Posted on 04/17/2005 12:33:49 PM PDT by FairOpinion
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 17 - Anyone in Baghdad this morning could have been forgiven for thinking the country was on the verge of civil war.
Three Iraqi Army battalions had surrounded the town of Madaen, just south of the capital, where Sunni kidnappers were said to be threatening to kill hundreds of Shiite hostages unless all Shiites left the town. As the national assembly met, Iraq's top political figures warned of a grave sectarian crisis. Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric issued a plea for restraint. Even the outgoing prime minister released a statement decrying the "savage, filthy, and dirty atrocities" in Madaen.
But as the army battalions arrived in Madaen, they saw streets full of people calmly sipping tea in cafés and going about their business. There were no armed Sunni mobs, no cowering Shiite victims. After hours of careful searches, the soldiers assisted by air surveillance found no evidence of any kidnappings or refugees at all.
By this afternoon, Iraqi army officials were reporting that the crisis in Madaen, which had been narrated in a stream of breathless television reports and news agency stories, was nothing but a tissue of rumors and politically motivated accusations.
The hysteria over Madaen was one vivid illustration of the way Iraq's daily violence and sectarian tension, which are real enough, can be easily twisted into fantasy here. In a country where phones are unreliable and roads between cities often blocked, facts can give way to a fast-running engine of rumor. And most people have good reason to believe the worst.
The wild rumors are also an index of Iraq's current political turmoil. Some of the early reports about the Madaen kidnappings on Friday night came from Shiite political figures who are bitterly angry at the outgoing government of Dr. Ayad Allawi. In the past, some Shiites have been quick to emphasize any hints that his government may be losing control.
The Shiites' anger at Dr. Allawi, a secular Shiite and former Baathist, stems in part from his decision to rehire a number of other former Baathists into the government and military. Like the Kurds, Iraqi's Shiites were brutally oppressed by Saddam Hussein's Baathist government.
Dr. Allawi handed in his resignation as prime minister last week, but the new Shiite-led coalition government has yet to take power, and many of its members are impatient.
"We are in a political vacuum," said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for Iraq's outgoing interior minister. "Politicians will be politicians, but I blame them for not forming a government quickly enough."
The rumors in Madaen did not grow from nothing. A group of traveling Shiites was kidnapped last week near the town, 10 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said today. That generated a retaliatory kidnapping of a group of Sunnis by Shiites a few days later.
Sunni Arabs and Shiites have clashed often in the area south of Baghdad, particularly the lawless zone known as the Triangle of Death, which is northeast of Madaen.
On Friday night, Interior Ministry officials said the police in Madaen were reporting that a group of Sunnis with roots in Anbar Province, where sectarian tensions have risen lately, had kidnapped three Shiites and were threatening to kill them unless all Shiites agreed to leave the town.
The story, with its overtones of Bosnia-style ethnic cleansing, quickly grew. On Saturday Iraqiya television reported that 150 hostages had been taken. Western news agencies began reporting that Shiites were fleeing Madaen and seeking refuge to the south, and that Iraqi army units were preparing to sweep into the town.
Residents in the town played down the reports on Saturday. But a bomb exploded in a Shiite mosque in Madain, fanning the notion of a sectarian conflict. No one was injured in the blast, which left the mosque in ruins.
By this morning, the story had become the first agenda at the week's first national assembly meeting. National Security Minister Qasem Dawood briefed the assembly members on the crisis and the military's plan to encircle and pacify the town.
"There is an attempt to drag this country into civil war," he said.
A Shiite assembly member, Jalal Adin al-Saghir, told the gathered members of riots, and lashed out angrily at Dr. Allawi's government for not protecting the people. Another influential member told of mines that had been placed around Madaen by terrorists, and spoke of the events there as "a kind of ethnic purge."
Not to be outdone, Dr. Allawi issued his own comment later in the day. "These wild acts of destroying peaceful homes, kidnapping innocent people, and assaulting properties and families will not go without punishment," he said in a statement about the events in Madaen.
Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made phone calls to government officials and urged them to solve the crisis in Madaen peacefully.
Before long, the reactions to the crisis took on a sectarian coloring of their own. This afternoon a prominent group of hard-line Sunni clerics held a news conference and issued a statement, saying the Madaen crisis was a fabrication to stoke animosity against Sunnis.
Even Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist who is Iraq's most wanted man, weighed in. His network, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, issued a statement on Islamist Web sites saying the kidnappings were a fabrication by Iraqi and American authorities. The statement went on to say it was the Iraqi army and police who rounded up people in Madaen, and the victims were Sunnis, not Shiites.
In the end, the Iraqi army officers who searched Madaen delivered their own, more balanced verdict.
"This issue was exaggerated for political reasons related to the formation of the new government," said Maj. Gen. Mudhir Mola Abboud of the Iraqi army. "We entered the city and did not find any hostages."
Iraqi Forces Free 15 Shiite Families
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces raided a town in central Iraq and freed some 15 Shiite families being held hostage on Sunday, an official said, after Sunni militants threatened to kill dozens of captives unless all Shiites left the area.
The government said it was trying to resolve the standoff peacefully, while Shiite lawmakers called for action to stop "terrorist groups from promoting sectarian violence."
Security forces, who had the town of Madain surrounded, began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, said Qassim Dawoud, the minister in charge of national security.
Witnesses said road blocks were set up and no one was allowed to leave or enter the town of about 1,000 families some 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. But shops opened and the streets were calm.
Iraqi forces had freed about 15 Shiite families, said Haidar Khayon, an official at the Defense Ministry in Baghdad. He said five hostage-takers were captured in a skirmish with light gunfire, but no casualties were reported.
Sabah Khadum, an interior ministry adviser, said officials didn't know how many hostages were being held or whether it was a sectarian crisis or merely a tribal dispute. He said the interior and defense ministries hoped to resolve it peacefully.
I don't know what to believe anymore.
Reuters and AFP sure went out of there way to foment this latest'insurgency' uprising.
Maybe they deserve al jazeera status and a boot out of Iraq.
Well, AP is reporting that some 15 families have been freed:
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Other sources are reporting that hostages have been freed.
Well, I guess if there never were any, they can be counted as being freed.
This story just underlines how unreliable the reporting is, in situations like this.
And yet the liberal media is still counting the Iraqi civilian casualties. I bet those figures are way off too.
There was an article somewhere, that said, that this latest hostage taking shows that the Americans aren't able to provide security for Iraq, etc.
Iraq violence destroys American claims
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=8&theme=&usrsess=1&id=74363
"Fears of sectarian conflict are growing, following the threat by Sunni militants in the town of Madaen, south of Baghdad, to execute 60 Shi’ite hostages unless Shi’ites leave the area.
The upsurge in violence across Iraq in the past four days has left Pentagon claims that the tide is turning in Iraq and there are hopeful signs of a return to normality in tatters. "
===
I wonder if they will withdraw their accusations now.
I guess if there is no real violence, the media just manufactures some.
"But as the army battalions arrived in Madaen, they saw streets full of people calmly sipping tea in cafés and going about their business. There were no armed Sunni mobs, no cowering Shiite victims. After hours of careful searches, the soldiers assisted by air surveillance found no evidence of any kidnappings or refugees at all. "
his reminds me of.....GI Joe Cody..
The reporters need to get their behinds out of the Green Zone and start acting like reporters.
The press has to stop acting like politicians and more like reporters.
First The Black Hole of Calcutta; now this.
When will the MSM learn?
This is a lie! Some reporter paid a local for that story, and presented it as his own work. It is total falsehood. The media simply does not want to recognize that the new Iraq military force is doing a fantastic job.
I heard about this matter earlier than it was posted on FR.com. Now the media is getting a hold of it, and they want it swept under the rug and ignored. They cannot be having Iraq military forces being perceived as competent. That might deligitimize their status as objective reporters.
There is still conflicting info coming out -- you can't believe anything anymore.
Iraqi forces free some Madain hostages
Last Updated Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:23:24 EDT
CBC News
BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces have freed about 15 Shia families who were taken hostage by Sunni militants in the town of Madain near Baghdad, a government spokesman said Sunday.
Soldiers are still searching the town of 1,000 families, spokesman Haidar Khayon said.
It's not known how many of the hostages are still being held.
Khaydon said five militants were captured.
http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/04/17/iraq-madain050417.html
I happen to know people who know people who were involved in some of the events.
The old media makes me want to hurl.
Thanks for the info.
The MSM lie and distort so much, that now it's getting to the point, that even the grain of truth is missing, upon which they build their lies.
I guess we will have to wait for the official reports that come out of the DoD
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.