Sports

Iraqi insurgents praise football win
by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

An Iraqi insurged group broke ranks by congratulating Iraq's Asian Cup-winning football team, instead of attackin celebrating fans as most other militants groups would have done. Sunni Muslim, a militant group, posted on a Web site used by al-Qaida and other insurgents, that "Hamas al-Iraq congratulates the Iraqi people on the occasion of our national team's winning the Asian Cup for 2007". "We ask the Almighty that this joy may herald the grand joy when our country is liberated from the occupiers and their lackeys," Hamas al-Iraq, a relatively small insurgent group, said. Because this Web site is normally used for claiming bomb attacks, threatening or support for insurgents, the Hamas al-Iraq brought up controversy and angry responses from site users such as this one, from a man called Abu Hamza : "We urge the administrators to remove this shameful statement which infringes on the status of the Web site". The Hamas al-Iraq declaration even attracted mockery such as this one, suggesting that maybe the group should even organize it's own soccer team : "Maybe then you would change your (statements) ... from 'one of our mujahideen was killed in an ambush' to 'the other team fouled our player by tackling him from behind'". On July 25, 50 people were killed by two car bombs while celebrating the teams's semi-final win. Many insurgent groups consider the fact that Shi'ite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish players a provocation in a country ravaged by sectarian violence, or anyone linked to the government, like the national football team, legitimate targets. In this spirit, the brother of goalkeeper Noor Sari was killed, and relatives of midfielder Nashat Akram were kidnapped and murdered.

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 12:39 PM