Mithal al Alusi

Mithal al Alusi survives another assassination attempt.

Talisman Gate: Alusi Survives Yet Another Assassination Attempt

"Liberal Iraqi MP Mithal Alusi’s family home in West Baghdad's Hai Al-Jam’ia neighborhood was reduced to rubble this morning after terrorists had rigged the structure with explosives in an apparent assassination attempt. Alusi, a Sunni, had been leading in recent weeks the drive to repatriate internally displaced Shia and Sunni families back to their neighborhoods in Western Baghdad.

A couple of days ago, Alusi visited the house that his late father, a college professor, had built in the 1970s but did not enter the premises. There is a ‘Sons of Iraq’ checkpoint manned by ex-insurgents directly across from the house. An investigation as to the causes of their negligence (surprise, surprise) is underway by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior.

Today’s event is a reminder that men such as Alusi, whose two sons were killed in a previous assassination attempt in February 2005, are still active in Iraqi politics and had never given up on the country despite being embattled and unfunded. He always stood for a secular and non-sectarian patriotic agenda, one that is being emulated by many Iraqi politicians now. It is even being parroted by the Consensus Bloc that rejoined Maliki's cabinet a couple of days ago. They have come a long way since their previous candidate for the Ministry of Culture fled Iraq over a year ago--with U.S. official connivance--ahead of an arrest warrant charging him with the murder of Alusi's sons."

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