Oh, That is Just Great. This is YOUR FAULT Georgie.

Gunmen in Iraq Add

Teachers to Target List

By Sabrina Tavernise
The New York Times
Go to Original
Tuesday 27 September 2005

Baghdad - In a startling attack that appeared to have been motivated by sectarian hatred, a group of armed men burst into a primary school in a town south of Baghdad on Monday, rounded up five teachers, marched them to an empty classroom and executed them. A police official said all of those killed were Shiite.

Al Jazeera primary school was just getting out in Muilha, a suburb of Iskandariya, a town about 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, south of Baghdad, when, at 1:15 p.m., as many as 10 gunmen dressed in police uniforms entered the building and shot the teachers.

As the gunmen fled the building, they also shot and killed the teachers' driver, who was waiting outside to take them home.

While Iraqis are tormented by daily attacks, teachers have rarely, if ever, been singled out. The killing was particularly cruel as it took place while some children were still at the school and raised fears that schools, largely unprotected in Iraq, could become a new target.

The attack was the most startling in a string of violent episodes in and around Baghdad on Monday that left 16 people dead, including laborers riding in a minivan and three American soldiers.

Shiite civilians of all types have been the targets of killings in recent months, and the police official, who identified himself as Captain Abu al-Hars, said the killing appeared to have been motivated more by sectarian hatred than by the victims' profession. The gunmen wore police uniforms to disguise their identities as Sunni Arab fighters, he said.

The Sunni Arab radicals who have carried out waves of attacks in Iraq have explicitly called for the killing of Iraqi Shiites.

Rifts between Iraq's two main religious groups have deepened considerably since January, when Shiite religious parties were elected to head the government, leaving Sunnis with a minor role. Tensions have risen as Iraq prepares to hold a national referendum next month on a new constitution that is largely opposed by Sunni Arabs.

Muilha is predominantly Sunni Arab and is situated in the heart of an area south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death," where sectarian violence has been intense. The area has been relentlessly attacked, most recently on Sunday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite shrine in Musayyib, killing six people.

In July, a suicide bombing in Musayyib, which is about 65 kilometers south of Baghdad, killed 71 people.

Many of the Sunni Arabs in the area were given favors by Saddam Hussein, who was trying to build a buffer against the Shiite south, and they are bitterly opposed to Shiite power.

Three of the teachers killed Monday were from Muhawil, a Shiite town north of Hilla, an Interior Ministry official said.

The teachers had apparently taken some safety precautions, banding together in a minivan that ferried them to and from work - a distance of about 25 kilometers. The driver was waiting in the van outside the school when the attackers killed him.

But schools in Iraq are poorly protected - without blast walls and usually with only a handful of security guards - and the teachers did not stand a chance. The killers drove up in two Opel cars, one white and one silver, said an Iraqi officer, Captain Abu al-Hars. They appeared to have selected the only male teachers in the school. The female teachers were unharmed.

In Baghdad on Monday, a suicide bomber drove up to the rear gate of a police academy and blew himself up at 7:45 a.m., killing seven people, including Oil Ministry workers who had been riding past in a minivan, and several day laborers who were standing in a crowd nearby, the Interior Ministry official said. Thirty people were wounded.

The explosive-laden car had been parked in the area since about 6 a.m., but no one had noticed it, said Azziz Waheeb, a guard for the complex.

Three US soldiers were killed in two separate road bomb explosions on Monday, the American military said. One was killed 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, and the other two in western Baghdad.