted, "Down with America, down with Israel and down with Baathists."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wonaja0831,0,7978363.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

...19.

Is there any signifigance to the number 19? Why does it keep popping up in association with "captured terrorists" after those "19" involved with 911? Is it magic? Or is it the highest plausible number involving a 1 and a 9?

Also the 19 in Canada.

some were from the baath party (Iraqis)
some were from Saudi Arabia
some were from Kuwait
some were from Palestine

Could it be that our enemies are growing?

Could it be that AWOL is making us a lot
more unsafe in the world?

My bet is on it's a lie. Something is very fishy about this incident. Still no one claiming responsibility. I guess the coalition can't decide who to blame it on.

approaching it from a position of doubt (a view I feel myself often comfortable with), there are plenty of reasons for suspicion:--angry crowd outside, tense situation, air of powerlessness..

Round up some Usual Suspects, tell the bosses what they want to hear and buy some time with the tense crowd, putting forth the lie that the people running this show AREN'T totally impotent, even though nobody could protect even the most powerful Shia leader in Iraq outside the most revered location in Iraq.. :shrug:

Since this Ayatollah was known to be one of the moderate Shia voices and a probably candidate for leadership in the future Iraqi government, wouldn't it have made sense to put a retinue of (disguised) US Special Ops guys around him, to make sure something like this didn't happen?

How much would it have cost in lives and treasure compared to the cost of preventing a Shia-Sunni Civil War (if it CAN be prevented at all)?

This is just more evidence that the Bushies simply cannot DO democracy. They don't know the first thing about running a government so that the majority of the people live in a secure, working infrastructure.

They can't even keep the infrastructure we have in America from falling apart. Why should we trust them to transition Iraq to a blooming democracy a la Germany post-WW2?

Was he sitting on a well-head?