Al-Askari Mosque bombing
Encyclopedia
This article is about the bombing that took place in 2006. For the later bombing see 2007 al-Askari Mosque bombing
The 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing occurred at the al-Askari Mosque
in the Iraq
i city of Samarra
, on February 22, 2006, at about 6:55 a.m. local time (0355 UTC
). The attack on the mosque
, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, is believed to have been caused by Al-Qaeda in Iraq
. Although no injuries occurred in the blasts, the mosque was severely damaged.
The bombing was followed by retaliatory violence with over a hundred dead bodies being found the next day and well over 1,000 people killed in the days following the bombing – by some counts, over 1,000 on the first day alone.
On February 22, 2006, at 6:55 a.m. (0355 UTC), explosions occurred at al-Askari Mosque, effectively destroying its gold
en dome
and severely damaging the mosque. Several men, one wearing military uniforms, had earlier entered the mosque, tied up the guards there and set explosives, resulting in the blast. Two bombs were set off by five to seven men dressed as personnel of the Iraqi special forces
who entered the shrine during the morning.
No injuries were reported following the bombing. However, the northern wall of the shrine was damaged by the bombs, causing the dome to collapse and destroying three-quarters of the structure along with it.
Following the blast, American and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody.
The dome had been repaired by April 2009 and the shrine reopened to visitors.
denied any involvement in statements released, in June 2006, it was reported that Iraqi commandos and troops had captured and seriously wounded Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, a Tunisian also known as Abu Qudama al-Tunesi, after he and 15 other foreign fighters stormed an Iraqi checkpoint 25 miles north of Baghdad, according to Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.
Abu Qudama confessed to taking part in the attack on al-Askari mosque in Samarra and gave a detailed account of how the attack took place. Al-Rubaie said Iraqi security forces had yet to capture the mastermind of the mosque attack, Haitham al-Badri
, an Iraqi and leader of one of Al Qaeda in Iraq's cells. Al-Rubaie said al-Badri, Abu Qudama, four Saudi nationals and two other Iraqis stormed the mosque Feb. 21, rounded up the shrine's guards, members of Iraq's Facility Protection Service, and bound their hands. The group then spent the rest of the night rigging the mosque with bombs. At dawn the next day, they detonated the explosives, bringing down the dome.
In an August 2006 press conference U.S. President
George W. Bush
stated "it's pretty clear – at least the evidence indicates – that the bombing of the shrine was an Al Qaida plot, all intending to create sectarian violence." Before his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
listed among his goals the incitement of a civil war between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis.
In September 2006, Iraqi officials announced the capture of Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi
in connection with the bombing, allegedly done on his orders by Haitham al-Badri.
Al-Badri was killed in August 2007.
has said that as of February 23, 2006, 168 Mosques had been attacked. They also stated that ten imam
s had been murdered and fifteen others kidnapped since the attack on the Samarra Shrine. The Shi'ite controlled Interior Ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.
has urged Iraqis to stay unified and peaceful, saying the attack was an effort to incite violence. He has also called for three days of national mourning. However, talks between him and a prominent Sunni Muslim group are put on hold as the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front
quits discussions on forming a new government due to the recent violence. At the same time, a government organization called the Sunni Endowments that maintains Sunni mosques and shrines condemned the attack. On Feb 25, al-Jaafari blamed terrorists for the crisis: "The Iraqi people have one enemy; it is terrorism and only terrorism... There are no Sunnis against Shiites or Shiites against Sunnis."
Despite the Sunni boycott, President Jalal Talabani
pressed ahead with a meeting that he had called to avert a descent toward a civil war. After discussions with Shiites, Kurds and leaders of a smaller Sunni group, he warned about the danger of all-out war.
The government is extending a curfew it imposed in parts of the country on Friday to calm tensions sparked by an attack on a Shia shrine.
Iraqi defence minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi
warned about the danger of a long civil war. Also, he said that Iraq would not hesitate to dispatch tanks to the streets to end violence and impose security. The minister also denied any involvement by what he called Interior Ministry commandos in the attack that targeted Harith Sulayman al-Dari, leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars
.
Sunni and Shiite clerics in Iraq have agreed to prohibit killings and to ban attacks on each other's mosques in an effort to ease sectarian violence.
warned about the threat of civil war and expressed support for the Iraqi government. On February 25, Bush called seven Iraqi political leaders in an extraordinary round of telephone diplomacy aimed at getting talks restarted about forming a permanent government. On February 28, Bush decried the latest surge in sectarian violence and said that for Iraqis "the choice is chaos or unity." In congressional testimony, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte
said a civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's Sunni and Shiite powers against one another.
UK Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw
called the bombing a "criminal and sacrilegious act", urging Iraqis to show restraint and avoid retaliation.
Zalmay Khalilzad
, Washington's ambassador to Iraq, and the top US commander in the country, Gen. George Casey, issued a joint statement saying the US would contribute to the shrine's reconstruction.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has laid blame on the United States and coalition forces. "They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.
sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad, and calling for seven days of mourning. He hinted that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government was incapable of protecting holy shrines.
On February 25 Sistani called for Iraq’s powerful tribes to be deployed to protect the country’s holy places after three attacks on Shia shrines in four days: "Ayatollah Sistani, who received a tribal delegation from Kufa, asked that the Iraqi tribes reclaim their role of protecting the shrines,” said an official in Sistani’s office in the Shia clerical center of Najaf.... After the crimes against the places of worship, including the blowing up of the mausoleum in Samarra and the attacks against the tombs of Salman the Persian
and Imam Ali bin Mussa al-Rida, the tribes must take a stand and claim a role in the protection of these sites."
Muqtada al-Sadr
condemned the attack and called for calm. Having called to stop mutual attacks, Sadr ordered members of his militia to protect Sunni mosques in majority Shia areas in southern Iraq. He called for Iraqi unity and warned against "a plan by the occupation to spark a sectarian war". He called on Sunni groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars
to form a joint panel and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.
On February 25 Sunni and Shiite clerics agreed to prohibit killing members of the two sects and banning attacks on each other's mosques in an effort to ease tension between Iraq's Muslim communities following sectarian violence after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine. The agreement was made during a meeting between representatives of radical Shiite cleric Sadr, Shiite religious leader Jawad al-Khalisi and members of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars at the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a Sunni place of worship.
According to Juan Cole, three Iraqi clerics all employed their influence and authority among the Shiite rank and file to make the Samarra bombing work for them politically. Sistani expanded his militia and stayed at the forefront of the movement by encouraging peaceful rallies. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
used the explosion in Samarra to bolster his own authority. He remonstrated with the American ambassador, saying it was not reasonable to expect the religious Shiites, who won the largest bloc of seats in parliament, to give up their claim on the ministry of interior, and that, indeed, Khalilzad had helped provoke the troubles with his assertions to that effect earlier. Muqtada al-Sadr
used the incident to push for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, something he has wanted since the fall of Saddam. Abroad, Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei blamed Bush and his Israeli allies, an allegation widely believed to be true in Iraq.
urged Shi'ites not to take revenge on Sunni Muslims for the attack on the Samarra shrine.
a leading Shia cleric from Lucknow
, India
held al-Qaeda
responsible for destruction of the Al-Askari Mosque
in Samarra
, Iraq
.
," former CIA Middle East
specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht
told CNN. "It risks our entire enterprise in Iraq."
"We may be on the verge of taking communal violence to the next level," warned Juan Cole
, professor of Middle-Eastern history at the University of Michigan
, who called Wednesday "an apocalyptic day in Iraq".
"It's very clear that the Shiites are interpreting this chain of events as evidence that the Americans are weak and can't protect Shiite interests," said Cole. "And now Americans are having to come back to the Shiites and ask them to be magnanimous and give away a lot of what they've won in elections."
"It was always going to be a very hard sell, but now it's an impossible argument; Shiites aren't going to give away any power at all at this point," he said, adding that "it's possible that there could be a hung parliament
, the government would collapse, and you'd have to go to new elections. And that would be a disaster in the present circumstances."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
considered the bombing as an indication of a general failure of the US policy in Iraq.
shed new light on the events of February–March 2006. In particular, the logs reveal that U.S. soldiers immediately reported an "explosion of retaliatory killings, kidnappings, tortures, mosque attacks, and open street fighting," even as U.S. commanders including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
were downplaying media reports of a surge in killings. The previous "official" death toll for post-bombing sectarian fighting, of 3-400, was based on information from the Shiite-led government and the Sadr-run Health Ministry, which was directly involved in atrocities according to the logs. According to Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, her contemporary report of 1,300+ casualties, dismissed at the time as an outlier, was in fact an undercount.
2007 al-Askari Mosque bombing
The 2007 al-Askari Mosque bombing occurred on June 13, 2007 at around 9 a.m. local time at one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari Mosque, and has been attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq or the Iraqi Baath Party. While there were no injuries or deaths reported, the mosque's two ten...
The 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing occurred at the al-Askari Mosque
Al-Askari Mosque
Al ‘Askarī Mosque or the ‘Askariyya Mosque/Shrine is a Shī‘ah Muslim holy site located in the Iraqi city of Sāmarrā from Baghdad. It is one of the most important Shī‘ah mosques in the world, built in 944...
in the Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i city of Samarra
Samarra
Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
, on February 22, 2006, at about 6:55 a.m. local time (0355 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
). The attack on the mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, is believed to have been caused by Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency....
. Although no injuries occurred in the blasts, the mosque was severely damaged.
The bombing was followed by retaliatory violence with over a hundred dead bodies being found the next day and well over 1,000 people killed in the days following the bombing – by some counts, over 1,000 on the first day alone.
The bombing
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
en dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
and severely damaging the mosque. Several men, one wearing military uniforms, had earlier entered the mosque, tied up the guards there and set explosives, resulting in the blast. Two bombs were set off by five to seven men dressed as personnel of the Iraqi special forces
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...
who entered the shrine during the morning.
No injuries were reported following the bombing. However, the northern wall of the shrine was damaged by the bombs, causing the dome to collapse and destroying three-quarters of the structure along with it.
Following the blast, American and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody.
The dome had been repaired by April 2009 and the shrine reopened to visitors.
Responsibility and accusations
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the mosque.Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Although Al-Qaeda in IraqAl-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency....
denied any involvement in statements released, in June 2006, it was reported that Iraqi commandos and troops had captured and seriously wounded Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, a Tunisian also known as Abu Qudama al-Tunesi, after he and 15 other foreign fighters stormed an Iraqi checkpoint 25 miles north of Baghdad, according to Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.
Abu Qudama confessed to taking part in the attack on al-Askari mosque in Samarra and gave a detailed account of how the attack took place. Al-Rubaie said Iraqi security forces had yet to capture the mastermind of the mosque attack, Haitham al-Badri
Haitham al-Badri
Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri was an Iraqi government official under Saddam Hussein and is described as the Al-Qaeda mastermind behind the February 22, 2006 Al Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra....
, an Iraqi and leader of one of Al Qaeda in Iraq's cells. Al-Rubaie said al-Badri, Abu Qudama, four Saudi nationals and two other Iraqis stormed the mosque Feb. 21, rounded up the shrine's guards, members of Iraq's Facility Protection Service, and bound their hands. The group then spent the rest of the night rigging the mosque with bombs. At dawn the next day, they detonated the explosives, bringing down the dome.
In an August 2006 press conference U.S. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
stated "it's pretty clear – at least the evidence indicates – that the bombing of the shrine was an Al Qaida plot, all intending to create sectarian violence." Before his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a paramilitary training camp in Afghanistan...
listed among his goals the incitement of a civil war between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis.
In September 2006, Iraqi officials announced the capture of Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi
Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi
Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi is an Iraqi member of al-Qaeda accused by Iraq's government of being "the number two al-Qaeda leader [in Iraq] after Abu Ayyub al-Masri." He was captured during a joint raid by Iraqi and United States forces on June 19, 2006 either north or southwest of Baquba,...
in connection with the bombing, allegedly done on his orders by Haitham al-Badri.
Al-Badri was killed in August 2007.
USA and Israel
- Iranian PresidentPresident of IranThe President of Iran is the highest popularly elected official in, and the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; although subordinate to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
for the attack. He claimed that "these heinous acts are committed by a group of Zionists and occupiers that have failed." He warned, amid a crowd of protesters, that the United States would "not be saved from the wrath and power of the justice-seeking nations" by resorting to bombings like the one that occurred at Al Askari Mosque.
- According to Alertnet, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHasan Nasrallah, became the third Secretary General of the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992. Hezbollah in its entirety is considered a terrorist organization by The United States, the Netherlands,...
, speaking from the LebaneseLebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
capital, BeirutBeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, echoed the opinions of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and accused the United States of attacking the shrine to cause tension between the Sunnis and Shi'ites in the Middle East.
Violent reactions
As a result of the bombing, there was widespread violence throughout Iraq. The Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim ScholarsAssociation of Muslim Scholars
The Association of Muslim Scholars is a group of religious leaders in Iraq. It was formed on the April 14, 2003, four days after the U.S.-led invasion demolished the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, by a group of scholars who aimed to represent Sunnis in Iraq...
has said that as of February 23, 2006, 168 Mosques had been attacked. They also stated that ten imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
s had been murdered and fifteen others kidnapped since the attack on the Samarra Shrine. The Shi'ite controlled Interior Ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.
February 22 (Wednesday)
- In NajafNajafNajaf is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2008 is 560,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Governorate...
, shops were closed, while residents gathered at the city's 1920 Revolution Square for demonstrations. In Al DiwaniyahAl DiwaniyahAl Diwaniyah is the capital city of Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate. In 2002, its population was estimated at 440,927. The area around Al Diwaniyah, which is well irrigated from the nearby Euphrates river, is often considered to be one on the most fertile parts of Iraq, and is heavily cultivated...
, all mosques, shops and markets were closed. - Three Sunni Muslim clerics were shot dead by Shi'a militiamen.
February 23 (Thursday)
- Up to 21 mosques were attacked in reprisals for the bombing. Three mosques were completely destroyed by explosives.
- In the mainly Shia city of BasraBasraBasra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...
, armed men in police uniforms seized eleven Sunni Muslim men, including some SaudiSaudi ArabiaThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, TurkishTurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian nationals, from the Mina prison. The seized men were later found dead and were believed to have been tortured. Ninety reprisal attacks on mosques were reported. Iraq's KurdishKurdish peopleThe Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
Sunni President Jalal TalabaniJalal TalabaniJalal Talabani is the sixth and current President of Iraq, a leading Kurdish politician. He is the first non-Arab president of Iraq, although Abdul Kareem Qasim was half Kurdish....
warned that Iraq was on the brink of civil warCivil warA civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
. - Shia militiamen killed 47 Sunni civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad on Thursday. All of the bodies had their hands bound together.
- Three journalists, including Atwar BahjatAtwar BahjatAtwar Bahjat was an Iraqi journalist and reporter for al-Arabiya television who was abducted and murdered while covering a story. She had previously worked for al-Jazeera...
, working for Al-Arabiya television were kidnapped and killed by Sunni insurgents while covering the bombing. Their bodies were found on the outskirts of Samarra. The journalist and her crew were Sunni Muslims.
February 24 (Friday)
- Baghdad was relatively calm on Friday, despite reports of minor clashes between members of a Shia militia and Sunni insurgents in the south of the city. In Basra, where the curfew was not in effect, on Friday Sunni insurgents kidnapped three children of a Shia legislator and prominent member of the Shi'a Islamic Da'awa Party. In the city of MadainSalman PakSalman Pak is a city approximately 15 miles south of Baghdad near a peninsula formed by a broad eastward bend of the Tigris River. It is named after Salman the Persian, a companion of Muhammad who is buried there....
(Ctesiphon), Sunni insurgents fired two rockets at the tomb of Salman the PersianSalman the PersianSalman the Persian or Salman al Farisi was one of Muhammad's companions.During some of his later meetings with the other Sahaba, he was referred to as Abu Abdullah .-Birth place:...
, causing damage but no casualties.
February 25 (Saturday)
- Fierce sectarian violence erupted on Saturday despite an extraordinary daytime curfew, killing more than 24 people in a series of incidents around the country, including a brazen attack by Sunni insurgents on the funeral procession of an Iraqi television journalist Atwar Bahjat. The violence took place even though a daytime curfew emptied the streets of Baghdad and three neighboring governoratesGovernorates of Iraq||Iraq is composed of 18 provinces :#Baghdād #Salāh ad-Dīn #Diyālā #Wāsit #Maysān #Al-Basrah #Dhī Qār #Al-Muthannā #Al-Qādisiyyah...
for a second day. The government extended the daylight security clampdown with a ban on cars on Monday morning. - According to KarbalaNews.net and Juan Cole, Sunni insurgents blew up a Shiite shrine in Bashir, south of Tuz Khurmato. 20 insurgents attacked the shrine of Salman the PersianSalman the PersianSalman the Persian or Salman al Farisi was one of Muhammad's companions.During some of his later meetings with the other Sahaba, he was referred to as Abu Abdullah .-Birth place:...
. They killed the guards and placed explosives at the tomb, then blew it up, destroying it.
February 26 (Sunday)
- Five days of violence left more than 200 people dead and many mosques smashed, despite daytime curfews on Baghdad and surrounding provinces. There were further ominous signs of the "ethnic cleansing" of once mixed neighbourhoods in and around Baghdad. Scores of Shi'a families were reported to have fled homes in the restive western Muslim suburb of Abu Ghraib. Shi'a community leaders said they were being housed temporarily in schools and other buildings in Shia areas. In the latest round of attacks, a bomb destroyed a minibus as it was leaving a bus station in the Shi'a town of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding three.
February 27 (Monday)
- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A53F5F39-9E34-4918-88B0-EEA54580E99F.htmAccording to Aljazeera the Iraqi government said that since the bombing in Samarra last Wednesday 379 people had been killed and 458 wounded. The Baghdad morgue confirmed they had received 309 bodies since Wednesday, most of them victims of violence. Morgue data showed this was double the average - it handled 10,080 bodies in 2005]
Iraq
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-JaafariIbrahim al-Jaafari
Ibrahim abd al-Karim Hamzah al-Eshaiker al-Jafari is an Iraqi politician who was Prime Minister of Iraq in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 2005 to 2006, following the January 2005 election. He was previously one of the two Vice-Presidents of Iraq under the Iraqi Interim Government from 2004...
has urged Iraqis to stay unified and peaceful, saying the attack was an effort to incite violence. He has also called for three days of national mourning. However, talks between him and a prominent Sunni Muslim group are put on hold as the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front
Iraqi Accord Front
The Iraqi Accord Front or Iraqi Accordance Front also known as Tawafuq is an Iraqi Sunni-Islamist political coalition created on October 26, 2005 by the Iraqi Islamic Party to contest the December 2005 general election...
quits discussions on forming a new government due to the recent violence. At the same time, a government organization called the Sunni Endowments that maintains Sunni mosques and shrines condemned the attack. On Feb 25, al-Jaafari blamed terrorists for the crisis: "The Iraqi people have one enemy; it is terrorism and only terrorism... There are no Sunnis against Shiites or Shiites against Sunnis."
Despite the Sunni boycott, President Jalal Talabani
Jalal Talabani
Jalal Talabani is the sixth and current President of Iraq, a leading Kurdish politician. He is the first non-Arab president of Iraq, although Abdul Kareem Qasim was half Kurdish....
pressed ahead with a meeting that he had called to avert a descent toward a civil war. After discussions with Shiites, Kurds and leaders of a smaller Sunni group, he warned about the danger of all-out war.
The government is extending a curfew it imposed in parts of the country on Friday to calm tensions sparked by an attack on a Shia shrine.
Iraqi defence minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi
Saadoun al-Dulaimi
- Personal life :Dr. Saadoun al-Dulaimi was born in the province of Al-Anbar in the year of 1954. An independent politician, who does not belong to any party. Married with five children...
warned about the danger of a long civil war. Also, he said that Iraq would not hesitate to dispatch tanks to the streets to end violence and impose security. The minister also denied any involvement by what he called Interior Ministry commandos in the attack that targeted Harith Sulayman al-Dari, leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars
Association of Muslim Scholars
The Association of Muslim Scholars is a group of religious leaders in Iraq. It was formed on the April 14, 2003, four days after the U.S.-led invasion demolished the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, by a group of scholars who aimed to represent Sunnis in Iraq...
.
Sunni and Shiite clerics in Iraq have agreed to prohibit killings and to ban attacks on each other's mosques in an effort to ease sectarian violence.
Worldwide
U.S. President George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
warned about the threat of civil war and expressed support for the Iraqi government. On February 25, Bush called seven Iraqi political leaders in an extraordinary round of telephone diplomacy aimed at getting talks restarted about forming a permanent government. On February 28, Bush decried the latest surge in sectarian violence and said that for Iraqis "the choice is chaos or unity." In congressional testimony, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte
John Negroponte
John Dimitri Negroponte is an American diplomat. He is currently a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs...
said a civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's Sunni and Shiite powers against one another.
UK Foreign Secretary
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
Jack Straw
Jack Straw
Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...
called the bombing a "criminal and sacrilegious act", urging Iraqis to show restraint and avoid retaliation.
Zalmay Khalilzad
Zalmay Khalilzad
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and president of Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush...
, Washington's ambassador to Iraq, and the top US commander in the country, Gen. George Casey, issued a joint statement saying the US would contribute to the shrine's reconstruction.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has laid blame on the United States and coalition forces. "They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.
Iraq
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-SistaniGrand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani is the highest-ranking Twelver Shia marja in Iraq and the leader of the Hawza of Najaf.-Early life:Sistani was born in Mashhad, Iran, to a family of religious scholars who traced their roots to Isfahan...
sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad, and calling for seven days of mourning. He hinted that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government was incapable of protecting holy shrines.
On February 25 Sistani called for Iraq’s powerful tribes to be deployed to protect the country’s holy places after three attacks on Shia shrines in four days: "Ayatollah Sistani, who received a tribal delegation from Kufa, asked that the Iraqi tribes reclaim their role of protecting the shrines,” said an official in Sistani’s office in the Shia clerical center of Najaf.... After the crimes against the places of worship, including the blowing up of the mausoleum in Samarra and the attacks against the tombs of Salman the Persian
Salman the Persian
Salman the Persian or Salman al Farisi was one of Muhammad's companions.During some of his later meetings with the other Sahaba, he was referred to as Abu Abdullah .-Birth place:...
and Imam Ali bin Mussa al-Rida, the tribes must take a stand and claim a role in the protection of these sites."
Muqtada al-Sadr
Muqtada al-Sadr
Sayyid Muqtadā al-Ṣadr is an Iraqi Islamic political leader.Along with Ali al-Sistani and Ammar al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Sadr is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country not holding any official title in the Iraqi government.-Titles:He is...
condemned the attack and called for calm. Having called to stop mutual attacks, Sadr ordered members of his militia to protect Sunni mosques in majority Shia areas in southern Iraq. He called for Iraqi unity and warned against "a plan by the occupation to spark a sectarian war". He called on Sunni groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars
Association of Muslim Scholars
The Association of Muslim Scholars is a group of religious leaders in Iraq. It was formed on the April 14, 2003, four days after the U.S.-led invasion demolished the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, by a group of scholars who aimed to represent Sunnis in Iraq...
to form a joint panel and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.
On February 25 Sunni and Shiite clerics agreed to prohibit killing members of the two sects and banning attacks on each other's mosques in an effort to ease tension between Iraq's Muslim communities following sectarian violence after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine. The agreement was made during a meeting between representatives of radical Shiite cleric Sadr, Shiite religious leader Jawad al-Khalisi and members of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars at the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a Sunni place of worship.
According to Juan Cole, three Iraqi clerics all employed their influence and authority among the Shiite rank and file to make the Samarra bombing work for them politically. Sistani expanded his militia and stayed at the forefront of the movement by encouraging peaceful rallies. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim was an Iraqi theologian and politician and the leader of Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a party that enjoys approximately 5% support in the Iraqi Council of Representatives....
used the explosion in Samarra to bolster his own authority. He remonstrated with the American ambassador, saying it was not reasonable to expect the religious Shiites, who won the largest bloc of seats in parliament, to give up their claim on the ministry of interior, and that, indeed, Khalilzad had helped provoke the troubles with his assertions to that effect earlier. Muqtada al-Sadr
Muqtada al-Sadr
Sayyid Muqtadā al-Ṣadr is an Iraqi Islamic political leader.Along with Ali al-Sistani and Ammar al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Sadr is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country not holding any official title in the Iraqi government.-Titles:He is...
used the incident to push for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, something he has wanted since the fall of Saddam. Abroad, Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei blamed Bush and his Israeli allies, an allegation widely believed to be true in Iraq.
Iran
Ayatollah Ali KhameneiAli Khamenei
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i is the Supreme Leader of Iran and the figurative head of the Muslim conservative establishment in Iran and Twelver Shi'a marja...
urged Shi'ites not to take revenge on Sunni Muslims for the attack on the Samarra shrine.
India
Syed Ali Nasir Saeed AbaqatiSyed Ali Nasir Saeed Abaqati
Syed Ali Nasir Saeed Abaqati Musavi better known as Agha Roohi, is a leading Shia cleric from Lucknow, India.-Family background:Maulana Syed Ali Nasir Saeed Abaqati a.k.a...
a leading Shia cleric from Lucknow
Lucknow
Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
held al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
responsible for destruction of the Al-Askari Mosque
Al-Askari Mosque
Al ‘Askarī Mosque or the ‘Askariyya Mosque/Shrine is a Shī‘ah Muslim holy site located in the Iraqi city of Sāmarrā from Baghdad. It is one of the most important Shī‘ah mosques in the world, built in 944...
in Samarra
Samarra
Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Analysts' views
"I think this is probably the most dangerous event that has occurred since the fall of Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
," former CIA Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing primarily on the Middle East, Islamic militancy, counterterrorism, and intelligence. He is a former director of the Project for the New American Century's Middle East Initiative and a former resident...
told CNN. "It risks our entire enterprise in Iraq."
"We may be on the verge of taking communal violence to the next level," warned Juan Cole
Juan Cole
John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on...
, professor of Middle-Eastern history at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, who called Wednesday "an apocalyptic day in Iraq".
"It's very clear that the Shiites are interpreting this chain of events as evidence that the Americans are weak and can't protect Shiite interests," said Cole. "And now Americans are having to come back to the Shiites and ask them to be magnanimous and give away a lot of what they've won in elections."
"It was always going to be a very hard sell, but now it's an impossible argument; Shiites aren't going to give away any power at all at this point," he said, adding that "it's possible that there could be a hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
, the government would collapse, and you'd have to go to new elections. And that would be a disaster in the present circumstances."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
considered the bombing as an indication of a general failure of the US policy in Iraq.
WikiLeaks data
The October 2010 Iraq War documents leakIraq War documents leak
The Iraq War documents leak is the unsanctioned disclosure of a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 to several international media organizations and published on the Internet by WikiLeaks on 2010. The files record...
shed new light on the events of February–March 2006. In particular, the logs reveal that U.S. soldiers immediately reported an "explosion of retaliatory killings, kidnappings, tortures, mosque attacks, and open street fighting," even as U.S. commanders including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
were downplaying media reports of a surge in killings. The previous "official" death toll for post-bombing sectarian fighting, of 3-400, was based on information from the Shiite-led government and the Sadr-run Health Ministry, which was directly involved in atrocities according to the logs. According to Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, her contemporary report of 1,300+ casualties, dismissed at the time as an outlier, was in fact an undercount.