People may call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think it's pretty obvious that the CIA, Mossad, or some other American or Israeli terrorist gang orchestrated this completely bogus story about a mass kidnapping and rape in Iraq.

In the latest of a long list of transparent falsehoolds reported in the Western media using unverified evidence and anonymous sources, an unnamed liar within the Iraqi puppet government's Interior Ministry claimed that a bunch of Sunni Muslims rode into Madain, Iraq in the dead of night, kidnapped up to 100 Shi'i Muslims, and threatened to kill them if the Shi'i don't leave the town. While the powerful Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and the Shi'i movement of Muqtada al-Sadr both stated flatly that the report was a lie, Knight Ridder quotes a spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest party in Iraq's national assembly, who said that the crisis began when "Sunni insurgents burned down a Shiite mosque in Madain on Thursday."

Nobody, including the official, provided any proof of this.

Later, additional erroneous reports from both the SCIRI spokesman and unnamed sources emerged stating, again without proof, that the attackers took nine men and a woman captive on the town's outskirts, raped the woman in front of her tribesmen, and sent her to Madain with a warning for all Shiites to leave. Meanwhile, it has become clear that, in fact, none of it was true. And by reporting this fantasy as fact without any corroboration, our corporate media once again prove that they will shill any lie they're fed from an American puppet who approaches them with a story to sell.

It is quite important that this lie comes from within SCIRI. The manufactured crisis unmasks their (and Sistani's) quiet complicity and unty with the American occupation as well as their desire to foment sectarian violence and civil war in Iraq for political gain.

And while sectarianism undoubtedly enhances SCIRI's influence, it benefits the American occupation far more. In fact, the lie falls perfectly in line with the frequently articulated strategy of the American neo-cons and the reactionary Zionists in Israel to sew sectarianism and perpetuate division among Arabs. As was the case with the killing of Rafik Hafiri in Beirut two months ago, the footprint of the American and/or the Israeli intelligence in this case is both obvious and rational.

Events like this latest fiction or the killing of Hariri don't happen by accident. Someone does them, and they do them for a reason. Ask yourself cui bono - who benefits? Who stands to gain from a divided Iraq? Who stands to gain from a divided Lebanon? Who gains from a divided Palestine?

The answer is obvious. Divide and Conquer is historically Empire's strategy of choice. Why should today be any different?

It is worth noting that similar suspicious forces - probably American or Israeli spies - are trying to divide Iran with fabricated news stories, too. And as anyone who can read a map can easily see, Israel has used a relentless policy of ethnic cleansing and land confiscation to divide the Palestinians for more than 50 years.

Who has the means?
Who has the motive?
Who has the opportunity?

These are the questions that matter, and they're the questions over which both the United States and Israel will commit any crime to maintain plausible deniability.
April 17, 2005
IRAQ KIDNAP REPORTS MAY BE EXAGGERATED
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:16 p.m. ET

NEAR MADAIN, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops had the town of Madain surrounded Sunday after reports of Sunni militant kidnappings of as many as 100 Shiites residents, but there were growing indications the incident had been grossly exaggerated, perhaps an outgrowth of a tribal dispute or political maneuvering.

The town of about 1,000 families, evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis, sits about 15 miles south of the capital in what the U.S. military has called the ''Triangle of Death'' because it has become a roiling stronghold of the militant insurgency.

An AP photographer and television cameraman who were in or near the town Sunday said large numbers of Iraqi forces had sealed it off, supported by U.S. forces who were keeping a low profile farther from the edge of Madain.

The cameraman said he toured the town Sunday morning. People were going about their business normally, shops were open and tea houses were full, he said. Residents contacted by telephone also said everything was normal in Madain.

And American military officials said they were unaware of any U.S. role in what had been described as a tense sectarian standoff in which the Sunni militants were threatening to kill their Shiite captives if all other Shiites did not leave the town.

Earlier in the day, National Security Minister Qassim Dawoud told Parliament that three battalions of Iraqi soldiers, police and U.S. forces were sent to the town. He said the Iraqi military was planning a large-scale assault on the region.

A Defense Ministry official, Haidar Khayon, said early Sunday that Iraqi forces raided the town and freed about 15 Shiite families and captured five hostage takers in a skirmish with light gunfire. He said there were no casualties.

Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged government officials to resolve the crisis peacefully, his office said.

By the end of the day, however, Iraqi officials had produced no hostages and Iraqi military officials who had given information about the troubles in Madain could not be reached for further details.

Also on Sunday, Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Sunni clerics, denied hostages had been taken in Madain. ''This news is completely untrue,'' he told al-Jazeera television.

The country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, also denied there had been any hostage-taking in a statement Sunday on an Islamic Web site known for its militant content.

The group, headed by the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the incident was a fabrication by the ''enemies of God'' to justify a military attack on Madain aimed at Sunnis.

Sunnis make up about 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million population, but were dominant under Saddam Hussein. Since U.S.-led forces drove him from power two years ago, the disempowered Sunnis are believed to form the backbone of the ongoing insurgency, angered by their loss of influence to majority Shiites.

Whatever happened in Madain began Thursday when Shiite leaders claimed Sunni militants seriously damaged a town mosque in a bomb attack. The next day, the Shiites said, masked militants drove through town, capturing Shiites residents and threatened to kill them unless all Shiites left.

Shiite leaders and government officials had earlier estimated 35 to 100 people were taken hostage, but residents disputed the claim, with some saying they had seen no evidence any hostages were taken.

Security forces began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, Dawoud said.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, insurgents killed eight Iraqis in attacks across the country. The U.S. military said three American soldiers had been killed and seven wounded as insurgents fired mortar rounds late Saturday at a U.S. Marine base near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. Late Sunday, loud explosions were heard again from the direction of the base, but the military had no immediate information on what was happening.

The assault raised to 24 the number of people who died in Iraq Saturday, including an American civilian, an Iraqi and another foreigner who died in a car bombing in the capital.

The U.S. Embassy identified the American civilian victim as Marla Ruzicka, the 28-year-old founder of the Washington-based Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict. CIVIC began conducting a door-to-door survey trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in Iraq soon after the war ended.
SUNNI INSURGENTS TAKE SHIITES HOSTAGE
BY GAIUTRA BAHADUR
Knight Ridder News Service

BAGHDAD - Sunni Muslim insurgents seized hostages in the town of Madain on Saturday and ordered Shiite residents to leave in what Iraqi officials said was an attempt to cleanse the town of Shiites.

Accounts of the events varied widely -- an Interior Ministry official said the number of hostages was 10 while Iraqi television said 150 were being held -- but the unfolding drama appeared to be one of the most serious confrontations between Sunni and Shiite factions since Jan. 30 elections, which were dominated by Shiite candidates amid a Sunni boycott.

More than 1,000 police and soldiers had been dispatched Saturday to Madain to quell the disturbance, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Madain is an ethnically mixed town about 20 miles south of Baghdad. It is the site of the ancient city of Ctesiphon.

The sectarian standoff came as violence claimed two more American lives -- a soldier from the 42nd Military Police Brigade who was killed by an explosive device near Taji, north of Baghdad, and another who died from wounds suffered Friday when a coalition military base near Tikrit was attacked.

Also Saturday, 11 prisoners escaped from Camp Bucca, the largest U.S. detention facility in Iraq. The prisoners dug a tunnel out, said 1st Lt. Adam Rondeau, a spokesman for the U.S. military.

Iraqi police caught 10 of the detainees within six hours. One is still missing.

Tensions in the Madain area apparently have been growing for days.

A spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, part of the dominant bloc in the national assembly, said Sunni insurgents burned down a Shiite mosque in Madain on Thursday.

Haitham Husseini said the insurgents returned Friday and took 40 to 60 hostages.

Saturday's events began when gunmen took nine men and a woman captive on the town's outskirts, according to an Interior Ministry official who requested anonymity. The kidnap victims, all members of the same Shiite tribe, had been on a bus to Baghdad from the Shiite city of Kut.

The official said the gunmen raped the woman in front of her tribesmen, then sent her to Madain with a warning for all Shiites to leave. He also said her family in Baghdad, after learning of her situation, kidnapped members of the prominent Dulaimi tribe of Sunnis in retaliation.

''The situation is very hot, and it will cause sectarian strife,'' the official said.

Confusion surrounded the events, however. While state-owned Iraqiya TV said insurgents were threatening to kill 150 hostages in 24 hours, a spokesman for Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr in Madain told Al Jazeera television that nothing had happened.

''It's all false news,'' Sheik Abdul Hadi al Daraji said.

But Husseini of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq said residents were fleeing.

''We heard a lot of families left that place,'' he said.