Warrant Issued for Anti-Coalition Cleric's Arrest [DoD]

DoD-AFPS ^ | April 5, 2004 | Jim Garamone

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Warrant Issued for Anti-Coalition Cleric's Arrest

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2004 – An Iraqi judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of anti-coalition Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in connection with the death of Ayatollah Sayed al Khoei last year, coalition authorities revealed today.

Iraqi police have arrested Mustapha Yacoubi for his involvement in the same murder and have him in custody, said Dan Senor, coalition spokesman, during a briefing in Baghdad.

Khoei, a leading Shiia cleric and human rights advocate, was stabbed and shot outside a mosque in Karbala last year. A total of 13 Iraqis have been arrested in connection with the murder, and 12 more suspects, including Sadr, still are at large.

The arrest of Yacoubi and the warrant for the arrest of Sadr show that "the Iraqi people want elections, not mob violence, to determine who will rule Iraq," Senor said.

Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said that the coalition is accelerating its offensive operations to kill or capture anti- coalition elements and enemies of the Iraqi people. He said Marines and Iraqi forces initiated Operation Vigilant Resolve to confront anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi elements in the Fallujah area.

The force, now numbering 1,300, has surrounded the city and is regulating passage into and out of the city. The coalition has imposed a curfew of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. "These are the first of a series of actions to attack anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi forces and to re-establish security in Fallujah," Kimmitt said. On March 31, insurgents in that city killed four American security experts. A mob burned and mutilated their bodies.

Kimmitt also gave a rundown of the coalition's response to the latest spike in violence in the country. "In the past 24 hours we conducted 1,566 patrols, 10 offensive operations, 18 raids and captured 42 anti-coalition suspects," he said. The operations were not without cost, as a total of 12 soldiers and Marines were killed in action since April 3.

Most of those killed were in central and southern Iraq, as demonstrations encouraged by Muqtada al-Sadr turned violent. Kimmitt said members of Sadr's militia -- the Mahdi Army -- incited violence against the coalition and Iraqi forces. There was violence in Baghdad, Najaf, Nasiriyah, Basra and Amarah. The general said all areas are calmer today, with peaceful demonstrations being staged in Basra, Najaf and Kut.

Kimmitt said the coalition will focus more attention on Sadr's Mahdi Army. He said the coalition believes militias are inconsistent with a democratic and sovereign nation with a central government. "We are particularly focused upon militias that start attacking coalition forces, start attacking Iraqi forces, start attacking Iraqi civilians," he said. "The actions of the Mahdi Army over the past 48 hours (are) clearly inconsistent with a safe and secure environment.

"Individuals who create violence, who incite violence, who execute violence against persons inside of Iraq will be hunted down and captured or killed," he continued. "It is that simple."

Kimmitt said the coalition forces are responsive to the levels of violence in Iraq because the coalition has an obligation to establish and maintain a safe and secure environment. "We have forces that are absolutely capable, 100 percent of the time, to be in a mode of fixing schools, fixing sewers, fixing health clinics. That's what our soldiers would like to be doing. That's what our Marines would like to be doing," he said.

"But their first and foremost responsibility is for safety and security in Iraq," he continued. "And when that safety and security is threatened, is challenged, and violence is incited, and violence is executed, those same soldiers and those same Marines are capable of putting down their paintbrushes and picking up their weapons to defend the people of Iraq and to ensure that the process of taking this country to democracy and sovereignty will not be impeded."

Related Sites:
Coalition Provisional Authority
Combined Joint Task Force 7

Related Articles:
Gunmen Attack Spanish, Salvadoran Troops in Najaf
Bestial Acts in Fallujah Shouldn't Obscure Iraq Gains
Coalition Vows 'Deliberate' Response to Attacks
Nine Deaths in Iraq Won't Deter Coalition, Officials Say

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Related FR threads:

 

8 Fallujah, Iraq and Operation Valiant Resolve Photos ~  4/05/04

8 MSNBC: US Helicopters destroy 5 house in Fallujah ~ MSNBC ticker | 4/05/04 | MSNBC

8 Marines Encircle Fallouja (Operation Valiant Resolve commencing) ~ LA Times | 4/04/04 | Tony Perry and Edmund Sanders

8 Curfew imposed on sealed off Falluja ~ Al Jazerra.net (enemy press) | 4/05/04

8 Former Marine Captain Dale Dye, re. Iraq - KFI AM radio, 4/05/04, rough transcript

8 Iraq - Shiites seize Basra govt office ~ Agence France-Presse | 4/05/04

8 IRAQ: Warrant Issued for Shiite Cleric's Arrest ~ Las Vegas Sun | 4/05/04 | AP

8 Iraq's Yacoubi Charged with Conspiracy to Murder (Moqtada al-Sadr aide) ~ Reuters | 4/05/04

8 Iran declares war on U.S. ~  More on Sadr's pals and other bad guys aiming to start a civil war and prevent freedom in Iraq ~ WorldNetDaily | 4/05/04 | Joseph Farah

8 US tanks deploy in Baghdad as Shiite radicals take to streets ~ AFP | 4/04/04

[Support Free Republic]

[Cowboy Bob]

They need to just "liquidate" this guy. To hell with this "martyr" BS. Killing Hitler in his bunker didn't make him a martyr, and it sure was better than arresting him.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said that the coalition is accelerating its offensive operations to kill or capture anti- coalition elements and enemies of the Iraqi people. He said Marines and Iraqi forces initiated Operation Vigilant Resolve to confront anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi elements in the Fallujah area.

The force, now numbering 1,300, has surrounded the city and is regulating passage into and out of the city. The coalition has imposed a curfew of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. "These are the first of a series of actions to attack anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi forces and to re-establish security in Fallujah..."

Kimmitt also gave a rundown of the coalition's response to the latest spike in violence in the country. "In the past 24 hours we conducted 1,566 patrols, 10 offensive operations, 18 raids and captured 42 anti-coalition suspects," he said. The operations were not without cost, as a total of 12 soldiers and Marines were killed in action since April 3.

"The actions of the Mahdi Army over the past 48 hours (are) clearly inconsistent with a safe and secure environment."

"Individuals who create violence, who incite violence, who execute violence against persons inside of Iraq will be hunted down and captured or killed..."

"It is that simple."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Primary news source, bad news for the bad guys, ping.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Making an example of this Mullah is good!

[DHerion]

Perhaps we should get Sistani and the other Shiite clerics to call for a Shiite tribunal to judge Sadr. They will pass judgement on him and not us. He killed one of their own. It would be difficult for Sadr to resist them without losing most of his legitimacy with the Shiite population. And I would think their verdict would be far harsher than anything we might deliver.

[Highest Authority]

What's all this "arrest" crap????? Vermon should be exterminated!!

[blackie]

Smoking out and rounding up the bad guys!

Also on this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1111697/posts?

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

[aft_lizard]

I agree once we arrest him or the Iraqis let the Ayatollahs judge him so that the majority of shiites will not be angered at us.

[tessalu]

The USA has allowed the Iraqi Shia cleric to continue his rampage for too long. Now we are beginning to see why Saddam had to control the shias for they are like wild people, inflicting what ever damage that they can.

The USA has going to have to use superior force, for this is the only thing that they understand, and appeasement is not a part of this game. USA need not suffer the lives of our young men on the altar of Islamic "culture", for it will do no good. We either get tough or we die, and it is just that simple. Get serious, fight to win, or get out of Iraq. We can do it if not hampered by the old men in this war who issue the orders, hoping for a sanitized operation.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[DHerion]

It's looking obvious now that any near term Iraqi government/colation will have a tough time maintaining power and/or abusing it for their own enrichment. The best answer may be to build a first class Iraqi officer corp who, like the generals in Turkey, allow the civilian elected government to run the day to day aspects of Iraq but if they get out of line they temporarily seize power and set things right.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The Lesson of Mogadishu

America must answer last week's barbarity in Fallujah.

BY MARK BOWDEN

Monday, April 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

The picture is haunting. The bodies of the dead dangle overhead, twisted and grotesque, while the living frolic beneath them, posing for the camera. The joy and laughter on the faces of the celebrants is unmistakably genuine. These are people exulting in hate, glorying in their own cruelty.

It was taken on Aug. 7, 1930, and it shows the bodies of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two black men falsely accused of rape who were beaten, tortured, mutilated and then strung up by a mob in Marion, Indiana. The picture is remarkably similar to the ones we saw last week from Fallujah, or those we saw nearly 11 years ago from Mogadishu. Mobs reduce human nature to its lowest common denominator, whether American, Iraqi or Somali. They are savage and ugly, but they are not irrational.

On Oct. 4, 1993, mobs of outraged Somalis dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, mutilating and dismembering them. The initial U.N. intervention nine months earlier had been welcomed by most in the war-torn, starving city, but the subsequent efforts at nation-building had gradually worn out the mission's welcome. Efforts by the U.S. to target the most belligerent local warlord, Mohammed Farah Aidid, had prompted several bloody incursions into the city, and had transformed the humanitarian intervention into outright war. In the battle that had just ended that morning, many hundreds of Somalis had been killed or wounded. The dead American soldiers were dragged from the site of a downed Black Hawk helicopter in neighborhoods sympathetic to Aidid.

In Fallujah, reports indicate that four American private security men, all former military men who had accepted dangerous work in Iraq, were ambushed when they tried to drive down a street in that city. Unlike most of Iraq, Fallujah remains defiant of the U.S. occupation and efforts to build a free and democratic society there, and it has been the focus of many violent U.S. incursions searching for resistance cells and Saddam loyalists. The four Americans were reportedly shot, doused with gasoline and set afire before the mob engaged in its repellent horseplay with their bodies. Lynching is deliberate. It is opportunistic rather than purely spontaneous, and it has a clear intent: to insult, to challenge and to frighten the enemy, and to excite and enlist allies. The mutilation and public display of bodies follows a distinct pattern. The victims are members of a despised Other, who are held in such contempt that they are considered less than human. Respectful treatment of the dead is the norm in all societies, and a tenet of all religions. Publicly flouting such basic dignities is a communal expression of hatred designed to insult and frighten. Display of the mutilated remains must be as public as possible. In Fallujah they were strung high from a bridge. In Mogadishu, where there were no central squares or bridges, the bodies were dragged through the streets for hours. The crowd, no matter how enraged, welcomes the camera--Paul Watson, a white Canadian journalist, moved unharmed with his through the angry mobs in Mogadishu on Oct. 4, 1993. The idea is to spread the image. Cameras guarantee the insult will be heard, seen and felt. The insult and fear are spread across continents.

The other message at a lynching isn't as obvious. It is also an appeal. It is a demonstration of potency designed to sway and embolden those who are sympathetic but fearful. It says, Look what we can get away with! Look what we can do! The sheer horror asserts the determination of the rebel faction, and underlines the seriousness of the choice it demands from its own community. It draws a line in the sand; it is a particularly graphic way of saying, You are either for us or against us. With the potential for further such atrocities afoot, critics of the rebels are frightened into silence and acquiescence.

It is a mistake to conclude that those committing such acts represent a majority of the community. Just the opposite is true. Lynching is most often an effort to frighten and sway a more sensible, decent mainstream. In Marion it was the Ku Klux Klan, in Mogadishu it was Aidid loyalists, in Fallujah it is either diehard Saddamites or Islamo-fascists.

The worst answer the U.S. can make to such a message--which is precisely what we did in Mogadishu--is back down. By most indications, Aidid's supporters were decimated and demoralized the day after the Battle of Mogadishu. Some, appalled by the indecency of their countrymen, were certain the U.S. would violently respond to such an insult and challenge. They contacted U.N. authorities offering to negotiate, or simply packed their things and fled. These are the ones who miscalculated. Instead the U.S. did nothing, effectively abandoning the field to Aidid and his henchmen. Somalia today remains a nation struggling in anarchy, and the America-haters around the world learned what they thought was a essential truth about the United States: Kill a few Americans and the most powerful nation on Earth will run away. This, in a nutshell, is the strategy of Osama bin Laden.

Many Americans despise the effort under way in Iraq. They opposed overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force, and disbelieved the rationale offered by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. There may well be a heavy political price to pay for the mistakes and exaggerations; President Bush faces a referendum in just seven months. But however that election turns out, and however imperfectly we have arrived at this point, the facts on the ground in Iraq remain. Saddam is gone and Iraq, thanks to U.S. intervention, is struggling toward a new kind of future. Its successful transformation into a peaceful, democratic state is in everyone's interest except Saddam's extended family and the Islamo-fascists. It's time for opponents of the war to get real. Pictures like those we saw from Fallujah last week should horrify us, but they should also anger us and strengthen our resolve. The response should not be to back away from the task, but to redouble our efforts.

Which means recognizing that the gory carnival on the streets of Fallujah is not evidence of the mission's futility, nor is it something to chalk up to foreign barbarity. It was deliberate and it must be answered deliberately. The lynching of African-Americans would have ended decades earlier if authorities had rounded up and punished those participating in crimes like the one in Marion. Somalia would be a vastly different place today if the U.S. and U.N. had not backed away in horror from the shocking display in Mogadishu. The rebels in Iraq who ambushed those American security workers in Fallujah ought to be hunted down and brought to justice, but they are not the only ones responsible. The public celebration that followed was licensed and encouraged by whatever leadership exists in Fallujah. Whether religious or secular, its insult, warning, and challenge has been broadcast around the world. It must be answered. The photographic evidence should be used to help round up those who committed these atrocities, and those who tacitly or overtly encouraged it. A suitable punishment might be some weeks of unearthing the victims of Saddam Hussein's mass graves.

Mr. Bowden, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, is the author of "Black Hawk Down" (Penguin, 2000).

[tessalu]

America is up to the task and can do the task if not prevented by the USA government itself. This is more of a concern to me than what the Iraqis do. We must not subject our own soldiers to death, to preserve some evil culture
that glorifies death.

[tessalu]

America is up to the task and can do the task if not prevented by the USA government itself. This is more of a concern to me than what the Iraqis do. We must not subject our own soldiers to death, to preserve some evil culture
that glorifies death.

[DHerion]

Absolutely true. And as the process plays out there is going to be a little bloodletting on all sides. The shiites and kurds have some serious payback for the sunnis and the best we can do is postpone that until we get out of Dodge. But we need to build strong relationships with whatever officer corp Iraq creates. I believe many of the Turkish officer corp have strong relationships with ours as did Iran's before Carter sold them out. At the end of the day the Iraqi government will only survive if the military will back their authority.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Former Marine Captain Dale Dye, re. Iraq - KFI AM radio, 4/05/04, rough transcript :

 

"Relax. Don't get caught up in the media cycle.

 

Iraq is not going to hell in a handbasket - and is not blowing up.

 

The coalition is essentially responding to the killing of the 4 civilians in Fallujah - executing a cordone and search - around 1600 of the new Iraqi army are involved - and about 850 US Marines of the 1 Marine Expeditionary force....We are going to go through this...find the guys who perpetrated the violence....we are going to take them out."

 

We're going to find them. We're going to get them.

 

We aren't going to use a velvet hammer anymore...We are going to start rationing public services..."Hey pal, you fire at us today...and ..(no electricity)."  There's many ways to stage (overwhelming force).

 

One of the things we are not doing right...we're going for the headlines....the catchphrase...and they lose meaning.

 

When we say "overwhelming response"...we mean we are about to overwhelm the folks that perpetrated this violence.

 

It does smell like it (civil war)...and this is a serious situation...mainly involved Shiites.

 

It's going to get tough (with this guy - Sadr)...It is the Iraqis saying "look, he's running an illegal militia - let's get him out.."

 

There is potential for that (all-out civil war)..but I don't think (the Iraqis who issued the arrest warrents...would have if they thought it was a serious possibility).

 

They (the Iraqi allies) don't want civil war anymore than we want civil war....

 

They are trying to establish credibility (before the June 30 turnover).

 

(The turnover) will be relatively low key. (Bremer, etc)...will be fading out, you'll begin to see Iraqis (in the forefront)...daily news coverage, Iraqi people in the streets...our profile will be reduced.

 

What we have got to do is insure that the Iraqi security guys have the backing that they need. We need to be the hammer."