DAR AL ISLAM - IRAQ: A MOSQUE GETS BLOWN UP & THE WEST QUAKES IN ITS SHOES...WHY?!?!? IF MOSLEMS ARE GRIPPED BY A BLOOD LUST, LET THEM ACT IT OUT

Why do these 'pundits' automatically assume that it was Al Queda?!?

It could have been Iran...


More Violence after Iraq Mosque Bombing?

The second bombing of a holy Shiite shrine in Samarra has made the security situation in Iraq look more hopeless than ever -- but German commentators wonder whether al-Qaida has overplayed its hand.

In February 2006, it was the event the set off the tit-for-tat sectarian attacks in Iraq that have long-since blossomed into a low-grade civil war. The bombing of the mosque in Samarra, a Shiite holy shrine, led immediately to Shiite reprisals against the Sunnis -- and an intensified Sunni response. According to UN estimates, some 34,000 people have been killed in the bloodletting.

On Wednesday, almost 16 months after the first bombing, attackers struck the mosque again, toppling the two gold-plated minarets that remained. It is suspected that al-Qaida operatives were behind the attack, and at least three Sunni mosques were attacked near Baghdad on Thursday in apparent retaliation adding to the four bombed on Wednesday after the Samarra attack.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a leading Shiite cleric, condemned the attack but called for calm. Muqtada al-Sadr, another Shiite, called for peaceful demonstrations and a three-day period of mourning. But he also contradicted America's ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who said the bombing was "a deliberate attempt by al-Qaida to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife among the people of Iraq."

Sadr released a statement laying blame on the United States. "Let the Iraqi people be aware that no Sunni has attacked the shrine," read the statement, "but it is the occupation's hidden hand which wants bad things to happen to us."

Sadr also ordered his bloc of lawmakers to boycott participation in parliament as a gesture of protest. Though as German papers note on Thursday morning, the public statements from al-Sistani and al-Sadr to discourage more sectarian violence may be small reason for hope.

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Pertinent Links:

1) More Violence after Iraq Mosque Bombing?