-Caveat Lector-
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070820/twl-iraq-575b600.html
Second Iraqi governor killed as Shiite rifts deepen
AFP - Monday, August 20
SAMAWA, Iraq (AFP) - - Bombers killed a provincial governor on Monday
-- the second assassinated in two weeks -- amid mounting tension
between rival Shiite armed factions in Iraq's southern cities.
Brigadier General Kadhim al-Jayashi, chief of police in the city of
Samawa, said the governor of the southern province of Muthanna,
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, was killed by a roadside bomb on his way to
work.
"Police leaders have imposed a curfew on Samawa after the
assassination," Jayashi told AFP. "We have formed a committee to
investigate."
Hassani was the second Shiite governor to be killed within a
fortnight, amid growing signs of conflict between rival political and
militia factions within the country's majority community.
On August 11, the governor of neighbouring Qadisiyah province, Khalil
Jamil Hamza, was killed in a multiple bomb attack as his convoy passed
through his capital Diwaniyah.
Both Hamza and Hassani were members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic
Council (SIIC), one of the country's most powerful parties and a
bitter rival of another Shiite movement led by radical cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr.
"The governor's vehicle was thrown 10 metres (yards) by the blast
before falling into a stream by the side of the road," said witness
Hussein Kadhim from the Rumaitha neighbourhood of Samawa.
"The whole city is paralysed after the attack. There is no movement,
no shops are open and everybody is staying indoors."
Sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni factions has dominated the
headlines since the US-led invasion of March 2003, but tensions inside
both rival communities have also sometimes erupted in bloodshed.
Recent months have seen mounting reports of intra-Shiite violence
between SIIC's militia, the Badr Organisation, and Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Fighting broke out between the factions in Samawa in July.
Many Badr fighters have been recruited into Iraq's new security
forces, while the Mahdi Army is a loosely controlled militia which can
field tens of thousands of gunmen drawn from the Shiite underclass.
Sadr's movement denied any involvement in killing the governors.
"We condemn this assassination and also the previous one too," Sheikh
Ahmed al-Shaibani, spokesman for Sadr's movement in the holy city of
Najaf, told AFP. "We want to assure that we have no links with the two
assassinations."
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki received news of Hassani's "martyrdom"
with sadness and warned of an attempt "to destabilise our beloved
southern Iraq."
"We call on our people in Muthanna province to exercise self-control
and avoid falling into the trap of this painful experience," he said.
Hamid Al-Saedi, a SIIC member of parliament, blamed Monday's killing
on former members of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's ruling party and
"parties hostile to Iraq."
The two top US officials in Iraq, military commander General David
Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, also condemned the death of a
governor they said represented "the strength of the Iraqi people in
the face of terrorism."
In July 2006, Muthanna was the first province to be handed back to the
control of Iraqi security forces as British and Australian troops
scaled back their operations in the relatively peaceful south.
Since then, however, local power struggles have triggered occasional
violent clashes in many Shiite cities, leaving hundreds dead.
Violence between rival Shiite militias is now rife in Iraq's second
city, Basra, from which British troops deployed since the invasion are
preparing to withdraw to a desert airbase.
US commanders say the situation has been exacerbated by Iranian agents
training and arming hardline Shiite militias known as "Special Groups"
to carry out kidnappings and attack US-led forces.
Tehran has always vehemently denied trying to destabilise Iraq, and
Maliki's government maintains close ties with its larger Shiite
neighbour.
The slain governors' party, formerly known as the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Tehran under the
auspices of the Iranian government as an Iraqi opposition force in
exile.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to make his first
visit to Iraq, the ISNA news agency reported. Meanwhile, Maliki
arrived in Syria for a visit to another US foe and ally of Iran.
In other attacks on Monday, including a car bombing in Baghdad's Sadr
City and an ambush on police north of the capital, at least 13 more
Iraqis were killed, security and medical officials said.
The latest political violence coincided with meetings between French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and the country's divided political
leaders.
Kouchner's Baghdad visit is the first by a senior French official
since the invasion, and while he brought no concrete offers of
assistance, it has been welcomed by Iraqi leaders keen for
international support.
Maliki's Shiite-led ruling coalition has crumbled in recent months
with the loss of 17 ministers, and emergency talks are under way to
cobble together a power-sharing deal and save the government from
collapse.
*
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