Informed Comment

Holy Day attacks Kill at Least 56

Sunni Arab guerrillas seeking to provoke further fighting in Iraq’s sectarian civil war targeted Shiites on the holy day of Ashura, Tuesday, killing 56 and wounding dozens. Many of the Shiites targeted were in smaller towns or cities, or were hit by mortar shells. The deployment of 11,000 men from the army and police in the holy city of Karbala forestalled attacks there.

Reuters reports this and other political violence. Note that Baladruz and Khaniqin, where Shiite mosques and worshippers were targeted, are east or northeast of Baghdad and are in mixed Sunni-Shiite regions.

McClatchy reports that a British base at Basra in the south received an intensive mortar shell bombardment on Ashura’. Some nationalistic Shiite militias in Basra deeply resent the foreign troop presence there.

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Bush Comment on Najaf Farcical;
Hawatimah Tribe of Diwaniyah involved in Mahdist Uprising?

Attempts are being made to knock down all kinds of stories about the Najaf uprising. Bush expressed happiness that the Iraqi Army (actually the Badr Corps fundamentalist Shiite militia) acquitted itself well against the rebels. But in fact, the Iraqi security forces were surrounded, cut off and nearly destroyed by heavily armed cultists–and had urgently to call in US troops, tanks and close air support.

Bush told National Public Radio on Monday, “My first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something.”

So does the US military not tell Bush when their Iraqi allies get into deep trouble fighting a few hundred cultists and they have to go bail them out? Or was Bush briefed on the situation and he came out and told a bald faced lie to the public about what had happened?

Either thing at a time the country is at war is truly horrifying.

The radical Sunni Arab newspaper Mafkarat al-Islam and the moderate Arab nationalist newspaperal-Zaman weighed in with yet a fourth account of the fighting in Najaf on Sunday and Monday.

In this one, an innocent poor little tribal group from Diwaniyah, the Hawatimah, got up a night-time convoy to the holy city of Najaf on their way to Karbala for Ashura. They happened to have raised anti-Iranian slogans and placards. (At night or early dawn? How could they be seen?) The evil Najaf government authorities, themselves proto-Iranian, suddenly and for no reason launched a massive attack on the Hawatimah, massacring them, as they approached Najaf. In this narrative, the Diwaniyah tribal group had nothing to do with any millenarian cult (al-Mahdawiyah), and were just killed at the instigation of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Badr Corps (pro-Iranian political and paramilitary groupings who basically run Najaf) because they dared object to Iranian influence in Iraq. It is even being alleged in al-Zaman that the Hawatimah were only implementing Bush administration strictures against Iranian machinations in Iraq.

Note that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which controls Najaf, is Bush’s major ally in Iraq even though it is close to Iran. Those fighting the Najaf government and Iraqi army forces were anti-Iranian. Rightwing bloggers seem confused on these points.

It is, of course, possible that the Hawatimah got caught up in the fighting between the Mahdawiyah and the Badr Corps as they were proceeding toward Karbala. And the Najaf authorities did themselve no favors by trying to depict this Shiite group as al-Qaeda (a hyper-Sunni movement) or related to the old Baath Party.

But the story in Mafkarat al-Islam makes no sense at all. If the Hawatimah convoy was heading to Karbala, why would it need to go into downtown Najaf? And what was a big convoy of armed tribesmen doing heading for downtown Najaf at night? At night? With Iraq’s lack of security? The al-Zaman narrative even justifies them being heavily armed on the grounds that they were traveling at night. But doesn’t explain why they were operating under cover of darkness in the first place. The traveling at night thing seems suspicious to me.

In contrast, al-Hayat reports in Arabic that its stringers interviewed residents of Zarqa just north of Najaf who confirmed that the Mahdist sect leader, Diya’ Kazim Abd al-Zahra, who also went by Ahmad Hassaan al-Yamaani, of Diwaniyah, 38, had indeed bought orchards there and settled there with hundreds of followers. They kept bringing in truckfuls of sand. When asked why, they said that they wanted to build barriers to mark of “their property.”

Hmm. The Mahdist leader was from Diwaniyah. The Hawatimah were from Diwaniyah and were coming in a big armed convoy at night toward Najaf.

If we set aside the claims of this group of Hawatimah to be innocent victims and assume that they were Mahdists coming to help with a planned assault on Najaf (empty and unguarded while all the other Shiites converged on Karbala for Ashura), then it would explain a lot. Heavily armed tribesmen could easily have overwhelmed the Iraqi army, if they had RPGs and automatic weapons. They would have the element of surprise, esprit de corps, and probably some would have served in the old Baath army and might well have much more military experience than the green Iraqi army troops thrown against them. Tribesmen are formidable and often outfitted like private armies. And if they were coming to support the Mahdawiyah cultists in the orchards, that explains where the high-powered weapons came from. They so devastated the Iraqi forces that the US had to send troops, tanks and helicopters to rescue the latter.

If we posit an involvement of the Hawatimah from Diwaniyah in the Mahdist uprising at Najaf, it raises the question as to whether they were the “rogue elements” that launched an uprising in Diwaniyah itself in late August, 2006. At the time, this violence was blamed on the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, but spokesmen for Muqtada at the time complained that “rogue elements” not under his control were stirring up trouble there. The Mahdawiyah was founded in 1999 by Abdul Zahra, a young civil engineer from Diwaniyah who had been a follower of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (Muqtada’s father) but established a group that split off from the Sadrists.

Admittedly, a lot of what I have written is speculative, and I’m open to being corrected by better evidence. (That is the fate of all historians but especially those who try to catch history on the run.) But I think it is pretty easy to resolve the contradictions among the major accounts by assuming that this was a Mahdist uprising aimed at taking Najaf, centered on the coming of the Promised One, to which a group of Hawatimah clans were coming to lend aid. The Hawatimah story of their innocence, as reported in the Sunni press, seems to me to have a lot of holes in it.

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Cole in Salon.com: Bush’s Anti-Iran Fatwa

My Salon.com column this week is now available:
“The danger of Bush’s anti-Iran fatwa”:

The president’s decision to use force against Iranian “agents” inside Iraq could snare innocent pilgrims, and raises the risk of open warfare.

Excerpt:

‘ George W. Bush last week announced that American troops in Iraq were henceforth authorized to “kill or capture” any Iranian intelligence agents they discovered in Iraq. The announcement came on the heels of his pledge in the State of the Union address to bring another aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf, a move that clearly targeted Iran. A prominent Iranian parliamentarian responded to Bush’s threat by saying, “Such an order is a clear terrorist act and against all internationally acknowledged norms.” Iraq’s deputy prime minister, meanwhile, put a pox on both Iran and the U.S. for conducting their geopolitical battle on Iraqi soil. ‘

Read the whole thing.

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Mahdist Cult Almost Defeated Iraqi Army at Najaf
Wave of Bombings, Mortar attacks in Baghdad

Marc Santora of NYT reveals that the Iraqi army was very nearly overwhelmed and defeated by the Army of Heaven militia of the Mahdawiya millenarian movement near Najaf on the weekend. They had to call in not only US airstrikes but also US troops to save themselves from being surrounded and killed.

The Mahdawiya is a splinter group of the Sadr movement, which broke away in the late 1990s, and was led by Ahmad al-Hassaani al-Yamani of Diwaniya. He styled himself styled himself Ali b. Ali. b. Abi Talib, that is, he was claiming to be the return of an (otherwise unknown) son of Ali (d. 661), whom Shiites believe was the true successor to the Prophet Muhammad. The Mahdawiya leader is alleged to have been killed in Sunday’s battle.

Al-Hayat’s identification of this movement with another Sadrist splinter group, that of Mahmud al-Hasani al-Sarkhi, appears to have been incorrect.

The buzz in the Right blogosphere that the Mahdawiya is somehow linked to Iran is a profound falsehood. Sadrist splinter groups in Iraq generally are Iraqi nativist and deeply distrust Iran. These cultists wanted to kill Sistani (an Iranian).

The LA times reports:

‘ Every day someone claims he’s the Mahdi,” [Iraqi security official Ali Nomas] said.

Nomas said the leader of the hitherto unknown Heaven’s Army had told followers that he was a missing son of the Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad. Ali’s remains are entombed in Najaf.

“They believe that the Mahdi has called them to fight in Najaf,” Nomas said, adding that fighters had converged on the Najaf area from other predominantly Shiite cities in Iraq.

He lamented that Iraq’s death and destruction had convinced some Shiites that the end of days was coming.

“There’s nothing bizarre left in Iraq anymore,” Nomas said in a telephone interview. “We’ve seen the most incredible things.” ‘

McClatchy wire service gives some more details of the leader, including further pseudonyms.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that Ahmad al-Hassaani claimed to have descended directly from the heavens.

For more on the ideas of al-Hassaani, see Reider Vissar’s comments at Helena Cobban’s Just World News.

The claim of the Najaf authorities that the Mahdawiya has “al-Qaeda” ties is just propaganda and should not be taken seriously. They are embarrassed that there was Shiite on Shiite violence.

Dan Murphy of CSM has more on the background of Shiite millenarianism. I am quoted to the effect that the hatred of the Mahdawiya for the grand ayatollahs is akin to the sentiment among some Protestants that the pope is the anti-Christ.

Reuters reports numerous car bomb and mortar attacks in Baghdad on Monday. Also a sectarian attack in Kurdish territory:

‘ *TUZ KHURMATO – Five worshippers were killed when a rocket propelled grenade hit a Shi’ite mosque in the town of Tuz Khurmato, 70 km south of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD – Three mortars killed 11 people and wounded 28 more in Zaafaraniya, southeast of Baghdad, a police source said . . .

BAGHDAD – A bomb planted inside a minibus killed four people and wounded five others near al-Mustansiriya Square in northeastern Baghdad, police said. . .’

McClatchy says that police found 21 bodies in Baghdad on Monday. There was also heavy fighting in Baquba, Diyala province.

LAT also reports on the renewed tensions over the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, the blowing up of which last Feb. threw Iraq into a whole new level of communal violence.

‘OK, if you say so’ Department:

The USG Open Source Center translates:

Iraqi Kurdish leader, Al-Sadr delegation discuss ties
Kurdistan Satellite TV
Monday, January 29, 2007 T14:46:23Z

Iraqi Kurdish leader, Al-Sadr delegation discuss ties

Text of report by Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) satellite TV on 29 January

(Iraqi) Kurdistan Region President Mas’ud Barzani received yesterday a delegation of the Al-Sadr Current, led by the head of the movement’s bloc in parliament, Nassar al-Rubay’i, and comprising Al-Sadr leadership member and MP Falah Hasan Shanshal, leadership member and head of parliament’s Legal Committee Baha al-A’raji and leadership member and MP Salih Hasan Al-Agili.

In a meeting, relations between the people of Kurdistan and the Al-Sadr Current were discussed and the need for further cooperation in moving Iraq’s political process forwards was stressed. Moreover, views on the security situation in Baghdad were exchanged.

The visiting delegation shed light on the Al-Sadr Current’s operations within the political process and in the federal government of Iraq.

The need for cooperation between the people of Kurdistan and the Al-Sadr Current, with a view to serving the interests of the people of Iraq, was stressed.

(Description of Source: Salah-al-Din Kurdistan Satellite TV in Sorani Kurdish — Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) satellite TV)

City/Source: Salah-al-Din

Muqtada is also sending his people to talk to fundamentalist Sunni leaders.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is still promoting the idea of a Shiite regional confederacy, an idea the Sunni Arabs and the (Shiite) Sadrists vehemently oppose.

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Cole Interview on CNN Monday

Cole on CNN.

YOUR WORLD TODAY Aired January 29, 2007 – 12:00 ET

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, from the raging battle outside Iraq, to the political posturing by Washington and Tehran, what’s really at stake? Earlier, we spoke with Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan, first asking him about that cult that was allegedly aiming to reshape religious and political history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JUAN COLE, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: The Iranians are coming into Iraq for development aid. They’ve pledged a billion dollars, there are going to be joint refineries. And the U.S. announcement that it would kill or capture anyone that it thought was an intelligence agent has the potential for roiling relationships between the two.

CLANCY: Now, the U.S., Washington, clearly upset with Iran’s nuclear program, but it’s important to remember here there’s a complete difference between Iran and other countries in the Middle East, and that’s say it’s not only because it’s Shia, and these are Iranians and the other countries are Arabs. It’s because if you go to the street in Iran, you will find people that are very supportive of Americans, want good relationships, while leadership is very anti- American.

This is the opposite what you find in other Arab countries. How important is it for Washington to take that into account as they go ahead with what appears to be confrontational policy?

COLE: Well, the Iranian public is very pro-American, and it’s one of the few publics in the Middle East, I think, that would reform, if it could, in a way that was friendly to U.S. interests. If the United States goes into a frontal confrontation with Iran, however, it will push the Iranian public away. The Iranians are very nationalistic and they don’t want to be dominated by the U.S.

CLANCY: Let’s go back and focus though on the situation in Iraq. This short-term troop increase appears to be a last-ditch effort to improve security in the country.

What chance does this mission have and the overall mission in Iraq?

COLE: Well, I think it’s very difficult for the United States to establish security in Iraq now. We simply don’t have enough troops to do proper counterinsurgency. And the country really is now mobilized politically.

As we have just seen, you know, the Shiite south was considered to be relatively calm. Then out of nowhere you get this millenarian movement that thinks the promised one of Islam is about to come, and invades Najaf, so the country is really in a great deal of chaos. And securing a few neighbors in Baghdad just isn’t going to do it.

CLANCY: What would do it? Will anything do it? Does anyone have an answer?

COLE: Well, I think the big Iraqi political leaders, who are usually communal leaders as well, need craft a national pact, a compromise that they can all live with and convince each other to put away their arms. This is the kind of thing that ended the Lebanese civil war in 1989. That’s the only thing really that would work in Iraq.

CLANCY: We don’t see much leadership there in Baghdad. Often the elected leaders wait until someone form outside the country comes in with these ideas.

Does Iraq have a leadership problem?

COLE: Well, there are big communal leaders — Abdul Aziz al- Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Kurdish leaders. The problem is that they’re not willing to compromise with one other.

They’re pushing for their maximum goals. And I think the U.S. could do the most good by just knocking some heads together and getting them to compromise.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Some advice there for Washington coming from Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan.

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