Same old bloody ball game
for Iraq By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Like nearly everybody else
around the world, Iraqis gathered over the weekend
to watch the soccer World Cup. Since many do not
have electricity and cannot afford cable
television, Iraqis assembled in cafes and public
parks to watch the games on large screens. Such
crowded gatherings are prime targets for
terrorists, especially late at the night.
The Sunnis of
Iraq overwhelmingly support the French soccer team. They could
not hide their pleasure when France defeated
Brazil on Saturday. The Shi'ites, who at first
supported the Iranian team, are currently divided:
some are for Germany, others for
Italy.
But some insurgents weren't
interested in the soccer.
They smuggled explosives on a
vegetable truck into Sadr City and carried
out a massive bombing in Baghdad's predominantly Shi'ite
slum, killing some 65 Iraqis and wounding more
than 200, just hours before the France-Brazil
match.
The slum's overlord, Muqtada al-Sadr,
immediately blamed the attack on the US and the
Iraqi government, accusing them of failing in
their duty to protect the Shi'ites. Sadr argued
that the attack had only occurred because the US military
recently forbade his Mahdi Army from patrolling
the neighborhood and manning the checkpoints.
It is probable that
the attack, carried out by Sunni insurgents, came in
response to a statement made by Sadr on Friday, in
which he said there would be no reconciliation with the
Ba'athists and the Sunnis who were fighting the
Shi'ites - that is, supporters of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.
Perhaps in
retaliation, a 30-year-old Sunni parliamentarian
named Tayseer al-Mashhadani, from one of the largest
blocs in parliament, was abducted along with eight
of her bodyguards. The following day, another
deputy - this time from the secular Shi'ites who
are allied to the Sunnis, narrowly escaped
assassination when a car bomb targeted his
entourage in Baghdad. The deputy, Iyad Jamal
al-Din, is from the coalition of the pro-US former
prime minister, Iyad Allawi.
Adding insult
to injury to the Iraqi Sunnis, the Shi'ite
National Security Adviser, Mouwafaq al-Rabei, gave a
press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, naming 41
prominent Sunnis as responsible for terrorism and
calling on neighboring Arab states to assist in
their arrest or extradition. Prime on the list was
Saddam Hussein's former right-hand man, Izzat
Ibrahim al-Duri, who is believed to be leading the
Ba'athist insurgency and who remains one of the
notables of the Sunni community, although he has
been an outlaw since 2003.
The
list also included Saddam's wife Sajida and
his Jordan-based daughter Raghad, who is popular among
Iraqi Sunnis still loyal to the deposed dictator.
Some had proposed that Raghad lead the
currently disbanded Iraqi Ba'ath Party after Saddam's downfall in 2003,
and she had enflamed pro-Saddam emotions in
several interviews she gave about her father after
the US-led invasion. To have her now portrayed
as an instrument of terror was very insulting to
the already disgruntled Sunnis.
To ease
rising sectarian tensions, US forces summoned 50
popular Sunni clerics in Baghdad, calling on them
to tone down their rhetoric and moderate their
sermons to avoid enflaming Sunni emotions.
Contrary to what Sadr said,
those responsible for the sectarian attacks are
neither the Iraqi government nor the Americans, but
Osama bin Laden. After Zarqawi was killed on June 8,
it was believed that bin Laden would personally take a
hand in post-Zarqawi al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Everybody argued, based on testimonies of those
who know bin Laden, that he was not in favor of
Zarqawi's bloody war against the Iraqi Shi'ites.
One year ago, bin Laden's right-hand
man, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, sent a letter to
Zarqawi asking him to stop targeting Shi'ites. The
letter was intercepted by the Americans, but Zarqawi
did not listen and continued to target
Shi'ite shrines, mosques and celebrations. This led to
the bombing of the holy Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in
February. The Shi'ites immediately retaliated and
attacked the Sunnis, blaming them for the bombing.
Shortly before his
death, Zarqawi gave a rare videotaped speech
publicly calling on the Sunnis to fight the
"rejectionist" Shi'ites. All of this, it was believed, was
not what bin Laden wanted, but Zarqawi had become
so strong in Iraq that bin Laden had no authority
over him.
After his death, bin Laden was supposed to play
the wise man, trying to bridge the gulf between
Shi'ites and Sunnis created by Zarqawi, to unify
the insurgency against the US and its Iraqi allies in
the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
But
the exact opposite has happened. This
weekend, while the Iraqis were watching soccer,
bin Laden appeared in a 19-minute audio message -
his second in two days - calling on the Sunnis to
rise against the Shi'ites. This was his 16th
recording since September 11, 2001.
On
Friday, bin Laden had appeared in another audio
tape, paying tribute to Zarqawi and saying that
war would continue, despite the reconciliation
plan proposed by Prime Minister Maliki to the
Sunni insurgents. He called on US President George
W Bush to hand over "the hero's [Zarqawi] body" to
his family so he could receive a proper funeral. A
week earlier, Ayman al-Zawahiri had also paid
homage to Zarqawi.
Both messages were an
early warning to the Shi'ites that bin Laden - far
from being opposed to Zarqawi's anti-Shi'ite
campaign, was actually a part of it. Bin Laden
addressed the Sunnis on Saturday saying: "Your
Muslim nation is looking for you and praying for
your victory. You are their hope after God. You
are God's trusted soldiers who will liberate the
ummah [the Muslim nation] from the serfdom
of the crusaders in our countries."
"Do not be fooled by the invitations to
join political parties and take part in the
so-called political process," he added. "It is not
possible that many of the people of the south
[Shi'ites] violate, alongside America and its
allies, [the Sunni cities of] Ramadi, Fallujah and
Mosul ... that their areas would be safe from
retaliation and harm."
He also paid
tribute to Zarqawi's successor Abu Hamza
al-Muhajir, ordering him to fight "only the
Americans and their allies" and advising him not
to break from the Mujahideen Shura Council.
"Dispute is evil as a whole and [being part of a
group] is mercy."
Counter-terrorism expert
Laura Mansfield expressed concern over bin Laden's
call on Muhajir to stick to the Shura Council,
saying that this gives it great legitimacy. "It is
likely that bin Laden sees the Shura Council as
the foundation upon which an Islamic government in
Iraq can be built."
The White House
responded to bin Laden's tapes, saying: "These
terrorists offer nothing in their ideology and
messages beyond further fighting, conflict, and
misery."
Meanwhile, as all of this was
happening in Iraq, the prime minister was
elsewhere, conducting a regional tour to lobby
support for his reconciliation plan. The trip,
which starts with Saudi Arabia, also includes
Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The
reconciliation plan, which calls on Sunnis to lay
down their arms and promises a pardon for those
not convicted of killing fellow Iraqis, has not
surprisingly been turned down by Muqtada al-Sadr,
who refuses dialogue with Maliki. It has been
supported, however, by the wise grand ayatollah of
the Shi'ites, Ali al-Sistani. Mahmud
al-Mashhadani, the Speaker of parliament, also
began a regional tour for the same purpose; he is
supposed to visit Iran and Bahrain, two countries
inhabited by Shi'ites.
Clearly, everybody
has a different agenda for Iraq. Maliki's agenda
is very different from that of bin Laden. Maliki
wants to build a nation and bin Laden wants to
break one. Stuck in the middle are the Iraqis,
whose political and religious differences are
increasingly dividing them.
The only thing
Iraqis have in common today is the World Cup. It
has overshadowed everyone and everything,
including bin Laden's recorded message. But the
games end in six days and the violence will again
be the only game in town.
Sami
Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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