Tight security as Iraq Shiites celebrate Idul Fitri
Tight security as Iraq Shiites celebrate Idul Fitri
Carlos Hamann, Agence France-Presse/Baghdad
Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims celebrated on Friday the first day
of the Idul Fitri holiday as authorities maintained tight
security fearing an increase in insurgent attacks.
The holiday marks the end of the Ramadhan month of dawn-to-
dusk fasting, which has since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
been characterized by an increase in attacks.
Since Saturday, at least 71 people have been killed in
bombings on civilian Shiite targets.
The U.S. military said that two U.S. soldiers died in Iraq on
Thursday.
One died "as a result of non-battle related causes" late on
Thursday near the town of Tallil, near Balad, some 75 kilometers
north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Friday.
Earlier the military said that a military policeman was killed
by a roadside bomb near the town of Baquba, close to Tallil.
The deaths brings to at least 2,031 the number of U.S.
military personnel who have died in Iraq since the March 2003
invasion, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.
Iraq's Sunni Muslims, along with radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
Sadr and his supporters, began celebrating Idul Fitri on
Thursday, while Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest Shiite
religious authority in Iraq, decreed that celebrations were to
begin on Friday.
On Thursday, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed on a website to have
shot down a U.S. marine helicopter with an anti-aircraft missile.
Two marines died when the aircraft crashed near the restive Sunni
Arab town of Ramadi on Wednesday morning.
U.S. Army General Rick Lynch said on Thursday that the AH-1
Super Cobra, which had been flying low in support of ground
troops, might have been shot down.
"People on the ground believe they saw a munition fired at the
helicopter," he said. They "saw the helicopter break into pieces
in midair and then crash."
In a separate statement, al-Qaeda said it will kill two
Moroccan embassy staffers it is holding hostage as relatives
pleaded for their release.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is headed by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi and is blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq.
In Washington, Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations
of the Joint Staff, said the U.S. military plans to keep about
160,000 troops in Iraq through general elections in December.
Conway also said that 210,000 Iraqi security forces have now
been trained and equipped.
No decision has been made on whether force levels will fall to
138,000, the baseline for U.S. forces over the past year, said
chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita.
Concerned over the rising casualties due to attacks by so-
called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the Pentagon is
considering appointing a three-star general to head a task force
aimed at finding ways to counter the bombs.
Conway said greater focus is being put on IEDs "because it's
the only tool the enemy really has left in order to be able to
take us on and be able to really cause casualties."
A 140-person Pentagon task force has been working on ways to
combat roadside bombings since mid-2004.
Despite US$1.5 billion in funding, the group has produced no
technological silver bullet against IEDs, and insurgents have
managed to stay a step ahead of new tactics developed by the
military.
In October, the fourth deadliest month of the Iraq war for the
U.S. military, bomb explosions accounted for more than half of
the U.S. dead, according to statistics compiled by the Brookings
Institution's Iraq Index.
Conway said defeating IEDs was now one of the military's
highest priorities.