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Iraqis
question whether the US has an agenda to fuel sectarian violence
in the war-ravaged country.
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Iraqi
Shiites protest, condemning US troops for their raid on
a Sunni Mosque
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US
officials have charged that Islam is at war with itself in the
wake of the of the fatal suicide bombings in Kadhimiya district
in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala, which together claimed
more than 271 civilians, mostly religious pilgrims commemorating
Ashoura. According to Iranian press reports, up to 50 Iranian
pilgrims were among the dead.
(Ashoura
marks the martyrdom of Al-Hussein, son of the Imam Ali and
grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. More than 1,400 years ago,
Al-Hussein and a band of some 70 supporters were surrounded by
thousands of Umayyad soldiers who promptly massacred the
entourage, killing Al-Hussein and his entire family. Al-Hussein
was killed because he sought to return to the values that first
cemented the Islamic community - a measure that threatened the
corruption and political power of the new rulers of the
expanding empire.)
Such
statements which hint at Sunni militancy against Shiites in Iraq
smack of agenda-building, say Iraqi theologians and religious
leaders.
Adding
insult to injury, Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post
wrote Wednesday that “the latest waves of holy murders should
shake from their fantasies the Islamic political leaders and
religious authorities who deny that a war for control of Islam
is raging around them. The war will claim many more lives if
Muslim society does not face up to the cancerous growth feeding
on Islam and lead -- not join, but lead -- the fight against
that cancer.”
The
blood had not yet dried on the ground before members of the
US-selected Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) declared, without an
iota of proof, that it was Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab
Al-Zarqawi acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda that was behind the
attack.
In
an email message to the London-based Al-Quds newspaper, Al-Qaeda
denied any knowledge or affiliation with Tuesday’s attack on
Shiites. The email message did, however, issue a warning to the
IGC and any collaborators with the foreign occupation.
Yesterday,
leading Sunni clerics joined their Shiite brethren and called on
all Iraqis to consider themselves “Husseiniya,” the living
embodiment of the struggle and sacrifices that the Imam
Al-Hussein faced.
A
day later, the leading Sunni religious establishment in Iraq
called on the Iraqi resistance to immediately halt all attacks
on Iraqis and Iraqi institutions.
“Jews
and Americans are behind this,” shouted someone from the
Kadhimiya mosque after the first blasts. A US troop contingent
deployed to the area came under attack from enraged Shiite
crowds.
Foreign
journalists were also attacked in central Baghdad, according to
reports from independent sources.
Ayatollah
Ali Al-Sistani, leading Shiite cleric, joined Harith Al-Thari,
chairman of the Sunni Cleric Council, in blaming US forces for
“dragging their feet” in securing Iraq’s borders. “We
call on all dear Iraqi sons to be more vigilant against the
schemes of the enemy, and ask them to work hard to unite and
have one voice to speed up regaining the injured country’s
sovereignty and independence and stability,” Sistani said to
cheers from both Shiites and Sunnis.
According
to Jawad Al-Naboulsi, a Sunni Iraqi businessman in Beirut,
Lebanon, today’s attacks are by forces desperately trying to
engineer a civil war. “They know Islamic Iraq is coming, but
they fear Shiites and Sunnis uniting as one fist,” he said.
“We are Arabs; we are Iraqis; this is our land; this is our
religion. Today, we are all Shiite,” he added.
Sources
in Baghdad said that hundreds of Sunni Iraqis rushed to clinics
and hospitals to donate blood for the injured and wounded.
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair seems to agree that there are
concentrated efforts to tear Iraq apart: “The purpose… is to
try and set the different religious communities in Iraq against
each other, to destroy the progress in Iraq, to cause the
maximum amount of dissent, division and hatred,” Blair said at
a press conference in London today.
While
US media points the finger at Al-Zarqawi and highlights the
“schism” between Sunnis and Shiites, both of the latter have
rejected calls for revenge and have sworn to face off what they
term “American Zionist efforts to break up Iraq in a bloody
civil war.”
“Americans
and no one else will pay for every drop of blood spilled by
every Shiite and every Iraqi because it is America first and
foremost that is to blame here,” went one chant in a
thousands-strong procession including Sunnis and Shiites.
Reuters
reported that “Hundreds of Shi’ites waved black flags of
mourning and backed their clerics’ plea for unity, chanting:
‘We are brothers, Sunnis and Shi’ites, and we will not sell
our country to foreigners.’”
On
Wednesday, The Independent’s Robert Fisk doubted US
claims that Sunni insurgents, allied with Al-Qaeda, could be
behind the attack.
“If
a violent Sunni movement wished to evict the Americans from Iraq
- and there is indeed a resistance movement fighting very
cruelly to do just that - why would it want to turn the Shia
population of Iraq, 60 per cent of Iraqis, against them?” Fisk
asked.
At
press time, it still remained unclear who was behind the Karbala
and Baghdad attacks.
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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