30 Sunni killed in mosque attack
Print Edition
IRAQI Shi’ite militiamen opened fire on minority Sunni Muslims in a mosque yesterday, killing dozens just as Baghdad is trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni Islamists whose rise has alarmed Western powers.
An Iraqi security source said 30 people were killed when the militias attacked the mosque in Baquba, capital of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, on the Muslim day of prayer. Some witnesses put the death toll higher.
The bloodbath marks a setback for Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, from the majority Shi’ite community, who is seeking support from Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to take on the Islamic State insurgency that is threatening to tear Iraq apart.
In the northern city of Mosul, Islamic State stoned a man to death, witnesses said, as the United States raised the prospect of tackling jihadist safe havens in Syria.
In a regional conflict that is throwing up dilemmas for governments from Washington to London, Baghdad and Tehran, any US action against Islamic State in Syria would risk making common cause with President Bashar al-Assad — the man it has wanted overthrown in a three-year uprising.
Iraqi forces, which at first put up little serious resistance, are starting to fight back. Along with fighters from the Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region, they tried yesterday — backed by US airpower and Iraqi fighter planes — to recapture two towns near the Iranian border, security sources said.
President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq for the first time since US troops pulled out in 2011 has helped to slow the militants’ offensive. But America’s top soldier said that the internationally recognized frontier between Iraq and Syria, over which the militants have free passage, no longer means much in the wider conflict.
General Martin Dempsey said Islamic State will remain a danger until it can no longer count on safe havens in Syria.
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