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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi Shi’ites renew call for militias |
| 2004-03-04 |
| Rifle-toting Shiite Muslim militiamen, some in crisp uniforms and others in civilian attire, deployed in force Wednesday around a bomb-scarred shrine in Baghdad, setting up dozens of checkpoints on bustling streets devoid of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police officers. The militiamen, loyal to various Shiite political parties, joined a contingent of armed guards from the Imam Kadhim mausoleum in asserting control over the neighborhood surrounding the gold-domed shrine, which was attacked by three suicide bombers on Tuesday morning as tens of thousands of Shiites gathered to commemorate a religious holiday. The attack on the mausoleum and simultaneous blasts in the holy city of Karbala have intensified Shiite demands to retain militias affiliated with political parties and other unofficial armies. Shiite leaders insist their own security forces, not the Iraqi police or American troops, are their best defense against terrorist attacks. In Washington, the commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf blamed Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian allegedly tied to al Qaeda, for the attacks. Army Gen. John Abizaid, who heads U.S. Central Command, said at a congressional hearing that plans for "even greater carnage" were thwarted as a result of raids Monday by U.S. Special Operations forces against "Zarqawi network operatives." The operatives, Abizaid said, had been plotting to set off car bombs in Baghdad and Karbala. Shiite leaders said Tuesday’s attacks should force an immediate change in U.S. security policy. "These attacks make it very clear that we need to take a different approach to security," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the Supreme Council’s political director. "We know the security issue better than they know it." "We don’t want the police or the military," said Mohammed Hussein, a burly, gun-wielding member of the Badr Brigades. "We don’t trust them. We prefer to handle the security here." Many angry Shiites blamed Sunni Muslim radicals for the blasts. But Shiite political leaders urged people not to be goaded into a civil war. "This crime in Karbala has nothing to do with the Sunnis," insisted Muhammed Bahr Uloum, a Shiite cleric and the current president of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. "There is no Sunni who would do that." Mowaffak Rubaie, another Shiite member of the council, accused former members of Hussein’s Baath Party government and foreign terrorists of perpetrating the attack and said, "We’re nowhere near a civil war in this country." Shiite religious leaders, seeking to deflect blame from Sunnis, issued statements faulting U.S. forces for not doing more to combat terrorism. "We lay on the occupying coalition the responsibility of lawlessness throughout Iraq," Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi, a top Shiite cleric, said in a decree. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Mike, it's annoying that we have to take the blame but I think the ayatollahs are playing this relatively correctly. We'll see how it works out but this is my take on it. That don't want to blame the sunnis in order to avoid civil war. They correctly blame the terrorists for the massacre. So far so good. But then they blame the americans for lack of security... but this must be put into context. The shiite mullahs only half control their flocks, if they go to far and look like american lackeys then their flocks will turn to more extremist mullahs. So they were stuck in a situation where they had to refuse american security or risk being called american puppets and losing their power. By calling out america for not providing security on these attacks they have given us a backhanded way to allow us to reenter holy sites and provide the security we want to while making them look good to their followers for standing up to america and getting us to "fold". It's a win-win. They just must be careful not to overdue the anti-america act. Remember it's one thing for people to be yelling at you because you didn't help them enought (the case now). It's quite another for them to call us the enemy (which they are not doing). |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2004-3-4 2:20:51 AM |
| #1 Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi is a turd too. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-3-4 1:16:05 AM |