The last of the demonstrators Monday morning were dispersed with tear gas in Iran’s cities, and there were no major rallies yesterday. The authorities continued to make arrests among aides to the major reformist leaders, and even among the relatives of the latter. Reformist reports said that the sister of Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebedi, a prominent regime critic has been taken into custody even though he is not politically active. The body of Ali Mousavi, the 34-year-old nephew of opposition leader Mir Hosain Mousavi, was confiscated by the government authorities, apparently in order to prevent it from becoming a rallying point, given his martyrdom. Mir Hosain Mousavi charged the regime with deliberately murdering the young man. Three of his aides were arrested.
Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi had windows of his car broken out by assailants.
There are other days in Muharram when crowds will come out, and on which there may be more rallies and violence. The opposition movement continues to unfold and expand, but in an oddly staccato way, impelled by those anniversaries that allow people legitimately to gather in the streets in large numbers.
Well there isn’t any doubt that the State Department under Condi Rice and Bush gave Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian terrorist, his multiple-entry US visa. And it was probably influenced by his family’s wealth; rich people get visas easier. And, yes, Bush let the Yemeni al-Qaeda guys go from Guantanamo.
But if some Republicans were not being so hypocritical as to try to blame the Dems for poor security, these things wouldn’t be worth mentioning. Presumably the Guantanamo authorities had no evidence that could put the Yemeni al-Qaeda guys away, and there was no reason to deny Abdulmutallab a visa 18 months ago.
The USG Open Source Center translates the claim of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be behind the Christmas day bombing attempt against Northwest Flight 254 by the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. For more on this organization, see Aljazeera’s profile.
Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula Claims Attempted Attack in US Jihadist Websites — OSC Summary Tuesday, December 29, 2009
On 28 December, a forum participant posted a statement on a jihadist website from Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula entitled “The Operation of the Mujahid Brother Umar al-Faruk Al-Nijiri in Response to the American Aggression Against Yemen.”
The group claims responsibility for the attempted attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253, saying that it was done “with direct coordination…with the mujahidin in the Arabian Peninsula after the savage bombardment of cluster bombs and cruise missiles launched from US ships occupying the Gulf of Aden against the courageous Yemeni tribes in Abyan, Arhab, and finally, Shabwah.” The statement ends with a declaration of “total war against every Crusader” in the Arabian Peninsula. The statement was signed by the Al-Malahim Establishment for Media Production and Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, and disseminated by the Al-Fajr Media Center.
A translation of the statement follows:
“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate…
” The Al-Qa’ida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula
” The Operation of the Mujahid Brother Umar al-Faruk Al-Nijiri in Response to the American Aggression Against Yemen
“Thanks be to God, who said: ‘And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah’ (Partial Koranic verse, Al-Baqarah, 2:193).
“Prayers and peace be upon the final prophet, who said: ‘With a month’s march I made fear victorious’ (Hadith).
“With the help of God, the heroic martyrdom-seeking mujahid brother Umar al-Faruk carried out an operation aboard a US flight from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the US city of Detroit. This was during their celebration of Christmas on Friday 25 December 2009. He infiltrated all the modern and advanced tools and security checkpoints in the international airport with courage, not fearing death, and relying on God. With his great accomplishment he struck down the myths of the US and international intelligence. He exposed their fragility and forced their noses into the dust. He made them bemoan all that they spent in upgrading their security measures.
“The unity of faith and Muslim fraternity are what drove this wealthy youth of Nigerian origin, the mujahid brother Umar al-Faruk, to respond directly to the unjust American aggression against the Arabian Peninsula. This was (done) with direct coordination (with the help of God) with the mujahidin in the Arabian Peninsula after the savage bombardment of cluster bombs and cruise missiles launched from US ships occupying the Gulf of Aden against the courageous Yemeni tribes in Abyan, Arhab, and finally, Shabwah, where they killed dozens of Muslim women, children, and entire families. This (US) operation was conducted with the cooperation of Yemen, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the area.
“The mujahidin brothers in the manufacturing division were able (with the help of God) to come up with a technically advanced (explosive) device. It was tested and proven successful and effective, and then passed through the detection machines. The martyrdom-seeking brother Umar (with the blessing of God) reached his target. However, God chose for a technical malfunction to lead to the entire device not detonating. We will continue on the path (God willing) until we achieve what we want, and until all religion is for God.
“We call upon all Muslims who are jealous over their religion and creed to kill every Crusader who works at an embassy or elsewhere, and to declare an all-encompassing war on every Crusader in the peninsula of Muhammad (prayers and peace be upon him). We declare it as a total war against every Crusader in the peninsula of Muhammad (prayers and peace be upon him) on land, sea, and air.
“We call on every soldier in the Crusader armies and the agent governments to repent to God and emulate the example of the heroic mujahid brother, Nidal Hasan, and to kill, with every possible means of killing, evey Crusader in support of the religion of God and to raise His word on Earth.
“From here we say to the American people, that since you support your leaders and stand behind them in the killing of our women and children, you can look forward to what will befall you. We have come to slaughter you and have prepared for you men who love death just as much as you love life. God willing, we will come for you with what you cannot withstand. You will be killed just as you kill. Your day will come tomorrow. Those who are unjust will come to know their fate.
“Oh God, keep the mujahid Umar al-Faruk steadfast on the truth and grant him multiple times more peace, patience, and steadfastness than the calamity that has befallen him. Oh God, relieve him and release him, and make for him a relief and an exit from where he does not expect it. Oh God, release him and Muslim prisoners all across the Earth unchanged, and keep them steadfast on the truth with all your mercy, for you are the most Merciful. Oh God, champion your mujahidin subjects everywhere, and defeat non-belief and its people. Our final prayer is thanks be to God, Lord of all creation.
” Al-Malahim (Establishment for Media Production)
” Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula
“Saturday, 9 Muharram 1431 Hijri (corresponding to 26 December 2009)” . . .
The chanting on Sunday turned against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself, not just against President Ahmadinejad. He was castigated as the Dictator and as worse than the old shah, and the very ideological basis of the regime, the doctrine of clerical rule, was chanted against in the streets. The legitimacy of the regime, profoundly shaken by the events since early June’s presidential election, is now being shredded further.
Another remarkable dimension of Sunday’s events was the sheer number of cities where significant rallies and clashes occurred. Some of those allegedly killed are said to have fallen in Tabriz, a northwestern metropolis near Turkey. Even conservative cities such as Isfahan and Mashhad joined in. Shiraz, Ardabil, the list goes on. The attempt of some analysts to paint the disturbances as a shi-shi North Tehran thing has clearly foundered.
The most ominous sign of all for the regime is the reports of security men refusing orders to fire into the crowd.
But for the movement to go further and become truly revolutionary, it would have to have a leader who wanted to overthrow the old regime and who could attract the loyalty of both the people and elements of the armed forces. So far this key revolutionary element, of dual sovereignty, has been lacking, insofar as opposition leaders Mir Hosain Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have tried to stay inside the Khomeinist framework while arguing that it is Khamenei who violated it by making it too authoritarian. Saying you want slightly less autocracy within a clerical theocracy is not a recipe for revolution.
Najmeh Bozorgmehr reports from Tehran for the FT that on Sunday in the capital, crowds– bigger than even some of those that assembled in June– maintained their discipline and proved unassailable by the basij motorcycle and other crowd control techniques. She quotes people in the crowd urging demonstrators to stick together for this purpose. She must be suggesting that the crowds were several hundred thousand strong in the capital.
Richard Spencer of the Independent reports from Dubai on the darker side of Sunday’s events, as crowds went on rampages, setting fire to banks, government buildings and even a local police station in response to the use of live ammunition on them by security forces. They threw up barricades and set fire to them, as well as to basiji motorcycles, filling the streets with shooting flames and hovering smoke.
Update: Iran’s official PressTV confirms: “”Nine residential buildings, 9 vehicles, 7 shops, 2 banks and 3 power stations were set on fire [by anti-government protestors], ” Tashakkor said. The Iranian official added that “18 garbage bins” were also set on fire.’
The report of attacks on banks makes me think that there is an economic dimension to this uprising. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s profligate spending had provoked very high inflation last year, up to nearly 30%. Although the government maintains that inflation is now running 15%, that is still a hit that average families are taking, on top of the high prices of last year. And, many economists suspect that the true rate is higher than the government admits. Inflation hurts people on fixed incomes or people who cannot easily raise the price for the services they offer. Since much of the economy is locked up in government-owned companies or semi-public ‘foundations’ (bonyads), some controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and others by elite pro-regime clerics, there may be a monopoly effect operating from the huge public sector that limits private merchants’ and entrepreneurs ability to raise prices. Being 15-20 percent poorer every year would make a person angry.
Moreover, as as Robert Worth recently reported, the government has been threatening to remove subsidies from staples. I was in Egypt in January of 1977 when President Anwar El Sadat stopped subsidies under pressure from the IMF, and it threw the country into 3 days of turmoil from Aswan to Alexandria. Iranians have been upset by this talk of no more subsidies and it may have fed economic anxieties already inflamed by the high inflation (in fact, removal of subsidies is essentially a form of price inflation for consumers).
The killing of Ali Mousavi, the 34-year-old nephew of former presidential candidate Mir Husain Mousavi, was also a violation of Shiite values. The Mousavis are putative descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, a sort of caste in Muslim societies called ‘sayyid’ or ‘sharif.’
Killing a sayyid is a blot on any Iranian government. Doing so on Ashura, the day of morning for the martyred grandson of the Prophet, Imam Husayn, borders on insanity.
After mourning sessions Sunday morning at spiritual centers called Husayniyehs or takyehs, crowds issued into alleys and streets, mixing religious slogans with pro-opposition ones. (They chanted, “O Husayn (grandson of the Prophet), Mir Husain (i.e. presidential contender Mir Husain Mousavi).”)
In Shiraz in the southwest, there was a policee crackdown on demonstrators and pro-regime elements are said to have surrounded the house of prominent cleric Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastghaib, a member of the Assembly of Experts who appears to be critical of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
For the regime to create a member of the Mousavi family as a martyr on Ashura was most unwise. Shiite Islam even more than traditional Catholicism thrives on the blood of martyrs.
Junior or middle-ranking Ayatollahs favorable to the ideas of Montazeri show up in a number of these reports about protests in provincial cities, suggesting a generational split in the clerical corps and trouble for Khamenei ahead.
Iran’s political crisis is far from over, even though the opposition has little hope of coming to power as long as the security forces remain firmly behind Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The background for the big news in Iraq, Iran and Pakistan on Saturday and Sunday is the Shiite mourning season. Saturday was the 9th of the month of Muharram and Sunday is the 10th. These ritual dates in the Shiite calendar commemorate the surrounding and then killing of Husayn b. Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at Karbala in Iraq in 680 by the armies of the Umayyad caliph Yazid. During Muharram Shiites tell the story of the passion of Imam Husayn, the martyr, which many feel is redemptive rather as Christians believe they are saved by the sacrifice made by Jesus.
But with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran and then decades later the rise of the Shiite crescent after the Bush administration overthrew secular Arab nationalism in Iraq and presided over the rise of fundamentalist Shiism, Ashura is highly politicized. It is politicized in two ways. It is a marker of Sunni-Shiite conflict, and it is an arena for contention over its meaning among competing factions of Shiites.
In Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims walked to the holy city of Karbala under strict security. In recent years, Sunni Arab guerrillas have targeted Shiite processions with bombs. Even with good security and bomb-sniffing dogs this year, a few bombers targeted pilgrims in Baghdad on Saturday, killing a handful and wounding more. On Friday, pilgrims had been killed in East Baghdad and in Karbala. The guerrillas are targeting Shiite pilgrims to protest the Shiite take-over of Iraq under Washington’s auspices.
Christian Purefoy is reporting on CNN that Abdul Mutallib ran into a radical Muslim network while studying in London. He was last registered in class at University College London in June 2008. This fall he had wanted to go study in Cairo, but his father was worried about his unsavory friends and afraid he would hook up with Egyptian radicals there. So the family sent him to study in Dubai instead. Sometime in late October he sent the family a text message that he was going off to Yemen and that the family would find it difficult to trace him because he was throwing away his phone’s sim card. So it appears that he was recruited into a radical Salafi cell in the United Arab Emirates that sent him to Yemen.
Welcome to Informed Comment, where I do my best to provide an independent and informed perspective on Middle Eastern and American politics.
Informed Comment is made possible by your support. If you value the information and essays, I make available and write here, please take a moment to contribute what you can.
