WASHINGTON - Pictures of
the beheading in Iraq of 26-year-old American civilian
Nick Berg, apparently at the hands of Jordanian Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda associate, come as
American politicians and the Pentagon haggle over
arrangements for a viewing of more photographs and video
images of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American
troops.
The US Defense Department planned to
show more pictures to Congress on Wednesday, but isn't
certain whether to release them to the public. This
follows the release last week of pictures of Iraqi
prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Gruesome pictures of Berg's murder in a video
entitled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an
American" were posted on the Muntada al-Ansar site on
Tuesday, and add a bloody twist to the debate over the
abuse of prisoners. The site is one of thousands of
radical Islamist websites that have sprung up over the
past few years. They are routinely used by groups to
claim responsibility for terror acts.
A visibly
angered Bush administration has vowed to "catch and
punish" Berg's killers. "It shows the true nature of the
enemies of freedom," White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said, adding: "They have no regard for the
lives of innocent men, women and children. We will
pursue those who are responsible and bring them to
justice."
One of the masked militants shown in
the video says Berg was executed to avenge the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners. The website said the execution was
carried out by Zarqawi, who is accused by the US of
organizing bombings and terrorist attacks in Iraq. Some
terrorism experts have disputed the claim that it was
Zarqawi. An original US bounty on Zarqawi's head of US$5
million was doubled after American authorities
intercepted a letter which, they claim, confirmed that
he is working with al-Qaeda to drive the US out of Iraq.
At a US Senate committee hearing in Washington
on Tuesday, the author of an internal US army report on
the abuses at Abu Ghraib said a breakdown of leadership
in the American armed forces led to the mistreatment.
Major General Antonio Taguba said: "Failure in
leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down,
lack of discipline, no training whatsoever, and no
supervision [led to the abuses]. Supervisory omission
was rampant."
Taguba, however, told the Senate
Armed Services Committee that he did not find any
evidence of a policy or direct order given to soldiers
to carry out the abuse. Taguba said he believed the
troops conducted the abuse "on their own volition".
In the video, a man, wearing an orange jumpsuit,
identifies himself as Nicholas Berg, 26, of
Pennsylvania. The captors also issued a statement to
President George Walker Bush: "The worst is coming and,
god willing, the tough days are still to come. You and
your soldiers will regret the day that you touched the
ground of Iraq."
One captor standing directly
behind Berg reads a statement identifying himself, and
then the American is pushed to the floor. Berg is heard
screaming as his throat is cut. One of the captors then
holds up his severed head. "For the mothers and wives of
American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the US
administration to exchange this hostage for some of the
detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," the hooded
man standing behind the American said just before the
killing. "Coffins will be arriving to you one after the
other, slaughtered just like this."
Berg, who
owned a communications equipment company, was involved
in rebuilding antennas in Iraq before he disappeared on
April 9.
Showdown for Shi'ites On the
war front in Iraq, meanwhile, the US is stepping up
military pressure on radical Shi'ite leader Muqtada
al-Sadr, including destroying his headquarters in
Baghdad. The moves against Muqtada and his militia come
as mainstream Shi'ite religious leaders appear to be
exasperated with the cleric and might be ready to
isolate him politically.
On Wednesday, US troops
killed at least 20 militiamen loyal to Muqtada in fierce
fighting in Karbala, a senior US military officer said.
Locals said that the fighting erupted on Tuesday evening
and was still going on as dawn broke, with members of
Muqtada's Mahdi Army militia holed up in a mosque and
surrounded by US troops backed by tanks and armored
vehicles.
Muqtada himself is in Najaf, another
Shi'ite holy city, and has sworn to resist efforts to
detain him. He is wanted in connection with the murder
of a leading Shi'ite cleric in Najaf last year. Senior
aides to Muqtada in Najaf said on Tuesday they had
agreed with other Shi'ite factions that the cleric could
pull his militia out of the city if US forces also
withdrew.
The past few days have seen strong
probes by US troops into the militia's strongest
bastions - Najaf and Karbala, and the poor and densely
packed neighborhood of Baghdad known as Sadr City. This
is named after Muqtada's late father, a preeminent
Shi'ite ayatollah. US forces say they have killed some
50 Mahdi Army members in the capital since May 9.
The Baghdad fighting comes as Mahdi Army members
took to the streets of Iraq's second-largest city,
Basrah, over the weekend to launch attacks on British
soldiers. The situation there reportedly remains tense.
The increasing number of clashes between
coalition forces and the Mahdi Army suggest that the
crisis around Washington's efforts to arrest Muqtada now
may be moving into a decisive phase after weeks of
maneuvering for political advantage on both sides.
On Muqtadar's side, that maneuvering has seen
the mid-level cleric - said to be in his early 30s -
trying to marshal Shi'ite discontent into a mass
movement capable of sustaining an armed rebellion. His
following is highest among poor and jobless Shi'ites in
slum areas of Sadr City who believe that expelling the
coalition would bring them to power after decades of
deprivation.
In a typical appeal last week,
al-Sadr compared the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
with the brutality of the former regime of Saddam
Hussein. Saddam's government, based in the Sunni
minority, marginalized and at times persecuted the
Shi'ite majority to maintain its iron rule.
Muqtadar said Saddam behaved as expected of a
tyrant, while the US-led coalition has sought to dupe
Iraqis with promises of democracy. In the past, he has
often accused Washington of occupying Iraq for its own
gain.
"Saddam never claimed to advocate freedom,
democracy, justice or equality, but moreover, he
acknowledged that he was a terrorist who suppressed
people violently and ruthlessly," Muqtadar said. "So
when he committed such acts, or worse than those acts,
it was not unusual or, to be more accurate, it was not
significant, because a terrorist can only perpetrate
terrorism."
But if Muqtadar's message gets a
hearing among some segments of the Shi'ite population,
his efforts to militarily challenge the coalition have
exasperated the community's mainstream religious
leaders.
A senior Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh
Sadreddin al-Qubanchi, said on May 9 that the Mahdi
Army's presence in Najaf is endangering the shrine city
and that it is the duty of all faithful to assure it is
not destroyed in fighting.
"We all want to
protect the holy places against danger and prevent any
possibility that the city will be turned into a military
bunker or street fighting," Qubanchi said. "And we have
to cooperate to achieve this."
Qubanchi is
allied with the best-organized Shi'ite political party,
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), and is said to be close to the most influential
Shi'ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani.
The SCIRI, which fought Saddam from
exile in Iran, has its own well-armed militia and
participates in the US-appointed Iraqi Governing
Council. It has called for mass protests to expel the
Mahdi Army from Najaf.
On Tuesday, some 1,000
people marched through the southern holy city carrying
portraits of Sistani and the leaders of the SCIRI. Some
Mahdi Army members were reported to have fired their
guns into the air in an attempt to disperse the
marchers, but there was no violence.
News
agencies report that in recent weeks popular sentiment
in Najaf has increasingly turned against the Mahdi Army,
largely for economic reasons. The presence of the armed
fighters, and the possibility of a major battle with
coalition forces, has dried up the usually lucrative
flow of Shi'ite pilgrims to the city from elsewhere in
Iraq and from Iran.
Last week, US troops probing
the outskirts of Najaf said they killed more than 40
fighters in an apparent test of the Mahdi Army's
strength. There are some 2,500 US troops around Najaf,
but Washington has been cautious about taking immediate
military action in the apparent hope that Muqtadar's
support will weaken with time.
Muqtadar's
headquarters is near one of the holiest Shi'ite shrines,
the Imam Ali mosque, which is surrounded by a labyrinth
of narrow streets that provide excellent cover for
guerrilla fighters. Any campaign to flush out Muqtadar's
militia would involve urban fighting likely both to
damage the shrine and expose coalition troops to
considerable risk.
As the standoff continues,
there are reports of emerging Shi'ite political
initiatives aimed at convincing Muqtadar to end the
crisis peacefully before Washington's patience runs out.
The new US-appointed governor of Najaf, Adnan al-Zurufi,
said on Tuesday that legal proceedings against Muqtadar
over the murder of his rival would be delayed until
after June 30 if the cleric disbands his militia. That
is the date when the US is to turn political power over
to a sovereign Iraqi government.
At the same
time, Shi'ite tribal leaders are reported to be working
on a deal that would see Muqtadar surrender to them
rather than to US forces. The reported deal, which would
need approval both from Muqtadar and Washington,
envisions giving the cleric the right to approve the
names of the judges who would decide his case, in
exchange for his pledge to abide by their decision. The
Mahdi Army would be turned into a political
organization.
A top adviser to Iraqi Governing
Council member Salama al-Khafaji has described the
negotiating attempt to the US daily The Washington Times
as a way to save face for all sides. Adviser Fatih
Kashif al-Ghitta said: "It's an attempt to solve the
legal question and not just the security question. And
to solve it in a way that doesn't humiliate Muqtada,
that doesn't humiliate the Iraqi people, and that
doesn't humiliate the Americans."
(Inter Press
Service, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
