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Fallujah, Iraq (AFP) July 14, 2010 A series of six attacks in Baghdad and a shooting west of the capital killed six people, including three daughters and the grandson of a Sufi Muslim order's leader, Iraqi officials said Wednesday. "Men with Kalashnikovs and anti-tank rockets attacked the house and adjacent tekiya (Sufi shrine) at 10:00 am (0700 GMT)," said Jassim al-Jumaili, major of Amariyah, south of the former Sunni Arab insurgent bastion of Fallujah. "Three girls and the granddaughter of Sheikh Mohammed al-Essawi were killed. The sheikh and five others, including his wife, were wounded," Jumaili added. The Kaznazani Sufi order, popular in Iraq and neighbouring Iran, is known for rituals in which some of its followers, known as dervishes, inflict wounds on their bodies, such as piercings, chewing blades or electrocuting themselves. It is part of the Qadiri brotherhood, the largest in Iraq, and is also known for its ritual drum music. Sunni extremists, including Al-Qaeda loyalists, regard the Sufis as infidels and have carried out repeated attacks against them since the US-led invasion of 2003. In Baghdad, meanwhile, half a dozen separate attacks, mostly targeting police checkpoints, killed two civilians, an interior ministry official said. A total of 14 people -- five police, a leader in the Sahwa (Awakening) militia, which with US backing took up arms against Al-Qaeda in late 2006, and eight civilians -- were wounded, the official said.
earlier related report Ali al-Dabbagh said Aziz was among 26 convicts moved from Camp Cropper, a US-army run detention centre, to Khadimiyah jail in the capital, ahead of a ceremony on Thursday in which control of Cropper will be handed to Iraq. In addition, "Saddam Hussein's former secretary Abed Hmoud, the former Interior Minister Mohammed Zumam and former Oil Minister Amir Mohammed Rashid," were transferred to the Iraqi-run facility, said spokesman Dabbagh. Aziz's Amman-based lawyer Badie Aref told AFP the former deputy premier's life was at risk following the move on Tuesday night. "Aziz called me and said he was being held in the Khadimiyah prison in Baghdad," Aref said, calling for intervention from international organisations. "He should have been released. What the Americans did violates the Red Cross code because they handed him over to his enemies. His life is in danger now." Aref added that Aziz told him US President Barack Obama "is no different to (former US president George) Bush, and that he will take part in killing us, indirectly." Aziz, 73, turned himself in to US forces in April 2003 and is one of Saddam's few surviving cohorts. The late dictator's chief henchman Ali Hassan al-Majid -- better known as "Chemical Ali" -- was hanged in January for a poison gas attack against Kurds in 1988. Aziz was appointed deputy premier in 1991 under Saddam, having previously been foreign minister. In 2009, he was jailed for 15 years for murder and was given a seven-year term in August 2009 for his role in expelling Kurds from Iraq's north. The family of Aziz, who had reportedly already had two heart attacks since turning himself in after Saddam's ouster, has repeatedly called for his release on health grounds. The former Iraqi official hails from a Chaldean Catholic family. He was being held at Cropper, which has around 1,600 prisoners, and where despite Thursday's handover around 200 high value detainees will stay under US control, Dabbagh said. General Ray Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, had previously outlined the prisoner agreement. "There are some very significant Al-Qaeda and other individuals that they have asked us to hold on to," Odierno told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.
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