[TexKat]

FILE ** Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, left, steps from an office building in Najaf, Iraq, in this June 5, 2004 file photo. Arguably Iraq's most popular Shiite group, followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have packed away their guns and speak of 'political resistance' rather than martyrdom in battle. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Radical Shiite leader who once battled U.S. moves into Iraq's political mainstream

By Hamza Hendawi ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:39 p.m. June 4, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Arguably Iraq's most popular Shiite group, followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have packed away their guns and now speak of "political resistance" rather than martyrdom in battle.

Once dismissed as an upstart, the portly al-Sadr has been transformed into a respectable political figure, commanding the loyalty of key lawmakers and several Cabinet ministers.

"We are growing stronger and our appeal is becoming wider," Ibrahim al-Jaberi, a senior official at al-Sadr's office in Sadr City, said Saturday.

Sadr City is a sprawling Baghdad neighborhood that is home to some 2.5 million Shiites and the largest bastion of support for al-Sadr. It was named for the cleric's father, the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999. The younger al-Sadr's images are everywhere – on walls, shop widows, car windshields and even ice boxes used by street vendors selling sodas or ice cream.

In many ways, today's "Sadrists" have changed since their heavily armed militia battled U.S. troops last fall, but their canny mix of politics, religious fervor and military capability make them the one group in postwar Iraq with the potential for rapid growth.

Since the fighting, al-Sadr has rebuilt ties with Iraq's largest Shiite party, after months of tension threatened to escalate into violence. His aides have been mediating between a Shiite militia and a Sunni group after they exchanged charges of involvement in the killing of each other's clerics.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former Washington insider who is now one of Iraq's most senior Shiite politicians, has actively been courting al-Sadr in an effort to widen his support. A deputy prime minister, Chalabi is known to be lobbying for the release of hundreds of Sadrists in U.S. detention and rescinding an arrest warrant for al-Sadr's alleged role in the 2003 killing of a rival cleric.

In turn, al-Sadr has turned down his rhetoric – although he has not stopped calling for the Americans to leave. He is also no longer contemptuous, as he once was, toward senior Shiite clerics and comparatively secular politicians like Chalabi.

Al-Sadr envoys also recently traveled to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for talks with its leaders, long viewed as American stooges by the Sadrists.

Legislators have also traveled south down the insurgent-infested road to the holy city of Najaf to call on al-Sadr, whose relative youth – he's believed to be in his early 30s – and lack of academic pedigree had led many to dismiss him.

In large part, the Sadrists' new strength is evident in the discipline and organization shown by their Imam al-Mahdi Army, the militia that battled U.S. forces last year. The militia has quietly been restructured since the fighting ended last fall.

It is widely suspected of having hidden most of its weapons after the fighting, while hundreds of militia commanders last week finished a 45-day course in discipline and religious indoctrination that among other things involved dawn-to-dusk fasts.

At least in public, the militia now resembles an outfit that is part relief organization and part neighborhood vigilante. The group has quietly taken control of security in Sadr City, making it by far the safest area in blood-soaked Baghdad.

The militia goes on public view on Fridays, when thousands of al-Sadr followers gather to perform weekly prayers – an event used since Saddam Hussein's fall to project its message, reassert its devotion to al-Sadr and renew animosity toward the Americans.

On Friday, militiamen in brown pants, cream-colored shirts and baseball caps stood shoulder-to-shoulder under parasols and lined streets leading to the venue where prayers are held. They frisked worshippers, searched cars and directed traffic away.

"No, No to America," remains a routine chant during the Friday sermon.

Officially, al-Sadr's movement did not participate in Iraq's historic January election, arguing that there can never be a free vote while foreign troops remain in Iraq.

But al-Sadr indirectly joined the U.S.-sponsored political process when he allowed supporters to run as independents or in small alliances. That pretense has allowed the movement to retain its anti-Americanism, which finds resonance among supporters, and have the support of at least 20 legislators – although some of them are loyal to the ideological legacy al-Sadr's late father, not him.

The Sadrists have their roots in the 1990s when the elder al-Sadr publicly defied Saddam. He was killed by suspected security agents in 1999. His supporters, mostly seminary students, resurfaced after Saddam's fall, organizing local charities and vigilante groups in Shiite areas.

A series of street protests and the creation of the Mahdi army attracted the attention of the U.S. military, and it was not long before they were fighting street battles in Sadr City and in towns across central and southern Iraq.

The current strength and prestige of the Sadrists does not mean they have foregone the movement's spiritual calling, primarily a narrative of suffering and mourning inspired by the events surrounding the birth of the faith in Islam's early years.

"We offer the genuine Islamic alternative," said Abdul-Hadi al-Daraji, one of al-Sadr's closest political advisers.

[TexKat]

Hong Kong's Victoria Park is turned into a sea of light Saturday, June 4, 2005, as tens of thousands people held a candlelight vigil to mark the16th anniversary of the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square on a pro-democracy student movement in Beijing on the same day. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

China Tightens Security Around Tiananmen

By CHUCK CHIANG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - China tightened security around Tiananmen Square on Saturday to prevent memorials on the anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. But in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of protesters staged a candlelight rally.

In Sydney, Australia, a Chinese diplomat who is seeking asylum emerged from hiding to address a memorial rally.

Tiananmen Square, the symbolic political heart of China, was open to the public. But extra carloads of police watched tourists on the vast plaza, where weeks of student-led demonstrations that drew tens of thousands ended in a military attack 16 years ago Saturday. Troops killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of protesters that day.

There was no public mention of the anniversary in China nor any sign of attempts to commemorate it.

The United States used the anniversary to press Beijing for a full account of the dead, missing and detained from what it called the "brutal and tragic" events of 1989 and demanded that China generally show greater respect for internationally recognized human rights.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States remembered the many Chinese citizens killed, detained, or missing in connection with the protests. In addition to those who died, thousands of Chinese were arrested and sentenced without trial, and as many as 250 still languish in prison for Tiananmen-related activities, he said.

"We call on the Chinese government to fully account for the thousands killed, detained, or missing, and to release those unjustly imprisoned," McCormack said.

"It is now time for the Chinese government to move forward with a reexamination of Tiananmen, and give its citizens the ability to flourish by allowing them to think, speak, assemble and worship freely. We continue to urge China to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international standards and law."

The day was especially sensitive because it followed the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who was purged in 1989 for sympathizing with the protesters.

Communist leaders have eased many of the social controls that fueled the unrest but still crush any activity that they fear might challenge their monopoly on power. After an official ruling that the nonviolent protests were a subversive riot, activists and relatives of the dead who appeal that ruling are detained and harassed.

"Family members of victims, like the Tiananmen mothers, and other citizens who urge their government to undertake a reassessment of what happened June 4, 1989, should be free from harassment and detention," McCormack said.

In Hong Kong, a crowd estimated by organizers at 30,000-40,000 raised candles in the air in Victoria Park and sang solemn songs in the only large-scale memorial on Chinese soil. They carried signs that read: "Don't forget June 4" and "Democracy fighters live forever."

The former British territory retains many of its Western-style civil liberties — a status that many there say obligates them to speak out while those on the mainland cannot.

"Our slogan is 'Recognize history,' and we're asking Beijing to do just that," said a vigil organizer, Lee Cheuk-yan.

A younger generation of Chinese who came of age since the protests know little about 1989 because of an official ban on public discussion.

But many in Hong Kong are still emotional about the crackdown, which came as the territory was preparing for its 1997 return to Chinese rule.

"Hong Kong people will not forget this history when a government uses guns and tanks to crush students. It's very atrocious," said Shum Ming, a 58-year-old construction worker.

In their rare public comments about 1989, Chinese leaders defend the crackdown by pointing to the nation's emergence as an economic powerhouse since then, saying it would have been impossible without the enforced stability of one-party rule. A booming private economy has freed millions of Chinese from the structure of state jobs that controlled where they lived and worked — and even whom they could marry.

That defense was echoed Saturday by Donald Tsang, the leading candidate in the campaign to become Hong Kong's next leader.

"I had shared Hong Kong people's passion and impetus when the June 4 incident happened. But after 16 years, I've seen our country's impressive economic and social development," Tsang said. "My feelings have become calmer."

In Sydney, Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old Chinese diplomat who abandoned his post, said at a memorial rally that he was seeking asylum in Australia because of the lack of freedoms in China.

"In 16 years, the Chinese government has done nothing for political reform," he said. "People have no political freedom, no human rights."

Chen was the consul for political affairs at the Chinese consulate in Sydney.

[Gucho]

'8 long, horrible hours' safeguarding a bridge

Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 08:09 AM

Samarra, Iraq -- At 2 p.m., Spc. Mike Rauch points his tank's massive, 120mm gun at the northeastern tip of the Southern Bypass Bridge that spans the dusty marshland outside Samarra.

Another day of highway patrol, Iraq-style, has begun.

Rauch's job, and that of his two crew members aboard the 70-ton M1A Abrams, is to protect the bridge on the outskirts of this Sunni town, a key link on the main route for civilian and U.S. military traffic from the southern port city of Basra to the border with Turkey in the north.

Every day, from 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night, Sgt. Saikichi Simram, the tank's commander, Pvt. Andrew Queen, the driver, and gunner Rauch, from Mariposa in Central California, watch this stretch of road for what have become the two deadliest threats to Iraqi civilians and the 138,000 American soldiers who are supposed to help protect them: cars that look like they might be driven by suicide bombers and insurgents trying to plant roadside bombs.

Insurgents can hit "any hour of the day," says Simram, 28, who has been in Iraq since February with the C "Chaos" Company of the 3-69 Armored Battalion of the 1st Brigade, 42nd Infantry Division.

Insurgents usually fashion roadside bombs from artillery or mortar shells, detonating them remotely by cell phones, satellite phones or walkie-talkies when a U.S. convoy drives by. Sometimes they disguise bombs in dead dogs, cutting their stomachs open and stuffing the explosives inside. The 23-year- old Rauch tells stories about a donkey cart loaded with gasoline cans that exploded as it was pulling up to a checkpoint. And of a cow with a 105mm shell inserted in its anus.

"Crazy people," Rauch says.

U.S. troops have attempted to counter roadside bombs by putting armored plates on their humvees and driving around with a jamming device called "warlock," which suppresses radio frequencies around a convoy. But insurgents continue to adapt, using car bombs and figuring out new ways to detonate roadside bombs, U.S. soldiers say.

Simram, who comes from Guam, calls his daily mission "eight long, horrible hours."

2:10 p.m. Ten minutes into the mission, and the temperature is 110 degrees. Simram sits on a cooler filled with bottled water, closes his eyes and listens to the hum of passing cars. Queen, 19, smokes in the shadow of the tank, looking east, behind a marsh where egrets nestle in dusty green reeds, at Samarra's jagged skyline.

2:40 p.m. The men watch the wind kick up dust devils between them and the bridge. Suddenly, Rauch exclaims, "You see that up there?" He pulls out a digital video camera, and everyone follows his index finger, which is pointing at the sky. "A cloud blocking the sun!"

Everybody looks at the big gray cloud for a while, thankful for some relief from the broiling rays, no matter how slight or temporary.

A few minutes later, Queen, from Ocala, Fla., puts three hydrogen-filled heaters from army-issued packaged meals into a Gatorade bottle filled with water. He buries the bottle in the hot dust about 20 feet from the tank.

"They blow (up)," Simram explains, without turning his head. "When he gets bored, that's what he does."

The soldiers wait, but the bottle does not explode. The men fall silent as they stare at the traffic on the bypass.

2:52 p.m. First Lt. Jason Scott, patrolling the bypass road in one of the humvees, receives a radio call that a white plastic bag lying near the bridge appears to have wires coming out of it.

"Nine times out of 10 it's nothing," Scott says. But he must monitor the bag until a bomb disposal unit arrives. Scott and his men stand about 150 feet from the bag, training their guns at the road.

About half an hour later, another humvee pulls up. Soldiers unload "Johnny Five," a small robot that will probe the bag. The operator, who asked not to be identified, sits down on a folding camp stool, putting the controls for the robot on the passengers' seat of the humvee. A remote monitor shows the contents of the bag as he guides the robot's pincers to shake the bag. It is filled with garbage. Soldiers climb back into the humvees and drive off.

3:45 p.m. A white flatbed truck cuts in front of Scott's humvee. Scott chases it down and orders the driver and the passenger, who wear long white dishdashas, to step away from their truck. Scott looks nervous. The only cars that don't stop for a humvee, he says, are car bombs.

Soldiers search the truck and the men and find nothing.

Scott comes close to the driver and yells, waving his arms: "Don't pass humvees! Stop, don't f -- ing pass! OK?"

"OK," the driver replies.

Scott turns away to leave, then, as an afterthought, he asks the man: "Speak English?"

The man shakes his head: "No."

4:45 p.m. A beat-up pickup truck is going south very slowly on the bypass road. It pulls to a halt, and Simram raises his M-16 rifle in the direction of the road. The truck makes a U-turn and heads north, picking up speed.

"That's all the excitement we get up here," says Simram, sitting down. Queen sits on the trunk, pouring Skittles into his mouth from a bright red bag.

All of a sudden Simram jumps up again.

"D'yall wanna eat some rabbit?" He grabs his gun and fires a shot at the reeds about 100 yards away. He misses. The rabbit holds absolutely still. He fires again, and misses. The rabbit disappears in the bushes.

"Were you aiming at that rabbit?" Rauch asks.

"No, I was aiming next to it," Simram answers, sarcastically.

He looks at the gilded dome of the Al-Askariya Shrine that dominates the Samarra skyline about a mile away. "I could reach over there," he says, dreamily, referring to his tank's 120mm gun, which has a range of almost 2 miles.

7:15 p.m. A hollow boom comes from the highway. The three soldiers jump to their feet and look at the road. A red truck has blown a tire.

8 p.m. The big orange orb of the sun is about to disappear behind the horizon. Simram and Rauch take out their video cameras and take pictures of the sky, as they do almost every night around this time. The wind picks up, carrying echoes of the evening call to prayer from a mosque somewhere on the other side of the bypass.

At 9:31, Simram puts an extended arm on the gun barrel to steady himself as he looks at the stars. Cicadas rustle in the reeds by the marsh.

"I like this time of the day the best. It's cool, and it's time to leave soon." Simram pauses. "And tomorrow, we do it all over again."