I went this morning to look at the mosque street. There were traces of a burnt car, and i couldn't get closer to the mosque to see whether if it was directly affected by yesterday's assault.
I spoke to the shopkeeper i was worried about yesterday, he was fine, but he was clearly shaken and shocked from yesterday's terrible events. He said that there were no casualties from the region except 2 wounded, one was hit by the attackers, and the other shot himself in the foot!
We got phone calls from some friends and relatives asking about us, and how are we doing.
The story made it to int'l newspapers. Google'ing our region's name, i got this article as a result:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/07/12/a2.int.iraq.0712.p1.php?section=nation_world
Iraqi politicians say it's now a civil war
By Joshua Partlow
and Bassam Sebti
Published: Wednesday, July 12, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq -
The words they have come to fear thundered out from the mosque loudspeakers as the sun sank over Baghdad: ``God is great! God is great! God is great!''
Just one day before, Sunni Arab sheiks in Amariyah, one of Baghdad's most embattled neighborhoods, had gone door to door recruiting volunteers willing to fight against Shiite militias. The mosque's signal Tuesday night meant the time to fight was now.
According to witnesses and a Washington Post special correspondent, carloads of men in track suits, suspected by residents to be members of the powerful Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army, pulled up outside the Malouki Mosque and fired rocket-propelled grenades at the house of worship. During the firefight, a bullet pierced the shoulder of a mosque guard, while cars were gutted and burned. Residents said they didn't know how many people died.
Gunfire clattered through the hot evening air; children bawled at the sound. In one home, a wife locked the front door and pleaded with her husband not to leave the house. A former army officer barked orders to neighbors who assembled to mount a defense: You go up to the rooftops. You guard the street corners.
Saleh Muhammed, an Amariyah resident, told a Post special correspondent that he dialed 130 into his cell phone, Baghdad's emergency number. "The Mahdi Army has attacked Amariyah," he told the Interior Ministry dispatcher.
"The Mahdi Army are not terrorists like you," said the dispatcher at the ministry, which is controlled by a Shiite party and operates closely with militias. "They are people doing their duty. And how could you know that they are the Mahdi Army? Is it written on their foreheads?" He hung up the phone.
