.Sectarian violence is a catastrophe for Iraq, says UN
An escalating and vicious cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq is a catastrophe which threatens to wreck the US-backed elected government, the UN warned yesterday.
"The emerging phenomenon of Iraqis killing Iraqis on a daily basis is nothing less than a catastrophe and a national tragedy for the people of Iraq," warned Ashraf Qazi, Kofi Annan's special representative in the country. The bloodshed "threatens to erode the government's authority to enforce security and the rule of law without which no initiatives and no reforms can be implemented," he said.
He appealed to Iraq's political, religious, and community leaders to make it their "immediate and overriding priority to search for ways to end the violence and to address the issues that underlie it".
Mr Qazi made his dramatic plea after two consecutive days of attacks on Shia targets blamed on Sunnis which have killed more than 100 people.
The UN reported on Tuesday that some 6,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed over the past two months, indicating that an average of 100 are killed daily. The UN added that Iraqi health officials believed a recent estimate of 50,000 civilians killed since the 2003 US-led invasion was an underestimate.
Yesterday armed men kidnapped 20 employees of a government agency caring for Sunni mosques and shrines across the country. Mahdi al-Mashhadani, spokesman for the Sunni Endowment agency said the staff were seized as they drove from Baghdad to their homes in Taji, just north of the capital. The agency stopped work in protest against what it called "kidnappings and killings carried out by militias in official uniforms" - a reference to Shia militias.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 20 people were killed in a series of bombings and shootings apparently aimed at Shias, police said. They included a senior interior ministry official killed on his way to work, according to the police. Armed men who attacked the village of Rasheed, south of Baghdad, killing seven people, were described by police as the same Sunni group accused of killing nearly 60 people in a gun and grenade attack on the nearby town of Mahmudiya on Monday.
Police in the town have discovered the bodies of 18 men, including three police officers who appeared to have been tortured.
On Tuesday suicide car bombings killed nearly 60 Shia workers near Najaf. Ten days ago suspected Shia militia killed some 40 people in a Sunni area in Baghdad. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday the violence was a direct challenge to his national unity coalition government of Sunnis, Kurds and fellow Shias, set up in May. He said a first meeting of his National Reconciliation Commission on Saturday would include opponents of the US-promoted political process.
Guardian
"The emerging phenomenon of Iraqis killing Iraqis on a daily basis is nothing less than a catastrophe and a national tragedy for the people of Iraq," warned Ashraf Qazi, Kofi Annan's special representative in the country. The bloodshed "threatens to erode the government's authority to enforce security and the rule of law without which no initiatives and no reforms can be implemented," he said.
He appealed to Iraq's political, religious, and community leaders to make it their "immediate and overriding priority to search for ways to end the violence and to address the issues that underlie it".
Mr Qazi made his dramatic plea after two consecutive days of attacks on Shia targets blamed on Sunnis which have killed more than 100 people.
The UN reported on Tuesday that some 6,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed over the past two months, indicating that an average of 100 are killed daily. The UN added that Iraqi health officials believed a recent estimate of 50,000 civilians killed since the 2003 US-led invasion was an underestimate.
Yesterday armed men kidnapped 20 employees of a government agency caring for Sunni mosques and shrines across the country. Mahdi al-Mashhadani, spokesman for the Sunni Endowment agency said the staff were seized as they drove from Baghdad to their homes in Taji, just north of the capital. The agency stopped work in protest against what it called "kidnappings and killings carried out by militias in official uniforms" - a reference to Shia militias.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 20 people were killed in a series of bombings and shootings apparently aimed at Shias, police said. They included a senior interior ministry official killed on his way to work, according to the police. Armed men who attacked the village of Rasheed, south of Baghdad, killing seven people, were described by police as the same Sunni group accused of killing nearly 60 people in a gun and grenade attack on the nearby town of Mahmudiya on Monday.
Police in the town have discovered the bodies of 18 men, including three police officers who appeared to have been tortured.
On Tuesday suicide car bombings killed nearly 60 Shia workers near Najaf. Ten days ago suspected Shia militia killed some 40 people in a Sunni area in Baghdad. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday the violence was a direct challenge to his national unity coalition government of Sunnis, Kurds and fellow Shias, set up in May. He said a first meeting of his National Reconciliation Commission on Saturday would include opponents of the US-promoted political process.
Guardian
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