CPTnet
25 February 2006

IRAQ: Iraqis, religious leaders try to "get in the way" of sectarian
violence

by Peggy Gish

An Iraqi human rights worker was interviewing members of our team for her
radio show, when we heard the news. The Shi'a Al-Askari shrine in Samarra,
north of Baghdad, had been heavily bombed early that morning. All around
Iraq, groups of angry men gathered to protest or retaliate by attacking
Sunni mosques and leaders.

We heard that gun-battles had erupted in many Baghdad neighborhoods. Police
began to close bridges. In a neighborhood where Iraqis of Palestinian origin
live, two rocket-propelled grenades exploded. We talked on the phone with a
Christian priest who had been injured in his leg by shrapnel when a group of
men shot into the church building. We canceled later appointments for the
day. Everywhere people feared the situation would escalate into sectarian
war.

Out on the streets people lined up at food shops to stock up supplies before
they closed for the three "days of mourning" declared by Prime Minister
Ibrahim Jaafari. He called on Iraqis to "close the road to those who want
to undermine national unity." Shi'a leader Ayatollah Sistani referred to the
bombing as "Black Wednesday" and called for seven days of mourning. We
bought an extra supply of food, water, and phone cards and then limited our
going out the rest of the day. Some of us were able to use the limited
electricity to send quick messages back home, asking friends and family to
join us in prayer for the situation.

The following day was calmer, but reports of the widespread violence were
sobering. Sunni organizations said that ten Sunni Imams had been killed and
168 Sunni Mosques had been attacked. The forensic morgue in Baghdad received
eighty new bodies, and in areas east of Baghdad, between forty seven and
fifty people were killed. Even during the next day's curfew, sporadic
violence continued.

The news that did not get widely circulated, however, concerned the many
actions to demonstrate and foster unity. On Wednesday, Sunni and Shi'a
marched together from the Al Mansour neighborhood to the Khadamiya district
in Baghdad calling for peace. In another Baghdad neighborhood Shi'a
residents protected a Sunni mosque. Sistani urged Shi'a not to attack Sunni
Muslims or their holy places. Shi'a leader Muqtada Sadr also called for an
end to the sectarian violence and commissioned the Mehdi Army in Basra to go
to the Sunni mosques to protect them.

Many here believe that those who bombed the shrine were trying to incite
more division and hatred between Shi'a and Sunni. Some Iraqis speculate that
U.S. leaders encouraged the violence in order to discredit the Jaaferi
government and pave the way for installing leaders more supportive of U.S.
policies. One Iraqi neighbor told me that behind the violence are all the
leaders, Iraqi and American, who want to use civil unrest to grab more
power.

Sectarian violence has the potential of causing horrendous damage to Iraqi
society. We are encouraged, however by the resistance here to that, among
the leaders as well as the Iraqi people.