Blame game and the Ba'athists
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The United States military says that
it was al-Qaeda. The US-appointed Iraqi Governing
Council says that it was al-Qaeda.
But al-Qaeda
says that it was not responsible for the attacks on
worshipping Shi'ites in Baghdad and Karbala on Tuesday
that killed more than 150 people.
"We have
nothing to do with these acts. We strike the American
crusaders and their allies. We strike the Iraqi police
who work for America. We strike the infidel council,
called the Governing Council, and all those who surround
it," said a letter sent to the London-based al-Quds
al-Arabi newspaper signed by a group close to al-Qaeda,
the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which takes its name
from Mohammed Atef, a top al-Qaeda member who was killed
in the US-led military campaign on Afghanistan in 2001.
"Absolutely, it was al-Qaeda and the old
regime," said Mohammed Barhul Uloom, a Shi'ite member of
the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), after
visiting a hospital in the holy city of Karbala,
southeast of Baghdad.
Similarly, the general in
charge of US forces in the Middle East, John Abizaid,
echoed that al-Qaeda terrorists had linked up with
Saddam Hussein's former intelligence operatives in
conducting sophisticated and deadly terrorist attacks.
Abizaid, commander of the 200,000 troops of the
US Central Command, told the House Armed Services
Committee on Wednesday the "the attacks show that [Abu
Musab al-] Zarqawi and his allies such as al-Qaeda
leaders Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman
al-Zawahri are the enemies of Islam and are trying to
trigger a civil war in Iraq".
In February, US
officials publicized a letter they attributed to
Jordanian national Zarqawi that the officials said
proved that Islamic extremists, led by al-Qaeda, planned
to ignite a civil war among Iraq's ethnic and religious
communities, notably Shi'ites and Sunnis.
Zarqawi has a US$10 million reward on his head
and is suspected of planning suicide attacks in various
countries that have killed scores of people.
The
judge investigating Tuesday's attacks, Ahmed al-Hillali,
also singled out al-Qaeda, and noted that the blasts
happened almost at the same time as an attack in
Pakistan's southwest city of Quetta that killed nearly
50 people.
Jumping on the al-Qaeda
bandwagon Invariably, al-Qaeda is blamed for
atrocities around the world, especially since the
September 11 strikes in the US for which they were
clearly responsible. The US takes the line that al-Qaeda
has chosen Iraq as its new "battleground" to take on US
interests. However, such accusations might be misguided.
Individuals belonging to bin Laden's
International Islamic Front - a loose umbrella network
for terrorist networks dedicated to jihad against
America - are definitely present in Iraq, but as yet
there is no definite proof of full-blown al-Qaeda
operations in Iraq.
From the very first days of
the Iraqi resistance, attacks against coalition and
other targets have been organized in nature, so much so
that US authorities initially blamed former Iraqi
Republican Guards as coordinating them with military
precision.
In fact, members of the former Ba'ath
Party, Republican Guards and Saddam Hussein's
paramilitary Fedayeen quickly melted into different
Islamic groups, under the cover of which they planned
and executed their on-going resistance.
Al-Qaeda
is not an army or a guerrilla force that can take
on another army, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since
the US invasion of the latter country in late 2001,
al-Qaeda members have fled to less war-ravaged locations
in Pakistan, Somalia and North African countries to plan
their next big operations against US interests.
Individuals such as Zarqawi - who is not a top al-Qaeda
operator - run their own independent networks only in
ideological association with al-Qaeda.
When
al-Qaeda is involved in an attack, it invariably claims
responsibility, as its aim is to spread fear and terror.
And in a message broadcast by Qatar-based AlJazeera
television before the invasion of Iraq by the US-led
coalition troops last year, bin Laden called for a
united struggle against the Americans by the Sunnis and
Shi'ites of Iraq. He described Saddam as an "apostate",
and appealed to Shi'ites and Sunnis not to let their
differences come in the way of a joint resistance
against the Americans. Why then, now, would al-Qaeda
suddenly want to split the two sects in the fight
against the Americans?
Ba'ath Party
fightback? The biggest losers to date in Iraq
have been the Sunni-dominated Ba'ath Party and its
approximately 2.4 million official members out of a
population of 24 million, driven out of power and office
and largely excluded from participation in the "new"
Iraq.
The influence of the party runs deep in
Iraqi society. The Iraqi Ba'ath Party traces its roots
to 1948, when three Syrians, shortly after the defeat of
the Arab forces in Palestine attempting to restore Arab
pride, founded an al-Ba'ath (renaissance) party, and in
1949 they established the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. From its
earliest days, the party relied on and recruited college
and high school students, as well as intellectuals and
professionals. Most recruits were of urban Iraqi Arab
origins.
The party cells or circles comprised
three to seven members. They constituted the basic
organizational unit of the party and functioned at the
neighborhood or village level, where members would meet
to discuss and execute party directives. A party
division comprised two to seven cells. They were spread
throughout the bureaucracy and the military, where they
functioned as the party's watchdog. A party section,
which comprised two to five divisions, functioned at the
level of a large city quarter, a town or a rural
district. The branch came at the top of the section, and
was composed of at least two sections which operated at
the provincial level. The party congress, which combined
all the branches, was responsible for electing the
regional command as the core of the party leadership and
top decision-making mechanism.
The national
command of the Ba'ath Party ranked on top of the
regional command. It was the highest policy-making and
coordinating council for the Ba'ath movement throughout
the Arab world at large.
In July 1968, the
Ba'ath finally staged a successful coup, and General
al-Baqir became first Ba'athist president of Iraq,
followed by Saddam.
In early 1988, the Ba'ath
Party began calling for parallelism between regional
(qutri) and national (qawmi) goals. The
Ba'ath movement in one country was considered merely an
aspect of, or a phase leading to, "a unified democratic
socialist Arab nation".
Over the years,
membership or affiliation with the party was required
for many if not most white-collar jobs, and all aspects
of the military, and as can be seen from its structure,
permeated all levels of society.
Ba'athists have
a non-Arab bias, and during Saddam's times non-Arab
pilgrims were banned from Iraq's holy cites, such as
Najf and Karbala. But this year they were back in vast
numbers for the Ashura rituals at which Tuesday's
attacks took place.
In May last year, the US
announced that the Ba'ath Party was officially
dissolved. But a stroke of a pen cannot wipe out an
institution that has roots deep in society forged over
many decades. On June 30 the US hands over sovereignty
to Iraq. It could be that the Ba'athists have not rolled
over just yet.
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