Basra Explodes in Shiite Rage
Unidentified guerrillas shot down a British Lynx helicopter in Basra on Saturday, killing 5 UK servicemen. The helicopter fell on a house. A large, angry crowd of Shiites gathered to jeer, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at British troops who arrived at the scene to recover the bodies. The British soldiers then opened fire on the Shiites, killing at least 5, including 2 children, and wounding 28. [The British denied having cause all these deaths, or perhaps any of them; I don't find the latter assertion plausible. - revision] One of the British troops also got hit by shrapnel.
While the identity of the group that used a shoulder held missile to shoot down the helicopter is not known, the angry crowd appears to have consisted of Sadrists. Al-Hayat reports that the mob chanted, "All of Us are the Troops of the Sayyid" [actually probably Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr- correction]. The Sadrist radicals in Basra follow a break-away sect headed by Shaikh Ahmad al-Fartusi, which is more radical than Muqtada al-Sadr (who has now turned to parliamentary politics).
These were the worst anti-British riots in Basra since August of 2003, though there were also disturbances in late summer, 2005.
Guerrillas launched a number of bombings, mortar attacks and assassinations around the country. Among the incidents reported by Reuters:
' * SAMARRA - Two policemen were killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on Saturday, police said . . . BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed on Friday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said on Saturday. TIKRIT - A suicide bomber wearing Iraqi army uniform detonated his explosives vest inside an Iraqi military base in Tikrit on Saturday, killing three Iraqi army officers and wounding one, Interior Ministry sources and police said. BAGHDAD - Two children aged five and six were killed and three adult civilians were wounded when a mortar round landed on Baghdad's western district of Shula on Saturday, police said. BAGHDAD - Police on Saturday found six bodies in different parts of Baghdad with signs of torture and gunshots to the head, police said . . . '
Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times, now the American reporter in Iraq with the best finger on the pulse of the Shiites, presciently reported Saturday on the growing anti-American and anti-Coalition sentiments in the Shiite south.
' "There is an anger," said Jaffar Mohammed Asadi . . . "You can hear it in the slogans at Friday prayers: 'Death to America,' " he said. "They're burning American flags. They're saying, 'The Americans won't leave except by the funerals of their sons.' "
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/07/2006 12:24:00 AM
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Professor Cole, something happened the other day that I am very concerned about. One day a week I volunteer at a church operated facility that has a clothing bank, food bank, daily soup kitchen. The facility operates with a few paid positions and many volunteers who do not all belong to the church that operates the facility but do have to be Christians to be a volunteer.
I work in the clothing bank and we start our day with a short talk by the paid employee in charge of the clothing bank, an opportunity to petition prayer by all in attendance, and a Bible reading. Usually this is not too hard to endure, however, this past week the paid employee went on and on about how we must support Israel because Jesus chose to be born into that group. For that reason all Christians must support Israel in what ever that country decides to do. When she said this the first thought that came to my mind was that some Christian who support Bush are having second thoughts about him, but must continue to support anything that helps Israel. Right away the thought came to me that maybe preachers are preparing their congregations to support Bush if he goes to war against Iran because it will help Israel.
I know I am going on and on, but I have been upset ever since she made these comments.
No contest about Daragahi there Juan. LAT does excellent work when it has the money to apply reporters to the task at hand.
This is, as you say, the "money quote"
"The marjaiyah is calculating things and counting things according to the benefit of the Iraqi street," said Najafi, a mid-ranking cleric. "It wants independence with a minimum of losses and a maximum of profit. The marjaiyah has not ruled out the option of calling for jihad, and the Americans and their allies best not forget that."
And one very good reason to pull those ground troops off "the course" before the you-know-what hits the fan.
Re-Think the Headline
Basra didn't explode; the UK helicopter did.
Shiites didn't rage; they were celebrating. Then dead or bleeding.
The rage appears to have been on the Tommies' side, if your figures are correct--35 Iraqis dead and wounded after "crowd control." Al-Jazeera claims that as few as 200 Basrans were in the crowd, meaning that nearly 40 percent wound up as casualties.
That's pretty stark, and a clear predictor of what will happen if Shiite or Sunni rage brings crowds onto the streets in the face of modern weaponry: mass death in seconds.
Shiite politicians may have this worked out. It remains to be seen if "Coalition" troops can stay cool, or will get themselves maneuvered into being mass slaughterers of those they claim to protect. This incident does not bode well.
Al-Jazeera seems to be on the Sunni side of the house. Is there a Shiite equivalent?
It is very simple: the Iraqis want you out, and it is their country.
Mr Sistani can set a timetable for troops exit with one sentence giving them x months to leave before he unleashes Jihad. Even the most arrogant Americans know what Jihad can lead to.
What is needed is coordination with the Iraqis for an orderly and well planned, but absolutely complete, withdrawl. This can not happen now because the American leaders do not want to leave.
The disturbed and diturbing neocons want to "stay the course". It is called desperate optimism and it is what makes people put everything on a high risk gamble saying "I know I am going to win" except that the neocons are gambling with other peoples' lives and treasure.
Some American grown-ups need to take charge of the Iraq policy, or else things, bad enough as they are now, will get much worse.
Given that the lawmakers are funding the occupation they can easily end it. They should also start talking to the Iraqi military, bypassing the US military in Iraq who are sadly no more than spin doctors, to draw a proper plan.
British forces are apparently rather perturbed by the rough reaction from the "small minority" of rock-hurling Basra-ites yesterday. Their surprise and futile-but-honest attempts at self-justification illustrate the dangerous thinking behind the UK promulgating the Bush-man's warmongering. The British consider themselves honourable and superior to their US bosses - they're right to some extent of course but it won't save them from righteous fury on the ground or condemnation in the history books, Edna's afraid to say. Mercifully, Blair appears to be on the way out at last so there is some light on the horizon.
Professor Cole,
May I ask you if there is any truth in the rumour that the UK's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, was sacked due to pressure from the USA? In the past JS had said that a nuclear attack on Iran was 'nuts'. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/09/ustraw09.xml
Thanks
Ian
Hettiemae's worries about church preparation for war with Iran has some validity, but I think it's a stretch. The Southern Baptist Conference does have tight ties to the Israeli hasbara (PR/propaganda) office. Bush's reiteration of the "We must protect Israel from Iran" is also troublesome. But the latter can be equally chalked up to election year campaigning, war talk to rally the troops. And some"evangelical" churches have long tied biblical prophesy to the need for absolute defense of Israel, regardless of its government policies. What Hettiemae heard was nothing new. In fact, there is no agreement at all within Israel that war with Iran would be a "good thing". And I can think of no credible circumstance at this point which could sell such a war in this country. But accidents do happen.
The AP report covering the British helicopter downing referred to al-Sadr as a "radical Shiite clergy" who is an "ardent foe of foreign troops in Iraq" and who "led two armed uprisings in 2004". It is hard to know what conclusion the average American draws from news reports that fudge on the background details.
It appears the Orientalists' point of view of the Middle East continues to be the dominant one. I listened to the Dean of the University of South Carolina International School of Business recently as he touted increasing business opportunities in the Middle East for Americans as "freedom and democracy continues to grow and take root over the Middle East". He also referred to Arabic as being one of the most difficult languages to learn, but in spite of that, more and more business grad students are taking Arabic.
I would not have touted Arabic as the most difficult language; I still think English is the most difficult second language to acquire.
CNN is reporting that the incident of British troops beating unarmed Iraqis in Basra a few months ago is contributing to the anger (and rightfully so).
We better get our troops out, before someone gets so angry they'll follow us home.
Sounds like a civil war all right.
Dear Professor Cole,
I just read the details of the last moments of journalist Atwar Bahjat, ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html , though I advise you not to read it). She was 30, she was courageous and she did not deserve the final humiliation and pain.
My question is - who is going to cage the beast? who is going to rid Iraq of these killers? How to bring some safety and dignity of life back to Iraq? Or is it too late?
Paradise now in Iraq
IMO, main problem with recently released Zarqawi video is that it is very likely to be a fake - as lots of materials on this isssue before. First, the material we see in WaPo is really hard to authenticate. Usually, terrorists’ tapes are authenticated by the texts they deliver, but here there is not much text to talk about. Second, it is really hard to imagine that Iraqi gueruillas are deranged to the extent of producing pointless videos of themselves which later fall into the hands of occupation forces.
Next problem with this video is that Zarqawi does not really need to be proficient with rifles! Although there must be some machine gun attacks in Iraq, main bulk of guerilla operations falls on IEDs, car bombs and suicide vests - all without any need to shoot. In fact, guerillas from Hamas use rifles mostly for symbolic purposes in their PR videos - without any military applications. Recent Palestinian movie Paradise Now makes this fact very clear. Everybody familiar with the practice of guerilla war must figure all this out pretty easily.
It seems to me that there's an ironic contrast between the conclusion of the Daragahi article (as quoted by John McCutchen above) and the events in Basra -- one that shows the tensions between the marjaiya and Moqtada al-Sadr.
As I wrote at Needlenose, the former are trying to keep their powder dry, while the latter is looking around for a match.
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