Police order curfew in Baghdad
09/30/2006
POSTED: 7:25 a.m. EDT, September 30, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN)—A curfew is in effect in Baghdad banning virtually all movement in the city, police said.
The curfew—from 11 p.m. Friday (3 p.m. ET) through 6 a.m. Sunday (10 p.m. ET Saturday)—was announced late Friday on Al Iraqiya state-run TV.
Baghdad Emergency Police confirmed the curfew to CNN. It entails a complete ban on vehicular or pedestrian movement.
The U.S. military told CNN that it learned of the curfew from the media. A military spokesman later added that the decision to implement the curfew was made by the Iraqi government due to increased attacks over the past two weeks.
The extended curfew is a “normal thing” and is based on military intelligence, an Iraqi Army spokesman told CNN Saturday.
“It is a security measure put in place by the Iraqi government and military to thwart any terrorist plans,” the spokesman said.
Clashes between armed gunmen and Iraqi police and army troops have occurred in three Baghdad neighborhoods since the sun set Friday, police told CNN. The Iraqi army has called for backup from U.S. forces.
The vehicle and pedestrian curfew is fairly unusual. A regular curfew had been in place nightly from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., but because the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is under way, that curfew was pushed back to begin at 11 p.m., because people normally venture out after sunset during the holy month—mainly to eat after fasting.
The last time a vehicle and pedestrian curfew was imposed was June 23, in response to a gun battle near a Shiite mosque.
Green Zone ‘plot’
Meanwhile, a plot to attack the Baghdad’s Green Zone with a number of vehicle-borne bombs was being planned by an al Qaeda member who worked as a guard for the leader of Iraq’s largest Sunni party, the U.S. military said.
A statement issued by the U.S.-led coalition said the alleged bombing plot was in the final stages of planning Friday when they arrested one of the planners at the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Iraq Accordance Front. The statement did not make it clear if the plot is still under way.
The Green Zone, a large section of central Baghdad surrounded by tight security, is where the U.S. led-coalition and the Iraqi government are headquartered.
The Coalition statement said the suspect was a member of al-Dulaimi’s personal security detachment and was believed to be a member of al Qaeda in Iraq and was linked to the vehicle-borne network operating in southern Baghdad.
“Credible intelligence indicates the individual, a member of Dr. al-Dulaimi’s personal security detachment, and seven members of the detained individual’s cell were in the final stages of launching a series of VBIED attacks inside the International Zone, possibly involving suicide vests,” the Coalition statement said
Al-Dulaimi told CNN that U.S. troops surrounded his Baghdad residence Friday and conducted a search around the house. He said when he went outside and introduced himself, the military said they were looking for a suspected terrorist. Al-Dulaimi said he did not recognize the name they gave him.
Al-Dulaimi said the U.S. troops used dogs to search around his house, although they did not go inside.
He acknowledged that they detained one of his guards for interrogation.
Other developments
Gunman in western Baghdad have shot dead the brother-in-law of the new chief judge in the Saddam Hussein trial, police told CNN. Kadhim Abdel Hussein, the brother-in-law of Judge Mohammad Orabi Majeed Al-Khalefa, was driving in Ghazaliya on Friday with his son aged 10 and another 10-year-old boy when their car was attacked. Both boys were wounded. Earlier police said the slain man’s son, Karrar, was also killed. (Full story)
Four young men were slain in Balad, according to an official from the Salaheddin Joint Coordination Center Friday. They were shot and their bodies showed signs of torture. Balad is in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad.
In Thursday’s violence, at least four Iraqis—including two police officers—were killed and 38 wounded when a pair of bombs exploded on Saadoun Street, Baghdad’s main thoroughfare, Iraqi emergency police said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a car bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded eight others in Sha’ab, a mixed Sunni-Shiite, middle-class neighborhood, police said. Four civilians also were injured. Also Thursday, 10 police officers were wounded in four separate bomb attacks in the capital.
Police found 60 bodies—all showing signs of torture—dumped around the Iraqi capital in a 24-hour period ending Thursday morning. Most of the bodies had their hands tied and gunshot wounds to the head, Iraqi emergency police said.