Violence Claims 81 Lives in Baghdad

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20060326_81_dead_baghdad/

Posted on Mar 26, 2006

The sectarian violence continues unabated.

Also, a N.Y. Times reporter returns to Iraq after a year away and immediately sizes up the difference between an anti-U.S. insurgency and a civil war (although he doesn’t use that word).

AP:
Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian slaughter ravaging Iraq—most of them beheaded—dumped on a village road north of Baghdad on Sunday. At least 16 other Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-backed raid in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital.

Accounts of the evening raid in Baghdad varied. Aides to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi police both said it took place at a mosque, with police claiming 22 bystanders died and al-Sadr’s aides saying 18 innocent men were killed.

The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 insurgents in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.

“No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation,” the military said. It said a non-Western hostage was freed, but no name or nationality was provided.

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