Shi'ite
bombings: Civil war a step closer
Story and pictures by Nir Rosen
BAGHDAD - Tuesday, the 10th day of the Muslim month of
Muharram, the most sacred day for Shi'ite Muslims, and
its most sanguine, began with bloodshed, when at 6am
after early-morning
prayers, thousands of men in
Karbala and other sacred Shi'ite cities marched through the streets beating
their heads with swords, their blood soaking their white gowns. The sword
ceremony, called tatbir, which marks the 7th century battle of Karbala
in which Shi'ite leader Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, was slain,
came to an end at 10am. Shortly afterwards, simultaneous explosions erupted in
Karbala and Baghdad's shrine of the Imam Kadhim.
Over
120 Shi'ite pilgrims are presumed dead from among the
hundreds of thousands who had crowded the shrines of
Hussein in Karbala, and the Kadhim shrine in the
capital. Six bombs are believed to have gone off in
Karbala, 50 miles southeast of Baghdad. In Kadhim, which
is in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, three bombs went off
in succession, killing at least 50 people. The
Kadhim shrine contains
the tombs of two Shi'ite saints, Imam Mousa Kazem and his grandson Imam
Muhammad al-Jawad.
The first bomb, according to some accounts carried by a suicide
bomber, went off inside the Bab al-Murad gate of Kadhim,
spraying the ceiling and walls with blood. The second
bomb, also described by witnesses as a suicide bomb,
went off in the center of the shrine's courtyard, by the
Kishwani, where shoes are placed before the
tomb itself is visited. The third bomb exploded
outside the shrine in front of the Sharaf Hotel.
Ambulances
and pick-up trucks rushed from Kadhim, carrying the
wounded and the dead, and police fired twice at a car
driving by. Immediately, loudspeakers in Kadhimiya urged
people to donate blood. Several foreign journalists were
attacked by angry mobs wielding swords. A Reuters
cameraman was reportedly struck on the head. A sheikh in
the mosque cried out to the people of Kadhimiya to
remain calm. He blamed the attacks on "Jews and
Americans" who seek to cause sectarian strife between
Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq, adding that Iraqis would
remain brothers. He warned
people to be vigilant because of possible remaining bombs
or attackers, and to "keep your eyes open".
The floor of the immense Kadhim shrine was covered with blood,
and large pools formed near the site of the explosions.
Mosque workers covered their hands with plastic bags and
carefully walked around picking up pieces of human
remains. A large pile containing hands, scalps and other
bloody body
parts soon took form. Shrine guards and workers held each other, crying, or in
silent shock.
When
questioned, guards and caretakers angrily blamed America
for the attacks, just as they had blamed American troops
for a single rocket-propelled grenade shot into the
shrine last Wednesday night. The head caretaker
explained that the bombings were a warning from America
to leading Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to
cease demanding that direct elections be held in the
country. Other guards and caretakers blamed a coalition
of Jews, Americans and extreme Wahhabi
Muslims. None spoke of seeking revenge against their Sunni neighbors,
the presumed purpose of the attacks.
The attacks occurred on the first Ashura, as the 10th of Muharram is called,
since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The first nine sacred days were
peaceful, and Shi'ite Muslims from across the world, especially Iran, joined
Iraqi Shi'ites who had not been allowed to commemorate the day under Saddam.
Millions passed through Karbala to visit the shrines and mourn their martyrs,
and hundreds of thousands were in the city at the time of the attack. Tens of
thousands of Shi'ites were in Kadhimiya as well. The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party,
which is on the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), was quick to condemn the attacks
unequivocally, saying that "Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnis walk hand-in-hand". Other
IGC members were also quick to condemn the attacks, and the IGC called for
three days of mourning.
The attacks also came one day before the expected signing of Iraq's interim
constitution. The IGC came to an agreement on the document on Monday, but
decided to wait until after Ashura to hold the signing ceremony.
Many feared that attempts to provoke a civil war, such as earlier
assassinations of Shi'ite and Sunni religious leaders and attacks on a smaller
scale on Shi'ite and Sunni mosques, would mean that the opportunity to kill so
many Shi'ites on such a sensitive day would most certainly be seized by the
groups responsible for the earlier attacks.
Their worst fears have now come true, and on a day when the Shi'ite majority in
Iraq marks betrayal and the slaughter of innocents and reasserts its identity
in contrast to Sunni Muslims, the dread of all who care for Iraq may be
realized should retaliation occur, against Sunnis, as well as Americans, and
the phantom of civil war in Iraq finally become a bloody reality.
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