Assassinations Send Chill Through Iraqi City

[papau]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=N5XVREEH1DLW0CRBAEKSFFA?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=4080928

Assassinations Send Chill Through Iraqi City
Tue January 06, 2004 11:00 AM ET By Seb Walker MOSUL, Iraq

(Reuters) - Gunshots ring out in a quiet district of the Iraqi city of Mosul, and with a screech of tires masked gunmen make their getaway leaving another prominent figure lying dead on the street outside his home. Witnesses' description of the Dec. 28 killing of Adil al-Hadidi, a lawyer working with coalition forces, mirrored that of Sheikh Talal al-Khaledi, a local tribal head, and Youssef Khoshi, a chief investigative judge, shot dead by unknown assailants. All were killed in the same week.

With no arrests so far, police in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city set in the Far North of the country, are tense and frustrated by the phenomenon.

"It's always the same thing: a drive-by shooting by masked men in a particular make of car," said a police officer stationed at the city's morgue where all the bodies were taken. "It's turning into a ghost story."

The victims could have been targeted because of their links to the new administration in Iraq. Hadidi was the liaison officer between Mosul lawyers and the Coalition Appointed Attorney Program, a development committee and training scheme sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. "He had to visit our offices frequently for this," said Gary Masapollo, a senior CPA official in Mosul.

"If you look at the killings of all three men, the common denominator between them is that they were part of the governing body in some form -- but there is a wider program of intimidation going on." In fact, the killings are just the latest in a long line of high-profile assassinations going back for months, including a high court judge, a police colonel and a chief translator for the U.S. military, among others. <snip>

[tom_paine]

1. Egad! The eye fatigue!

Would you be so kind as to break that text up into paragraphs, please?

[papau]

2. No Problem - had to go back to original to find paragraphs!

For some reason it pasted as one line!

[VeniceBeat]

3. Footdraggers Targeted by the BFEE?

:tinfoilhat: