Anti-Qaeda fighters in street protest against city police chief

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) — Hundreds of members of an anti-Al-Qaeda front in Iraq's central city of Baquba on Friday donned keffiyeh headdresses and took to the streets demanding the police chief be sacked, witnesses said.

Fighters ran militia-style through two neighbourhoods in the capital of Diyala province, ordering shops to shut and people to stay indoors, prompting police to declare a curfew, an AFP correspondent said.

The action came after demands by the group earlier in the week that police chief Major General Ghanim al-Quraishi be sacked were ignored.

"Despite our efforts and the blood we shed in order to expel Al-Qaeda members from Diyala, we received no help from the government or the police," said Haji Basim al-Karkhi, who is in charge of the "popular...