Southern tribes add to Iraqi
resistance By Dahr Jamail and
Ali al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD - Violence is
spreading further across Iraq, as Shi'ite Arab
tribes in the south begin to engage occupation
forces in new armed resistance.
Resistance
in the southern parts of Iraq has been escalating
over the past three months, leading to increased
casualties among British and other occupation
forces.
In the past seven months, at least
25 British soldiers have been killed in southern
Iraq, with at least as many wounded, according
to the
independent website Iraq Coalition Casualties. So
far at least 129 British soldiers have died in
Iraq, the most recent being on Sunday. More than
120 soldiers of other nationalities have also been
killed, most of whom have been stationed in
southern Iraq. Casualties earlier were far lower.
Attacks against occupation forces appear
to stem more from a growing nationalism. "This is
not about vengeance," a former Iraqi Army officer
from Kut, 200 kilometers south of Baghdad, said in
the capital. "People have lost hope in the US-led
occupation's promises, and they are thinking of
saving the country from Iranian influence, which
has been supported, or at least allowed, by the
multinational forces."
British and US
military leaders tend not to say who has been
targeting their forces in the south. They simply
call the resistance fighters "terrorists", or they
point to the Mehdi Army led by Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr as the only source of disturbance
in the south.
While members of the Mehdi
Army certainly carry out attacks against
occupation forces in southern Iraq, other
home-grown resistance seems to have taken root,
fed also by earlier memories.
"People here
have always hated the US and British occupation of
Iraq, and remembered their grandfathers who fought
the British troops with the simplest weapons,"
said Jassim al-Assadi, a school principal from
Kut. Assadi was referring to the Shi'ite
resistance that eventually played a key role in
expelling British forces from Iraq during the
1920s and 1930s.
Armed resistance against
the occupation in the south was slow to begin with
because religious clerics instructed their
followers to give the occupation time to fulfill
promises made by the US and British
administrations, Assadi said. "But now they do not
believe any cleric's promises anymore. They have
started fighting, and that is that."
A
political analyst in Baghdad, who asked to be
referred to as W al-Tamimi, said he believed that
occupation forces have been working in tandem with
death squads. "We have been observing American and
British occupation forces supporting those death
squads all over Iraq, but we were still hoping for
reconciliation."
Tamini said the sheikh of
his tribe, which is both Shi'ite and Sunni, was
"under great pressure by the tribe's young men to
let them join the resistance".
The force
of the growing resistance in the south has become
more and more evident. Late last August, 1,200
British soldiers known as The Queen's Royal
Hussars abruptly evacuated their three-year-old
base after taking continuous mortar and missile
fire from Shi'ite resistance fighters.
The
British military announced the move as part of a
long-planned handover of security to the Iraqi
government, but it was clear that the move was
abrupt. Iraqi authorities were not notified.
"British forces evacuated the military
headquarters without coordination with the Iraqi
forces," Dhaffar Jabbar, spokesman for the local
governor, said at the time.
Looters
promptly moved into the empty base and removed an
estimated half-million US dollars' worth of
equipment that the British left behind in their
hasty retreat.
In another significant
event last August, Sheikh Faissal al-Khayoon,
chief of the major Shi'ite Arab tribe Beni Assad,
was killed by death squads with suspected Iranian
backing. The killers are believed by men from the
tribe to have been working for the Iraqi Ministry
of Interior in Basra.
Khayoon's tribe
members reacted immediately. They took over the
streets and government offices and set fire to the
Iranian consulate in Basra. The protests continued
until clerics and Iraqi government officials
promised them a full investigation.
"It
was another lie that some of us believed," a
senior Beni Assad leader said on condition of
anonymity. "The sheikh was killed by Iranian
collaborators and we made a promise to his soul
that his precious life will be avenged."
Beni Tamim is another tribe with both
Sunni and Shi'ite members. Members say their
sheikh, Hamid al-Suhail, was killed on January 1
by the Mehdi Army, which they believe has Iranian
support. He died in the northern Baghdad
Shi'ite-dominated Shula Quarter.
"He was
70 years old, and brutally killed by Mehdi death
squads by pushing him from a high building," one
of the sheikh's nephews said in Baghdad. "Iran is
behind all this and we, Beni Tamim, are well
prepared to face their yellow winds that are
blowing Iraq apart."
Leaders of the two
tribes, among many other tribal chiefs in the
south, are working to achieve unity between Sunni
and Shi'ite groups.
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