At first it looked like a very tense situation. Media reports indicated that over 150 Iraqi Shiites had been taken hostage by Sunni insurgents in the town of Madain, 30 kilometers south of Baghdad. The town of 100 families is evenly divided between Sunni and Shiite families.
Then Iraqi security forces launched a dramatic raid on Sunday, backed by US forces, who conducted door-to-door searches. And what did they find?
The BBC reports that the Iraqi forces found some explosives but no hostages in the town. They also said there was no resistance offered when they entered the town. The Associated Press reports that it appears events in the town had been "grossly exaggerated."
On Sunday, former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said "an Al Qaeda-affliated group" had taken over the town. But the same day, the leading Al Qaeda group in Iraq said on its website that it had nothing to do with the events in Madain.
And now a leading Sunni cleric, Sheikh Abdulsalem al-Qubaisi of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, is charging that the raid was an attempt to "inflame sectarian violence" against Sunnis in the mixed towns. Reuters that there are also charges that some Shiite politicans intiated the raid in order to divert attention from their repeated failures to form a government following election in January.
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