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On October 21, two separate, yet
mutually inclusive incidents raised the level of tension between
the majority Muslim population in
Iraq
and the occupying
US
forces.
In the early morning hours, Amal Karim, a clerk at the Iraqi
Ministry of Oil in
Baghdad
, approached a checkpoint immediately outside the building and
was stopped by US soldiers who had a police dog sniff through
her clothes. The woman refused to let the dog approach her as
she was carrying a copy of the Qur’an in her purse. A shouting
match ensued between the woman and the
US
soldiers who promptly apprehended her, handcuffed her and
‘accompanied’ her into the building for further questioning,
despite her attempts to explain that a dog was considered an
unclean creature and would taint the sanctity of the Qur’an.
When the woman emerged later from the ministry building, in her
shock and disgust, she told passers-by and colleagues of her
predicament and her treatment at the hands of US soldiers. She
began to shout, “We are approaching Ramadan, we are
Muslims”. A crowd began to gather and, within minutes, a
demonstration was in full swing against the
US
presence in
Iraq
.
Religious epithets and calls for jihad were hurled at US
soldiers guarding the Oil Ministry. The demonstration began to
grow until
US
soldiers fell onto the crowd, beat them and briefly detained
several of the men and women, according to witnesses. CNN
reported that soldiers fired in the crowd to dispense the
crowds.
Later, a CNN International crew who had tried to film the
skirmish admitted to viewers that cameras were “confiscated”
by US forces. CNN also broadcast that photographers and
cameramen from other news services also suffered the same fate.
An hour or so later, Karim appeared on a CNN broadcast
surrounded by many angry Iraqi men. “I tried to tell them that
they cannot do this… there is no respect,” she said,
obviously shaken by the incident.
Within hours, all of
Baghdad
was abuzz with the incident.
Meanwhile, in Karbala, one of the spiritual capitals of
Shiitedom in Iraq, US forces with the help of local Iraqi police
surrounded and then stormed a mosque and arrested 42 worshippers
alleged to be armed militants bent on killing US forces in the
area. US forces cited the confiscation of four Klashinkov rifles
as proof that the mosque was being used as a center for
terrorist activities. It is worth mentioning that every mosque
in
Iraq
has at least one armed militia member to guard against brigands
and vandals.
The mosque was then subsequently closed and barricaded from
worshippers.
In an ominously similar incident, the Gamal Abdel Nasser Mosque
in the center of Ramallah,
Palestine
, also came under siege from Israeli forces who kept evening
prayer worshippers inside for several hours. The emerging
worshippers were then searched and questioned while armed
Israeli soldiers entered the mosque at will.
Yitzhak Levanon, an Arabic-speaking spokesman for the Israeli
Foreign Ministry, justified the breach of the mosque as a
retaliatory action of self-defense seeking and apprehending
“known wanted militants.” An Al Jazeera (24-hour Arabic News
Network) office next to the mosque was also breached by Israeli
soldiers, and journalists were ordered not to leave their
compound. They could not go onto the rooftops to film events at
the mosque either.
The resemblance in Israeli tactics in
Palestine
(vis-à-vis mosque incursion and media censorship) and US
tactics in
Iraq
is not lost on Arab audiences.
Human
rights organizations have criticized US forces for “trigger-happy”
negligence. |
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The callousness with which Iraqi demonstrators and civilians are
treated has raised eyebrows among human rights groups. On
October 20, Human Rights Watch issued a report
citing the death of some 94 Iraqi civilians in “questionable
legal circumstances.” Amnesty International has also
criticized US military conduct in Iraq pertaining to the lack of
investigation into civilian deaths. Human rights organizations
have, since May, also criticized US forces for
“trigger-happy” negligence.
“It’s a tragedy that US soldiers have killed so many
civilians in
Baghdad
,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the
Middle East
and
North Africa
division at Human Rights Watch. “But it’s really incredible
that the
US
military does not even count these deaths. Any time US forces
kill an Iraqi civilian in questionable circumstances, they
should investigate the incident.”
“The cases we documented in this report
reveal a pattern of over-aggressive tactics, excessive shooting
in residential areas and hasty reliance on lethal force,”
Stork said.
Political commentators point to above reports and the harassment
most Iraqis face in
Iraq
as further proof that it is not only
Iraq
that is occupied, but the Islamic world itself.
Speaking on an Al Jazeera talk show, Mostafa Bakri, editor of Al
Isbou (The Week) news magazine said that Islam was under
cultural and religious attack and demanded that everyone fight
the occupation of
Iraq
.
Other editorials in such newspapers as Al Ahram have
started to question whether a greater conspiracy is at work in
the
Middle East
.
With Ramdan beginning in five days, the incident at the Oil
Ministry and the breaching and closing of the mosque couldn’t
have come at a worse time.
Firas
Al-Atraqchi is
a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage. Holding an MA in
Journalism and Mass Communication, he has eleven years of
experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and
the telecom industry. You can reach him at
firascape@hotmail.com.
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