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04/08/2006:
"Threat of Shiite Militias Now Seen As Iraq's Most Critical Challenge"
BAGHDAD, April 7 -- Shiite Muslim militias pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq, having killed more people in recent months than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, and will likely present the most daunting and critical challenge for Iraq's new government, U.S. military and diplomatic officials say.washingtonpost.com
That's how we want it to seem, anyway.
Mosque Explosion Kills 79 in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Suicide attackers wearing women's robes blew themselves up Friday in a Shiite mosque, killing 79 people and wounding more than 160, police said. It was the deadliest single attack in Iraq this year and the second major bombing of a Shiite target in as many days.
Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said the blasts were caused by two suicide attackers wearing black abayas at the Buratha mosque, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shiite party.
Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, the preacher at the mosque and one of the country's leading politicians, said there were three assailants. One came through the women's security checkpoint and blew up first, he said. Another raced into the mosque's courtyard while a third came to his office before detonating his bomb, said al-Sagheer, who was not injured.
He accused Sunni politicians and clerics of waging "a campaign of distortions and lies against the Buratha mosque, claiming that it includes Sunni prisoners and mass graves of Sunnis."
"Shiites are the ones who are targeted as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently," he told Al-Arabiya television.
Three US troops killed in Iraq
BAGHDAD - The US military announced Friday the death of three of its troops across Iraq over the past 24 hours.
U.S. Marines say can keep Iraq levels indefinitely
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Marine Corps can sustain indefinitely its current troop level in Iraq, the No. 2 Marine general said on Thursday, despite concerns about the 3-year-old war breaking the all-volunteer military.
Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, also said the Marines do not plan to prohibit troops from having commercial body armor while deployed, as the Army did last week. Some troops and their families have bought body armor because of concern that what the military was providing was insufficient.
There are about 24,500 Marines serving in the U.S. force of about 132,000 in Iraq, defense officials said.
