Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran's Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is partly blaming allied forces in Iraq for the deaths of over 1000 Iraqi's during yesterdays chaos in Baghdad.

He said

'It is certain that Iraq’s occupiers, who have imposed their evil presence in Iraq under the pretext of bringing security, are responsible for such devastating accidents and they must be held accountable.
I urge Iraqis to maintain their unity and disappoint the enemy, which aims to create disunity by such plots.'

Iraqi Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi had revealed yesterday that there was some truth behind the rumours of suicide bombers when 3 had blew themselves up before reaching the shrine when they were stopped at a checkpoint.

This was not an attack on allied forces, this was purely an act of revenge on Shi'ite muslims by Sunni extremists.
This was not an accident.

Aljazeera breaking news

According to Aljazeeras 'breaking news' report, al-Qaida have just claimed responsibility for the attacks on London.

No reports on any news websites as yet.

**UPDATE



Aljazeera has aired a clip from an al-Qaida video that shows one of the London bombers explaining their reasons for the July attacks on the British capital.

Al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also appeared on the video on Thursday, promising similar attacks in the future.

London bomber Muhammad Sadiq Khan, a 30-year-old British national from West Yorkshire, said responsibility for the attacks on European and US cities fell squarely on the shoulders of the West because they are backing governments he claimed were carrying out crimes against humanity.

Khan also said that "Western citizens" should no longer feel safe and that they were be the target of similar operations.

Aljazeera said it would air the whole tape later in the evening, when the text would be made available.

Al-Zawahiri also spoke at some length on the reasons for the attack, but placed responsibility on British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a response to UK foreign policy "just as 9/11 was a response to the US".

Al-Zawahiri also promised similar operations in "enemy territory" in the near future, particularly Europe - because it had ignored an offer of truce from al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Ladin.

AJ

Trust that lumpy headed gobshite to make an appearance.

al-Qaida supporter jailed

A Yemeni national extradited from Germany to the US in 2003 has been sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $750,000 for conspiring to support and fund al-Qaida and Hamas.

Full story here

Brit goes missing

A British engineer and his interpreter have been kidnapped in Afghanistan.
The pair went missing within the last few hours somewhere outside Kandahar.

No more details at present.

Hundreds die in Iraq

Shi'ite muslims, making a pilgrimage to Baghdad to commemorate the death of the Shia saint, Imam Musa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, came under mortar fire from insurgents, killing 7.
US forces later confirmed that an Apache helicopter fired on the mortar position, but were unclear as to whether they were killed.

A short time later, rumours of a suicide bomber spread among the crowd causing panic.
Many were trampled to death when a bridge collapsed or drowned as they lept and fell into the Tigris to escape.
The estimated death toll is expected to rise to over 1000.

Another 6 Shi'ite pilgrims were wounded in a separate attack when they were fired upon by insurgents.
News24 also report that another 25 died by eating food that had been poisoned.

The Iraqi goverment are being quick to point the finger at Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and say it was one of his terrorists spreading the rumour of a suicide bomber to the crowd.
However, Iraqi Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi told reporters 'What happened has nothing at all to do with any sectarian tension, only the seven that were killed (by the mortar) this morning were killed by terrorists.'

Oddly enough Dulaimi is a Sunni.

After the murdered bodies of 37 Sunnis were found last week, it sounds more and more like a civil war to me, but what do I know...well I know one thing, after the 3 days of mourning declared by the government is over, they will want revenge.
This is going to get ugly as the tit for tat killings will continue.