An Inside Job at Samarra?

The 2006 Attack

The big news out of Iraq today is the bombing of the Shiite Samarra shrine, the Al-Askariya Mosque. A similar bombing at the mosque in 2006 sparked the current wave of sectarian violence. Today's bombing took out two minarets.

At first it was thought to be just an al-Qaeda effort to fan the flames. Now it seems it may have been an inside job in which Iraqi security forces colluded with al-Qaeda saboteurs

U.S. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, told CNN 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.

Mixon said there was no evidence at all that this was an attack using mortars or anything of the like and said that this was an inside job. 15 members of the Iraqi security force at the mosque have been arrested.