“War is deceit.” – Muhammad (Sahih Bukhari 4.52.268)
Sunni/Shi’ite Jihad Update. “Iraq Sunni shrine bombed amid reprisal attacks,” by Abdel Karim Jamil for Agence France-Presse:
BASRA, Iraq (AFP) – Assailants pretending to be a film crew blew up and destroyed a Sunni shrine near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Friday as militants carried out more revenge attacks for the bombing of a Shiite shrine.
[…]
The shrine of Talha bin Obeidallah in the town of Zubair, west of overwhelmingly Shiite Basra, was destroyed at dawn, an Iraqi army officer told
AFP.
“A group of people carrying a camera arrived at the Talha bin Obeidallah shrine
at 6:00 am (0200 GMT),” said Major General Ali Mussawi.
“They said they wanted to film the mosque. But they went about planting bombs
around it.
“The structure is completely destroyed,” he said, adding that the shrine’s security guards had been detained for questioning.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned what he described as a terrorist
act and ordered an indefinite curfew imposed on British-patrolled Basra from 4:00 pm (1200
GMT) Friday to prevent any further tit-for-tat violence.
“The terrorist act which targeted the shrine came as part of a series of crimes
aimed at inflaming sectarian passions among the sons of the country,” the Shiite premier said in a statement.
“Those who have committed it are enemies of Allah, the country and the
people.”
Several
Sunni mosques have been attacked in Iraq since Wednesday’s bombing of the Shiite Al-Askari shrine in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.