Baghdad, Iraq – A citywide clampdown emptied Baghdad’s streets of all vehicles Thursday in attempts to hold off what authorities dread: a storm of Shiite attacks in revenge for the bombing of one of their main shrines. The tactic appeared to keep a lid on widespread violence, but extremists fired shells into the city’s protected Green Zone during a visit by the U.S. State Department’s No. 2 official.
The barrage of rockets and mortars included one that hit on a street close to the Iraq parliament less than a half-hour before Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte passed nearby.
The attack again showed militants’ resilience despite a U.S.- led security crackdown across the city that began exactly four months ago. But officials paid much closer attention to any signs that Shiites could unleash another wave of retaliation against Sunnis for the Wednesday blasts at the Askariya mosque in Samarra.
The first attack on the site in February 2006 sent the country into sectarian violence that destroyed Washington’s hopes of a steady withdrawal from Iraq. On Wednesday, bombers toppled the two minarets that stood over the ruins of the mosque’s famous Golden Dome.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, echoed Washington’s claim that the latest attack was the work of al-Qaeda.
Negroponte called the Samarra attack a “deliberate attempt by al-Qaeda to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife.”
The U.S. military issued a statement Thursday saying Iraqi forces had arrested the commander and 12 policemen responsible for security at the shrine, which holds the tombs of two revered ninth century Shiite imams. It was not immediately clear whether the police arrested are suspects in the attack or held for questioning.
Curfews and increased troop levels appeared to hold down retaliatory attacks. The vehicle ban was expected to last through Saturday.
But it did not fully prevent Shiite anger from turning violent. Four Sunni mosques near Baghdad were attacked or burned within several hours of the Samarra bombings, police said.
Police in the southern city of Basra said Thursday that four people were killed and six wounded in attacks on at least four mosques there Wednesday.
The Green Zone was repeatedly locked down as U.S. radar picked up incoming rocket fire into the area, which contains the U.S. and British embassies and Iraqi government buildings.
A senior military official said it was believed some non-Americans had been killed or wounded. The official, who would not allow use of his name, said there were no U.S. casualties.
Insurgents linked to al-Qaeda, meanwhile, released a videotape showing the execution-style deaths of 14 Iraqi soldiers and policemen after the expiration of a 72-hour deadline for the Iraqi government to meet their demand that all female prisoners in Iraqi prisons be released.
