Demonstrations in Iraq Turn Bloody

04/04/2004| IslamWeb

At least 20 Iraqis and four occupation soldiers were killed Sunday during a huge demonstration by followers of an anti-American Shiite cleric. Eyewitnesses said bullets were shot during a protest in Najaf by thousands of Muqtada Sadr supporters, who had gathered outside the headquarters of Spanish troops in the city of Najaf. Twenty Iraqis, including soldiers, were killed during the protests outside a Spanish military garrison, witnesses said. More than 200 people were injured, some seriously. The crowd was protesting the reported detention of an aide to Sadr. An estimated 5,000 people marched to the garrison of the Spanish military contingent in Najaf after hearing that Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a top al-Sadr aide, had been detained. For their part, Spanish troops in the area have said they have no information on al-Yacoubi's reported detention and did not participate in any such operation. In Baghdad, American forces and Shiites braced for confrontation after a night of protests that saw cleric Moqtada Sadr's supporters throw themselves at US tanks blocking their way toward the occupation headquarters as they headed to protest Saturday. According to AFP, a police officer said two demonstrators were crushed by the tanks. Later in Baghdad gunfire was heard in the center of the capital during another protest called by backers of the young cleric. Baghdad has been rocked by demonstrations since last Sunday when occupation authorities closed al-Hawza newspaper, a pro-Sadr publication, for 60 days on charges of inciting violence and hostility against the occupation. Al-Sadr's office in Baghdad issued a statement later Sunday, calling off street protests and saying the cleric would stage a sit-in at a mosque in the city of Kufa, which is near Najaf. Elsewhere, two U.S. Marines were killed in separate attacks west of Baghdad, the American Army stated on Sunday. It added one Marine was killed in action on Saturday and the other died on Sunday from injuries sustained in a separate incident on Saturday. Also, a car bomb exploded in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk Sunday. According to reports, the blast took place in the central part of the city. Initial reports said at least three people were wounded. Elsewhere, a bomb went off Sunday near a checkpoint in Samarra, about 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, that was manned by Iraqi Civil Defense Corps personnel, killing three and injuring one, workers at Samarra General Hospital said, according to The AP. In the city of Baqouba, some 50 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, a bomb exploded Sunday in the al-Rasool al-Adham Shiite mosque, damaging part of the building, but causing no casualties. Meanwhile, in southern Iraq on Sunday, resistance fighters attacked an oil pipeline, rupturing it and setting the oil on fire, said Jamal Khalid, an official with the Southern Oil Company. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A wounded man is carried after crowds of protesters, including members of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia that supports Moqtada al-Sadr, marched on a Spanish garrison near Kufa April 4, 2004. (Ali Abu Shish/Reuters)