Secret Squirrel
05-12-2006, 01:34 AM
A Shiite Muslim lawmaker's cellphone ring tone — intoning a Shiite religious chant with each call — sparked a scuffle Wednesday that briefly shut down what was only the second full day of business for Iraq's new legislature.
The confrontation between the bodyguard of lawmaker Ghufran al-Saidi and the security detail attached to the parliament's Sunni Muslim speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, prompted a TV blackout of the session, an abrupt adjournment and a walkout by some lawmakers.
An outraged Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and militia leader to whose party Saidi belongs, considered but apparently backed away from a boycott of the fledgling parliament over the spat, his aides indicated. The aides and Saidi said later that they were satisfied by a pledge of an investigation.
Playing out in the midst of the Sunni-Shiite power struggle that claims dozens of lives almost every day in Iraq, the ring-tone clash illustrated the volatility of the country's sectarian tensions, the ease with which they can be set off and the inexperience of the country's new leaders in dealing with them.
The squabble started Monday in the lobby outside Iraq's parliament hall when Saidi's cellphone rang as Mashhadani was giving a television interview nearby, Saidi told lawmakers and reporters.
Mashhadani's bodyguards asked Saidi's bodyguard, who was holding her phone, to silence it, and the aide hung up on the call, Saidi said. When the disconnected caller called back, the parliament speaker's guards attacked Saidi's guard and beat him, she said.
Saidi, who wears the headscarf of conservative Muslim women, said the Sunni guards were angered by the Shiite chant. She acknowledged that she joined the brawl.
At Wednesday's session of parliament, when Saidi took the floor to complain at length, Mashhadani eventually ordered her microphone turned off, TV cameras shut down and the session recessed. Some lawmakers walked out to protest what they called the speaker's brusque behavior. Mashhadani had showed himself "unable to steer the session" and needed more experience, said Mithal al-Lusi, an independent Sunni lawmaker.
Nourideen Hiyali, a member of Mashhadani's party, said the speaker had meant to apologize at the start of Wednesday's session for the brawl but Saidi arrived too late.
After Wednesday's session resumed behind closed doors, Mashhadani told lawmakers his chief bodyguard had been intercepted Tuesday by a car of gunmen, shot and wounded, lawmakers said. Mashhadani and his allies did not publicly link Tuesday's attack to Monday's brawl.
Death toll: Baghdad's morgue received 1,091 homicide victims in April, most from sectarian killings, said Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani. Talabani acknowledged that the morgue statistics accounted for bodies discovered around Baghdad and that the total number of civilian deaths was likely far higher.
Workers shot: Nine Iraqis were killed and four were wounded Wednesday morning near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, when armed men attacked a bus and then blew it up as police were retrieving the bodies. Police Lt. Mohammed Hakman said the victims were employees at Diyala State Company for Electric Industries and were shot on their way to work.
Detainees escape: A U.S. military commander in northern Iraq also reported that four Iraqis detained at a U.S. camp near the northern city of Sulaymaniah had escaped.
link (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002986263_iraq11.html)
Progress is an amazing thing.
The confrontation between the bodyguard of lawmaker Ghufran al-Saidi and the security detail attached to the parliament's Sunni Muslim speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, prompted a TV blackout of the session, an abrupt adjournment and a walkout by some lawmakers.
An outraged Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and militia leader to whose party Saidi belongs, considered but apparently backed away from a boycott of the fledgling parliament over the spat, his aides indicated. The aides and Saidi said later that they were satisfied by a pledge of an investigation.
Playing out in the midst of the Sunni-Shiite power struggle that claims dozens of lives almost every day in Iraq, the ring-tone clash illustrated the volatility of the country's sectarian tensions, the ease with which they can be set off and the inexperience of the country's new leaders in dealing with them.
The squabble started Monday in the lobby outside Iraq's parliament hall when Saidi's cellphone rang as Mashhadani was giving a television interview nearby, Saidi told lawmakers and reporters.
Mashhadani's bodyguards asked Saidi's bodyguard, who was holding her phone, to silence it, and the aide hung up on the call, Saidi said. When the disconnected caller called back, the parliament speaker's guards attacked Saidi's guard and beat him, she said.
Saidi, who wears the headscarf of conservative Muslim women, said the Sunni guards were angered by the Shiite chant. She acknowledged that she joined the brawl.
At Wednesday's session of parliament, when Saidi took the floor to complain at length, Mashhadani eventually ordered her microphone turned off, TV cameras shut down and the session recessed. Some lawmakers walked out to protest what they called the speaker's brusque behavior. Mashhadani had showed himself "unable to steer the session" and needed more experience, said Mithal al-Lusi, an independent Sunni lawmaker.
Nourideen Hiyali, a member of Mashhadani's party, said the speaker had meant to apologize at the start of Wednesday's session for the brawl but Saidi arrived too late.
After Wednesday's session resumed behind closed doors, Mashhadani told lawmakers his chief bodyguard had been intercepted Tuesday by a car of gunmen, shot and wounded, lawmakers said. Mashhadani and his allies did not publicly link Tuesday's attack to Monday's brawl.
Death toll: Baghdad's morgue received 1,091 homicide victims in April, most from sectarian killings, said Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani. Talabani acknowledged that the morgue statistics accounted for bodies discovered around Baghdad and that the total number of civilian deaths was likely far higher.
Workers shot: Nine Iraqis were killed and four were wounded Wednesday morning near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, when armed men attacked a bus and then blew it up as police were retrieving the bodies. Police Lt. Mohammed Hakman said the victims were employees at Diyala State Company for Electric Industries and were shot on their way to work.
Detainees escape: A U.S. military commander in northern Iraq also reported that four Iraqis detained at a U.S. camp near the northern city of Sulaymaniah had escaped.
link (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002986263_iraq11.html)
Progress is an amazing thing.