Second Iraqi governor killed as Shiite rifts deepen

FE Team | Published: August 21, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

SAMAWA, Aug 20 (AFP): Bombers killed an Iraqi provincial governor for the second time in two weeks Monday, amid mounting tensions between rival Shiite armed factions in the country'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," he told the news agency. "We have formed a committee to investigate."
Hassani is 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 the neighbouring province of Qadisiyah, Khalil Jamil Hamza, was killed in a multiple bomb attack on his convoy as it passed through his capital Diwaniyah.
Both Hamza and Hassani were members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), one of Iraq's most powerful parties and a bitter rival of another Shiite movement led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni factions have 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 movement which can field tens of thousands of gunmen drawn from the Shiite underclass.
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".
In July 2006, Muthanna was the first province in Iraq 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, where British troops deployed there since the invasion are preparing to withdraw from their last base in the city and re-deploy to a desert airbase.
AP from Damascus adds: Iraq's embattled Nouri al-Maliki came to Syria Monday on his first visit here as prime minister amid efforts to garner neighbours' support for curbing violence at home.
The three-day sojourn by the Iraqi Shiite leader is expected to focus on the sensitive border issues plaguing the two nations.
The United States and Iraq have repeatedly accused Syria of failing to rein in the flow of militants, foreign fighters and arms across the porous boundary into Iraq. Syria denies the charges that it is fueling the anti-American insurgency, saying it is impossible to control the long desert border.
Last week, al-Maliki went to Turkey and Iran, and said he would continue traveling to other countries to seek help in stemming the violence that has ravaged Iraq.
Syria's official news agency SANA said that al-Maliki's talks here would deal with the current security and political situation in Iraq, as well as economic cooperation between the two countries.
Syria hosts nearly 2 million Iraqi refugees who have sheltered mostly in Damascus and its suburbs. Damascus has lately complained of the increasing number of Iraqis pouring into the country and has called on the US and the Iraqi government to shoulder their responsibilities and share the burden of providing for the refugees.