Sectarian clashes flare in Iraq By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
BAQUBA - A military operation said to target al-Qaeda has ended up targeting
Sunni Muslims instead, creating new sectarian tensions.
A US-backed security operation launched last month has only targeted cities
with majority Sunni populations such as Buhriz, Tahreer, Qatoon, Mafraq and Hay
in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. The operation has drawn more than 50,000
Iraqi soldiers.
The deputy governor of Diyala, Awf Rahoomi, has demanded in a public speech in
Baquba that "the new security plan should also
include Shi'ite cities like Hwaider, Khirnabat and Abara".
These Shi'ite districts are strongholds of the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr and of the Badr Organization, the militia of the ruling Shi'ite
party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
"The forces of the new security plan took all our weapons to the extent that we
cannot fight al-Qaeda any more; we are impotent," Mullah Shihab al-Safi,
commander of the Popular Committees Fighters (the Sunni leadership of the
US-backed Awakening Group militias), said at a meeting of the Commitment
Council established by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Safi said four members of the council who are leaders of the Awakening Group
were among those arrested by government security forces.
Leaders of Awakening Councils from Qatoon district spoke of a similar crackdown
by Iraqi forces. The Awakening groups are totally a 90,000-strong mostly Sunni
militia whose members each receive US$300 a month from the US military.
Soldiers from Battalion 36 of the Iraqi army, an elite counter-terrorism unit
that is known by detractors as the "dirty squad", stormed the Diyala provincial
government building in Baquba at 1:30am August 19.
Witnesses told Inter-Press Service (IPS)that more than 50 soldiers stormed the
compound and hauled council members from their beds. The governor's secretary,
Abbas Ali Hamood, was shot dead.
The special forces group entered with the permission of Captain Mohammed Sami
al-Tamini, commander of the protection group for the building, but then
handcuffed Tamini and the guards at the gate, and beat up deputy governor Awf
Rahoomi before handcuffing him.
After this the special forces entered another building and arrested the head of
the security committee in the ruling council and Sunni lawmaker of the Iraqi
Islamic Party, Dr Hussein al-Zubaidi. Other members of the ruling council in
the building were beaten up and insulted, according to witnesses who spoke with
IPS on condition of anonymity.
After the group left the building, they engaged in fighting with local security
forces. One vehicle was destroyed and three local soldiers were wounded.
Fighting continued through the night.
"These special forces work with the Americans," Iraq's Ministry of Defense
spokesman Mohammed Askari told reporters the day of the raid. "They have goals,
and they didn't inform anyone else."
The US military denied involvement in the operation.
An Iraqi special forces unit also raided the home of the dean of Diyala
University, Nazar Jabbar Khafaji, and detained him. Ismael Ibrahim, his driver,
told reporters the troops took computers, two guns, and $5,000.
The Islamic Party has demanded an explanation from the prime minister about
such assaults on Sunni Muslims. So far 684 people have been arrested. All of
them are Sunni Muslims.
Sunni residents of Baquba, capital city of Diyala, say the new security plan is
clearly sectarian. "No Shi'ite VIP or layman has been arrested since the launch
of the security plan," local trader Qasim Abdullah told IPS.
Others blamed Shi'ite militias, backed by the government in Baghdad. "We all
know that Shi'ite militias in Baquba are a source of instability," said Yasin
Hamza, a teacher. "Influential Shi'ite members in the provincial office or in
the ruling council were behind the bad security situation in this province. It
cannot be that all of them are innocent."
Ahmed Ali, IPS's correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close
collaboration with Dahr Jamail, IPS's US-based specialist writer on Iraq
who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East.
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