NEWS: Explosion Rocks Shi'ite holiest site

Samera is one of the few cities that is controlled by us military forces. It just shows how incapable us forces are in providing security for iraqi holy sites. I mean Iraqi forces managed to provide security for Ashura festival where more than 1 million pilgrims attended Kerbala without one act of terror.

I still cannot believe sunnis/insurgents/alqaeda is behind this. I mean, at dawn time (6 am), 5 insurgents in commando uniforms in cop-like-painted car race thru the city, kill the guards (as many as 10), enter the site, imprison the men inside, implant the unconventional bombs inside the mosque, blow it up, go back and get on the car, and escape outta city (there are only 2 ways in and out of city). WTF?

RESPECT

Another Day in the Empire

Since it is unreasonable to expect Baghdad hotel-bound corporate media hacks to report anything beyond what is read from a Pentagon script inside the Green Zone, most Americans remain unaware of details implicating the Iraqi National Guard in the bombing.

According to reports appearing on the humanitarian Iraqi League organization’s Iraqi Rabita website and translated into English by the Iraqi blogger Baghdad Dweller (see original Arabic here and here), at least two witnesses saw “unusual activities by the ING [Iraqi National Guard] in the area around the mosque.” Two mosque guards reported four men in ING uniforms had blindfolded them and planted explosives. A second witness, Muhammad al-Samarrai, the owner of an internet cafe in the area, was told to stay in his store and not leave the area. From 11 pm until 6:30 am, ten minutes before two bombs were detonated, the area surrounding the mosque was patrolled by “joint forces of Iraqi ING and Americans,” according to al-Samarrai.

Baghdad Dweller

Witness 1:

I live in a district very near to the mosque and I will tell you exactly what I saw hours before the bombing.

There is a daily curfew in our city (Samarra) starts from 8,00 in the evening until 6,00 in the morning, in the night before the bombing and just when it’s getting dark there was unusual activities by the ING in the area around the mosque, I heard their cars the whole night until next day in the morning.

The Mosque Guards testimony says: Four people with ING uniforms blind folded them and set the bombs.

The witness continues, so ask I you how could the terrorists enter the area which is usually surrounded by the ING and enter the mosque then runway without being got by the police?


Witness 2:

Witness 2 gives more detailed information and the Americans connection to the events before the bombing, so I made it as timeline of the events.

My name is Muhammad Al-Samarrai, I own an internet-cafe near the mosque, I sleep in my shop because I am worry about my computers from thieves.

8,30 (evening) joint forces of Iraqi ING and Americans asked me to stay in the shop and don’t leave the area.

9,00 (evening) they left the area.

11,00 (evening) they came back and started to patrol the area until the morning.

6,00 (next day morning) ING leave the area .

6,30 Americans leave the area .

6,40 first explosion.

6,45 second explosion.

He confirmed again that the curfew starts at 8,00 (evening) until next day 6,00 (morning), INGs and the Americans will surround and patrol the city all that time.

Interesting Information.

And even MORE interesting Questions.

I didn't expect this kind of Information to be presented in the Western Corporate media - that would be way beyond their Fairness and Balance.

Still, there you have the Eyewitnesess and their Reports.

I also strongly suggest the following article:

Phoenix Rising

Tucked away in the recent Iraqi appropriation was $3 billlion for a new paramilitary unit. Close students of Vietnam may see similarities.

The hidden $3 billion will fund covert ("black") operations disguised as an Air Force classified program. According to John Pike, an expert on classified military budgets at globalsecurity.org, the cash, spread over three years, is likely being funneled directly to the CIA, boosting that agency's estimated $4 billion a year budget by fully 25 percent.

But the bulk of the covert money will support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revenge-minded, Iraqi security force. "The big money would be for standing up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the resistance," says Pike. "And it has to be politically loyal to the United States."

Unable to quell the resistance to the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon is revamping its intelligence and special-operations task force in Iraq, a classified unit commanded by an Air Force brigadier general. It's also pouring money into the creation of an Iraqi secret police staffed mainly by gunmen associated with members of the puppet Iraqi Governing Council.

I just show you the Door - you have to Open it...

After reading your proof of US involvement

So, the Armed forces leave and then there is an explosion. Maybe the insurgents did not want the firefight and had a mission to accomplish in blowing this place up. This is "common tactical sense". Primary mission is to blow up the mosque, secondary is US/Iraqi military casualties. They completed their primary objective. This seems like an Al-qeada op to me. Quick and efficient. These guys are not all rag tag mountain dwellers. They are veterans of many wars.

number 2, I hope alot of funds are provided for a special armed forces unit to take care of isurgents and create a Iraqi show of power. How is this a bad thing?


[edit on 24-2-2006 by esdad71]

Originally posted by infinite

Originally posted by shots

Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, is blaming foreign insurgents for the attack, saying they are trying to provoke civil war.
Source

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Foreign?

remember the 2 British soldiers caught in the act of strategically planting bombs way back in September...?

i see the above statement by the Iraqi National Security Advisor as just another guess....just like we are engaged in
of course, he might have a need & reason to deflect suspicion as some locals are of the mind that factions within the Iraq National Guard (would that explain the 'uniformed men' reports)
who are loyal to the anglo-american occupation forces, are the 'foreigners'

relevent source article at: kurtnimmo.com...
"...Samarra Mosque Bombing...."

My thoughts have been that there MUST be some witnesses to some of this. Somebody knows something.

Originally posted by proprog
Samera is one of the few cities that is controlled by us military forces. It just shows how incapable us forces are in providing security for iraqi holy sites.
...
I still cannot believe sunnis/insurgents/alqaeda is behind this.

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make sense, does it? Not one bit of logical sense. Until I read Souljah's post.

I had suspicions (stronger now, with eyewitness reports) that the US/Iraqi puppet gov't were involved. But why would they leave the cafe owner alive to be a witness?

Still, I keep an open mind. But it's getting harder.

[edit on 24-2-2006 by CogitoErgoSum1]

Originally posted by proprog
It is against islam to make such attack on anyone's tomb, either sunni or shia.

So?
Are yoou seriously suggesting that no muslim has ever done anything that is, in your interpretation, 'against islam'???

I remember reading somewhere, (I have already mentioned this in my previous posts) that one of the final signs before re-appearance of Hidden Imam Mehdi (The Promised One) in shi'ite faith is destruction/collapse of a mosque in the OCCUPIED IRAQ. do not recall the exact place but where better than the site Mehdi disappeared.

I'd really like to see a source for this.

[edit on 24-2-2006 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by infinite

Originally posted by esdad71
Similar to the Bali bombing, huh....maybe it was Al-qeada?

why would Al-Qeada target a holy shrine, which is apart of their religion?

That shrine has nothing to do with Sunni Islam and in particular Wahhabi islam of arabia. Its, if anything, a perversion and affront to it. Some 'false' imam 'dissapearing' into the air to return in the future like some sort of middle eastern christ. The Sunnis and Shia have been at each other's throats for generations.

that would be like the IRA bombing the Vatican.

More like the orange order bominb St. Patrick's Shrine. Or the IRA bombing luther's tomb or somethign like that. These are the same religion, but different sects.

shots
where would Iran profit or benefit from a civil war inside Iraq?

Its well nigh immpossible that Iran, a shia government, bombed this most sacred of shia tombs. I think I would beleive that the US did it before I beleived that any shia group did it.

grover
because Al Qeada will have made a mortal enemy.

Exactly. Whoever did this just got all of shia islam on their tail. I mean, everyone thinks that islamic terrorist is bad and crazy now, I don't even want to think about the reprisals that are going to come upon whomever gets blamed for this. Forget about 'occupying palestine and treating muslims unfairly in economic deals', actually attacking this mosque? They might as well've destroyed the kabba. There are going to be generations of enraged shia because of this.

esdad71
organization to stir anti-sentiment towards the US,

No way. This was an attack upon Shia Islam itself. This wasn't done to get some other sort of action, this is way too big to do something as temporal as 'stir up anti-american sentiment'. This was done to cleave a country in two.

Iraw is out of control , Iran is making nukes and the Taliban is coming back. It is going to be a loooooong summer folks.

Thats why the pentagon is calling this the "Long War".

quietsoulIslam is either about to go to war with the west, or they're about to go to war with their own extremists

There are other alternatives. The Shia, worldwide, could simply turn on the Sunni, world-wide. It wouldn't be about extremists of one group or the other, it'd be a 'pan-islamic internicene war'.

bsbray11
then we NEED instability as an excuse to stay there.

Why? Sure, we could say, 'our troops need to stay in iraq, because its unstable, they gotta stay until its stable'. But if they need to do that, if they have to provide a justification, then how, after that, can they provide a justification to send troops to Iran and Syria? Before the iraq war, especially given that Afghanistan was doing alright (relatively) after invasion, there was aquestion of how succesfful an invasion can be. Now we know, if you invade, you will be there, amidst chaos, for a generation or so. Given that, the last thing the US wants is instability. The US needs stablity to be able to say 'look at what we can accomplish'. This mosque attack serves against US interests.

. In fact, the interior seems to be in much better shape than the exterior of the dome;

Once the dome gets weakened, its going to fall apart. The dome is the first thing that will go structurally, its the weakest point. The explosion merely needed to weaken it. As far as teh outside being damaged, anything falling inside can fall straight to the ground, any debris falling outside has to tumble along the outside of the building, scouring away the veneer of decoration.

And the dome was plated in gold

Gold is special amoung the metals, it can be cut into slivers with a knife. Its weak, and it'd clearly be torn away by tumbling debris.

What is the reason for saying that two people can't carry in enough explosives to cause a big old dome to collapse? Also, I suspect that under hussein, this building wasn't given much in the way of government renovation finances. So why are you so suprised that in the modern age, a small amount of explosives can destroy a buidling originalyl build over a thousand years ago and renovated perhaps only a few times?

Considering how high up the dome is from the ground, that seems to me as though it would be a very powerful, shaped blast

I don't see why it has to be a shaped blast in order to blow up, nor, really, why it has to blow upwards to cause a dome to collapse. Domes are weak structures, they rest atop the walls of the building around them, if there is a shift in the walls, like from an explosion, they can become unstable and collapse.

netchicken
Good point marg, maybe Saddam HAD to be brutal to keep such a diverse waring group together?

its just like with post Soviet Era Russia. We hardly need to reference american involvement or an american conspiracy in the balkans to get those people try to kill each other. It was the iron hand of their dictators that made it immpossible for them to do so. So with iraq. Remove saudi rule from saudi arabia, and the tribes and sects there will start to cut each other down.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Why? Sure, we could say, 'our troops need to stay in iraq, because its unstable, they gotta stay until its stable'. But if they need to do that, if they have to provide a justification, then how, after that, can they provide a justification to send troops to Iran and Syria?

Can our policy not contradict itself? They use doublethink all the time. Have to fight the terrorists to protect our freedom, and then we institute the PATRIOT Act? Hello? Most everything the US does, does not make sense. But they know how to sell it, and that's what matters.

I don't know how exactly they're going to try to sell war in Iran to us, but should there be another 9/11, I don't think many people are going to be complaining about instability in Iraq.

Once the dome gets weakened, its going to fall apart. The dome is the first thing that will go structurally, its the weakest point. The explosion merely needed to weaken it.

This totally ignores the fact that there was NO DAMAGE AT ALL to the inside, around the walls. You could still make out the little carvings or whatever you'd call them, while the roof was just freaking totally blasted out.

That has NOTHING to do with the dome being the weakest and going first; it was the ONLY thing to go!

As far as teh outside being damaged, anything falling inside can fall straight to the ground, any debris falling outside has to tumble along the outside of the building, scouring away the veneer of decoration.

[...]

Gold is special amoung the metals, it can be cut into slivers with a knife. Its weak, and it'd clearly be torn away by tumbling debris.

With this last part, I like how you attack this fact as if I was using it to support what I was saying. I was merely trying to understand what constituted the dome here.

But nonetheless, what really matters is how the gold was attached, and not the gold itself. I don't know how the gold was connected so I won't comment. The point was the lack of interior damage, up until where the dome was so utterly owned.

What is the reason for saying that two people can't carry in enough explosives to cause a big old dome to collapse?

[...]

I don't see why it has to be a shaped blast in order to blow up, nor, really, why it has to blow upwards to cause a dome to collapse.

Realize that the inside wasn't damaged at all, until up around the dome, as I've just pointed out. The dome was just blown completely out from a huge amount of upward-directed energy, with everything on the walls still perfectly intact.

[edit on 24-2-2006 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by marg6043

The reason of this is that US has not problems with Kurds By the way majority Kurds are Sunni descendants the rest are Turkish.

The origins of the kurds is actually not a settled issue. They extend from parts of turkey, across armenia, and into iraq, but their 'homeland' might be southern iran. When the central asian turks came through, they certainly left their mark. The kurds, apparently, differ from arab sunnis in that they favour the Shafi'i school of thought, and also apparently Sufi'sm is popular amoung them. It is also in the north kurdish areas that once can find the yezidi and assyrian christians, so they perhaps have more of a history in intereacting with other peoples.

And I agree not muslin will target a holy site.

Muslims attack other muslims all the time. Muslims are human, and humans will, under certain pressures, attack other humans, regardless of race, religion, or creed. Sunni muslims in saudi arabia have made the practice of shia islam illegal. And the earliest muslims, the ones that were around right after the prophet, fought against each other. Thats why there are shia and sunni and kwharji and others today. There is nothing that restricts a sunni muslim from attacking a shia mosque. The imams that are buried there were killed by Sunnis, and are not recognized as imams, they are like 'false prophets'. The Imam Mahdi is not recognized by the sunnis as being an imam either, nor as being the mahdi.

Somebody is taking advantage of the problems with ethnic groups in Iraq to start something that can escalate with the only feasible solution.

A divided Iraq in three autonomous states

I think this would be an attempt by one powerful group of insurgents to destabilize the country, weaken the central government, force the US out of a 'quagmire', and then take over on their own. Instability favours the group that needs more power or that doesn't have enough power to take over right now.

Humm... so I guess people just like to forget that Shiites and Sunnis have been in conflicts, and wars with each other for over a millenia....before the U.S. or Israel existed.

I get it, the U.S., or Israel has a time machine and they used it to go back in time and create the conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis..... it is impossible that they would kill each other, or that any group of Muslims would commit sacrilege against their religion to achieve a goal.....or could they?....

History
Ali is the central figure at the origin of the Shia / Sunni split which occurred in the decades immediately following the death of the Prophet in 632. Sunnis regard Ali as the fourth and last of the "rightly guided caliphs" (successors to Mohammed (pbuh) as leader of the Muslims) following on from Abu Bakr 632-634, Umar 634-644 and Uthman 644-656. Shias feel that Ali should have been the first caliph and that the caliphate should pass down only to direct descendants of Mohammed (pbuh) via Ali and Fatima, They often refer to themselves as ahl al bayt or "people of the house" [of the prophet].

When Uthman was murdered while at prayer, Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate. Ali was, however, opposed by Aisha, wife of the Prophet (pbuh) and daughter of Abu Bakr, who accused him of being lax in bringing Uthman's killers to justice. After Ali's army defeated Aisha's forces at the Battle of the Camel in 656, she apologized to Ali and was allowed to return to her home in Madinah where she withdrew from public life.

However, Ali was not able to overcome the forces of Mu'awiya Ummayad, Uthman's cousin and governor of Damascus, who also refused to recognize him until Uthman's killers had been apprehended. At the Battle of Suffin Mu'awiya's soldiers stuck verses of the Quran onto the ends of their spears with the result that Ali's pious supporters refused to fight them. Ali was forced to seek a compromise with Mu'awiya, but this so shocked some of his die-hard supporters who regarded it as a betrayal that he was struck down by one of his own men in 661.

Excerpted form.
www.islamfortoday.com...

Originally posted by infinite

why would Al-Qeada target a holy shrine, which is apart of their religion?
that would be like the IRA bombing the Vatican.

There is a misconception that seems to be going around in which people believe that all Muslims have the same religious beliefs....that is not so.

There are Shiites who are Fivers(Zaidis), and Seveners(Ismailis), but these don't believe in the later Imams.

Shiism has three major subdivisions as well as numerous offshoots. The majority are called Twelvers (Ithna Ashariyya), because they recognize 12 imams, beginning with Ali; the 12th disappeared in 873 but will return as the Mahdi (messiah). Twelver Shiism became the state religion of Persia (Iran) under the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century; it retains that position in the present - day Islamic republic of Iran. The other two major subdivisions are the Seveners (Ismailis) and the Fivers (Zaydites).

Excerpted from.
mb-soft.com...


There is also the following.

Shiites, in contrast to Sunnis, accept the hadiths of Muhammad and the Imams, as being of equal importance and validity.32 The Shi`a also have different interpretations for parts of the Quran.33 According to the Sunnis "there is nothing in the Quran and the Tradition to support the Shii claim that the Imamate is one of the 'pillars' of religion."34 However, Shiites, especially in areas concerning the Imamate and esoteric interpretation of the Quran, disagree with Sunni interpretation and construction of Quranic verses - as in Surah 3:7.35 Another conflict of Quranic interpretation is Surah 3:110, where the Shiites instead of reading the Arabic word umma in reference to peoples or community, read the word a'imma in reference to the Imams.36

Excerpted from.
www.rim.org...

Sunnis do not believe in the Imams as the Shiis, or Shiites do. The Shiites see the Imams as perfect beings, immortal beings, the Sunnis do not believe this. Not only do Sunnis not believe in the Imams to be "perfect beings" but there are Shiites that do not believe in the 11th and 12th Imam, which means even some Shiites from either of the branches of Seveners or Fivers could have blown up the shrine to try to unite all Muslims against the west.

I see how quickly some are forgetting the statements of the Iranian president about the main goal of the Iranian regime, which is to pave the way for the 12th Imam. Remember, according to Sharia, "only the goal is important."

There are people like Souljah who would have people believe that his brethen would not kill each other, and all of the latest attacks, and everything that is known of the history of the conflicts between the branches of Islam ever since the 7th century "was all made up by the west"....or so he and others like him would have people believe.





[edit on 25-2-2006 by Muaddib]

I picked this up from a sunni site. remember info available about coming of Mahdi is much more extensive in shiite faith.

THE STORY OF IMAM MAHDI
.......................
An army will come from the East towards Arabia. The East here refers to Khurasan, i.e. northeastern Iran, which includes the borders of the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. They will pave the way for the establishment of Imam Mahdi's kingdom. This army will carry black banners. Nothing shall stop their onward march, and eventually they will plant their flag on the soils of Jerusalem.

This army will seek the leadership of Arabia. The current leader will refuse to hand over the Khilafat.

A tremendously fierce battle will ensue, the likes of which Muslims had never yet experienced. The army from Khurasan will be victorious and will eventually be granted the leadership.

www.jamiat.org.za...

off-topic but current iranian leader is from Khurasan region and he wears a black turban.

I'm going to do an extensive research on this. I try to find more from shia sources.

RESPECT

And here is another story. I believe this is the shiite version of the Last/Holy War. Very interesting. The guy who is supposed to lead the Khurasan army from Iran is named Mansour. i try to find if there is a high-ranking military personnel in iranian army called Mansour.

The major signs of qiyâmah

Upon the appearance of Imam Mahdi, the major signs of qiyâmah commence. Once the incident of his bay'ah becomes known to everyone, the Muslim armies that were based in Madinah will go to Makkah. All the pious people of Syria, Iraq and Yemen will go to his service. Many other Arab armies will rally around him. Once this becomes known to all the Muslims, a person from Khurâsân will come with a large army in order to assist Imam Mahdi. The name of the person who will be the leader of the front section of this army will be Mansûr. On his way towards Imam Mahdi, he will kill many kuffâr. The person whom we had mentioned previously that he will be from the progeny of Abû Sufyân and that he will be an enemy of the sayyids - he will send an army to fight Imam Mahdi since Imam Mahdi will also be a sayyid. Once this army reaches a desert on the outskirts of Madinah, it will rest at a mountain. Once this army reaches this mountain, all the troops will sink into the ground. Only two persons will survive. One of them will go and inform Imam Mahdi of what transpired while the other will go and inform the Sufyânî (the person from the progeny of Abû Sufyân). The Christians from all around will gather their troops and prepare to fight the Muslims. This army will have 80 flags and there will be 12 000 soldiers under each flag, thus totalling 960 000.

Read the rest at the bottom of the page at this link
www.adishakti.org...

I try to post more.

RESPECT

Originally posted by proprog
THE STORY OF IMAM MAHDI
.......................
current iranian leader is from Khurasan region and he wears a black turban.

That is nothing new. The Ayatollah Khomeini also wore one.

: along with many others. Turbans come in many colors, just because someone wears a black or blue for that matter does not mean this mythed individual has returned. Has anyone seen him or even claimed to have seen him since the attack on the mosque?



[edit on 2/25/2006 by shots]

WTF? US Department of Hearts and Minds?
That's rich.

Anyway, in response to the question, "[h]as anyone seen him [Imam Mahdi] or even claimed to have seen him since the attack on the mosque?", I think a better question would be, "does anyone even know what Imam Mahdi looks like?"

He's got a beard and wears a turban?