| Americans storm the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad's brother The dramatic events in southern Iraq resemble a cross between intervention and civil war. Iraqis are already fighting with Iraqis: yesterday, on the seventh day of the Shiite uprising, several thousand Iraqi National Guardsmen and police, trained with the help of the Americans, were thrown against the Shiites who rebelled in the south. American Marines are also participating in the operation, receiving strong air support. Most of the dead Iraqis are victims of bombings. In the last 24 hours alone, according to official data, 165 people were killed in the combat zone and another 600 were injured.
So the Americans suppress the uprising with the help of the Iraqis. This is a desperate and understandable step, but very dangerous. It is now harder to accuse George W. Bush of being like Saddam Hussein, who similarly brutally suppressed a Shiite uprising in 1991. But someday, God willing, the Americans will leave Iraq, but the Iraqis will remain and take revenge on each other for their dead.
Iraq has approached the point beyond which there is a real civil war and the possible dismemberment of the country. This was a threat even before the start of American aggression in the spring of last year. It is no coincidence that the day before yesterday Salam al-Maliki, a representative of the rebel radical Shiite imam Muqtada al-Sadr, threatened the secession of the south of the country, including the key cities of Basra and Nasiriyah. He demanded that American troops withdraw from Shiite holy cities and that the Yankees and their collaborating Iraqi authorities apologize to the “liberation movement” represented by its leader Muqtada al-Sadr and his “Al-Mahdi Army.” (For the Shiites, al-Mahdi is the messiah who will come and save the world from injustice).
Hot battles broke out in the cities of Kut and especially Najaf, where Shiite shrines are located. The rebels took up defensive positions around the sacred Shiite Muslim mausoleum of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. The Americans did not go to Ali's tomb - Muslims around the world would not have tolerated this. Iraqi units are fighting there. They are supported by US aircraft and artillery. Late in the evening, the Americans announced that they had blocked the approaches to the mausoleum complex, where the tomb and the main city mosque are located, and placed it under siege.
The house of Muqtada al-Sadr is also located in Najaf. Yesterday evening the Americans announced that they had taken it by storm. True, when the infantrymen burst in, it turned out that the house was empty.
“Neighboring Shiite Iran may be behind the Shiite uprising in Iraq. Tehran doesn’t like the fact that America, which is hostile to it, is keeping troops at the Iranian borders,” London-based Iraqi political scientist and journalist Nidal al-Lacey told Vremya Novostei as one of the reasons for the uprising. The rebels are demanding that foreign troops, now officially called the multinational force, leave the country. And the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps yesterday called on fellow believers in Iraq to continue resistance.
“The current Iraqi president says that America is our partner. And I declare that America is our enemy,” says 31-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr. His fighters threatened to blow up oil pipelines in the south of the country, in particular terminals in Basra and Umm Qasr, if the Americans did not leave Shiite shrines. Yesterday, oil exports from southern terminals in Iraq fell by two-thirds. However, this is to the advantage of Russian oil workers - world oil prices consistently exceed $40 per barrel.
The events also split the interim government of Iraq, collaborating with the Americans. Shia Vice President Ibrahim al-Jafaari called for an early end to the foreign presence in the country. He called on Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, also, by the way, a Shiite, “not to burn bridges” by refusing dialogue with Muqtada al-Sadr.
The national Iraqi conference, which has already been postponed once from the first days of this month to Sunday, August 15, is also in question. A thousand delegates from all 18 Iraqi provinces are to elect an advisory council - a prototype of the future parliament, elections to which are scheduled for December 2005. But even if the conference takes place this time, many will question its legality.
The increasingly tense situation in Iraq once again proves that Moscow was right in warning Washington against invading Iraq. Then, before the war, the Americans said that they were overthrowing the Sunni Muslim Saddam Hussein, among other things, in order to free the Shiites from his authoritarianism and make them happy. Are Shiites happy today under American bombing? Elena SUPONINA, Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN |
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