ISLAM - IRAQ

Iraqi police clash with Shia gunmen

Friday, January 18, 2008

Whilst pilgrims make their way to the Iraqi shrine city of Kerbala for the Ashura ceremony, Iraqi police clashed with gunmen from a Shia cult who staged a series of hit-and-run raids in two southern cities on Friday. FRANCE 24 correspondent Lucas Menget reports.

Click here to read FRANCE 24 Lucas Menget's reporter's notebook from Baghdad.


BASRA, Iraq, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Iraqi police clashed with
gunmen from a Shi'ite cult who staged a series of hit-and-run
raids in two southern cities on Friday, security officials said.
 

Witnesses in Iraq's southern oil hub of Basra and Nassiriya
said at least four people may have been killed in the violence,
in which gunmen were reported to be using heavy machineguns and
mortars.
 

The clashes came as religious observations for the annual
Ashura festival, one of the holiest events in the Shi'ite Muslim
religious calendar, approached their peak across southern Iraq.
 

Police in Basra and Nassiriya said fighters from the
"Soldiers of Heaven" cult, an obscure group once led by a man
who claimed to be the mahdi, an Islamic messiah-like figure, had
opened fire on security forces in both cities.
 

In central Basra, a Reuters cameraman said he saw the
bullet-riddled body of one man lying in a street, as well as a
policeman who had been shot in the arm.
 

A policeman in Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) southeast of
Baghdad, said three policemen may have been killed in clashes
there but the reports could not be verified immediately.
 

Police said a curfew had been declared in the city.
 

Basra police chief Major-General Abdul Jalil Khalaf said
police and Iraqi soldiers had responded to several attacks
across the city.
 

"We are controlling the situation. I don't have any
information about casualties at the moment," Khalaf said.
 

"They have been attacking security forces and disappearing,"
he told Reuters.
The Reuters cameraman in Basra said he also saw about 30
gunmen dressed in black carrying semi-automatic weapons and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Some of them were driving at
least two vehicles seized from police, he said.
 

Police said the gunmen were supporters of Ahmed Hassani
al-Yemeni, who took over after the cult's previous leader was
killed in a battle with his followers a year ago.
 

A man who said he was from the movement told Reuters in
Basra that their fighters had decided to attack security forces
because of persecution he said the cult had suffered. He also
said they believed the mahdi would appear on Friday.
 

The previous leader, who used the name Mahdi bin Ali bin Ali
bin Abi Taleb, had claimed to be the mahdi.

 

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