US Official: Samarra Attack May Have Been Inside Job
Baquba, Iraq - Authorities have evidence that Wednesday's bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra was an inside job, and 15 members of the Iraqi security forces have been arrested, a U.S. military official said.More and more, I am beginning to wonder: Who or what is al Qaeda?
Two minarets were destroyed at the revered Shiite shrine, the military said, in a repeat of the 2006 bombing that sparked Iraq's current wave of deadly sectarian violence. There was no immediate word on casualties in the city north of Baghdad.
The U.S. military official, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, told CNN's Karl Penhaul that he believes members of the Iraqi security forces who were guarding the site either assisted or directly took part in helping al Qaeda insurgents place and detonate explosives at the mosque's minarets.
"He told me there was no evidence at all that this was an attack using mortars or anything of the like and said, in his words, that this was an inside job," Penhaul, who's embedded with U.S. troops in Baquba, told CNN's "American Morning."
