NPR: Samarra Mosque Bombed Again

Samarra Mosque Bombed Again

The destroyed shrine of the Askariya mosque is seen today in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

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(Note from Tom: JJ Sutherland is filling in for the rest of today. See you tomorrow.)

Everyone pretty much agrees on when Iraq's civil war began. In February of last year, al-Qaida types blew up the famous golden dome of the Askariya mosque in Samarra. It's one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, serving as the mausoleum for the 10th and 11th imams. (I'll forbear the lecture on the imams and just point you to this Wikipedia article.)

After that bombing, the sectarian killings went wild for a year. Fifty to 100 bodies a day turned up on the streets of Baghdad alone. They were bound, blindfolded and shot in the head. Many of them showed signs of torture, the electric drill being a favorite. It was this kind of mass sectarian bloodshed that really sent the country over the edge for a while.

And today, the mosque was bombed again, and, understandably, people are freaked. I just got off the phone with NPR's Jamie Tarabay in Baghdad. She says that the two minarets of the mosque, the most remarkable things remaining standing, are gone. A curfew has been put in place in Baghdad; no one knows for how long. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went on TV and said that everyone responsible for protecting the holy shrine has been arrested.

And that's one interesting question: Exactly how was this allowed to happen, as there were numerous security forces tasked with protecting the mosque?

Jamie says that Baghdad is incredibly tense. The first reaction of everyone was to go home and hunker down, fearing the worst. One Sunni mosque has already been set on fire. She says a massive gun battle broke out in the city between two ministerial convoys; it's not known exactly who they were, but it's being seen as a sign of just how on edge everyone is.

Everyone, including radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is calling for restraint, and some members of his Mehdi Army actually went out to protect Sunni mosques in the southern city of Basra. But it remains to be seen whether the death squads will once again go out in force.

As a good Iraqi friend of mine says often when he tells me of the latest attacks there, "The fun never stops."

- JJ Sutherland

11:31 AM ET | 06-13-2007 | permalink

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