Posted on 08/31/2003 6:06:54 AM PDT by Gabrielle Reilly
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Beating their chests and calling for revenge, more than 300,000 Muslims began a two-day, 110-mile march to the holy city of Najaf on Sunday to mourn a cherished Shiite leader who was assassinated in a car bombing that killed at least 85 people.
The faithful followed a flatbed truck carrying a symbolic coffin for Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a moderate cleric and Saddam Hussein opponent. Authorities said they could only find al-Hakim's hand, watch, wedding band and pen in the wreckage.
"Our revenge will be severe on the killers," read one of the many banners carried by the marchers.
Red and white roses were laid on the coffin and a large portrait of al-Hakim was placed in front of it.
(AP) Iraqi men carry a weapon and a poster of Iraqi Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim as... Full Image
The Iraqi police handling the investigation into Friday's bombing say they have arrested 19 men - many of them foreigners and all with admitted links to al-Qaida - in connection with the blast. However, many Shiites blame the cleric's death on Saddam Hussein loyalists and the U.S.-led coalition, which they say has failed to provide adequate security in the country since the dictator's fall.
"Saddam and Bush will not humiliate us," read another banner.
The procession began at the al-Kadhimiyah Shrine, one of Baghdad's most sacred Shiite sites, and was expected to grow as it weaved its way southward. The marchers were to stop at holy sites in Karbala before arriving at the blast site, Najaf's Imam Ali Shrine, for the funeral on Tuesday.
Police detained two Iraqis and two Saudis shortly after the Friday attack, and they provided information leading to the arrest of 15 other suspects, said a senior police official in Najaf, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports were among the suspects, the official said. The remainder were Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.
(AP) Iraqi men carry a weapon and a poster of Iraqi Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim as... Full Image
Initial information shows the foreigners entered Iraq from neighboring Kuwait, Syria and Jordan, the official said, adding that they belong to the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.
"They are all connected to al-Qaida," the official said.
Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction. Based in Saudi Arabia, its followers show little tolerance for non-Wahhabi Sunnis and Shiites.
Al-Hakim had only returned in May from exile in Iran. While backing the formation of an Islamic state in Iraq, he had also urged unity among rival Shiite factions and tolerance of the American-led coalition.
Police said there were similarities between the mosque bombing and two recent attacks.
(AP) Iraqi Shiite muslim men cry as they wait for a symbolic coffin for Iraqi Shiite cleric Ayatollah... Full Image
The bomb at the Imam Ali Shrine - the burial place of the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad - was made from the same type of materials used in the Aug. 19 truck bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 23 people, and the Jordanian Embassy vehicle bombing Aug. 7, which killed 19, the Iraqi official said.
U.S. officials have not confirmed any details of the arrests, which would substantiate Bush administration claims that bin Laden's followers have taken their war against the United States to Iraq.
The bombing in Najaf added urgency to U.S. plans to create a 7,500-strong Iraqi militia that would eventually take over civil defense duties in the country's cities. Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, announced plans to create the new militia, called the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, on July 21.
A day before the bombing, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said mobilizing the Iraqi militia - rather than bringing in more U.S. or coalition troops to Iraq - was the key to stabilizing the country.
American authorities have not taken an active public role in the mosque investigation because of Iraqi sensitivity to any U.S. presence at the Najaf shrine. The mosque is the most sacred Shiite shrine in Iraq and the third holiest in the world after Mecca and Medina.
(AP) Iraqi Shiite muslim men cry as they wait for a symbolic coffin for Iraqi Shiite cleric Ayatollah... Full Image
Hospital officials said 85 people died in the shrine bombing, including al-Hakim. Earlier tolls were reduced after some deaths were found to have been reported twice.
In response to the bombing, a highly respected Shiite cleric suspended his membership in the U.S.-chosen Iraqi interim Governing Council, citing a lack of security.
Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, in exile in London until Saddam's ouster, said Saturday that his return to the council depended on the U.S.-led coalition's handing security matters to Iraqis, so that Muslim shrines could be under Islamic protection.
"This act has pushed me to postpone my membership in the governing council because it can't do anything concerning the security situation," he said.
The men arrested claimed the recent bombings were designed to keep Iraq in a state of chaos so that police and American forces would be unable to focus on the country's porous borders, the Iraqi official said.
The Najaf police official, who led the initial investigation and interrogation of the captives, said the prisoners described plots to assassinate political and religious leaders and to damage power plants, water supplies and oil pipelines.
In the latest sabotage, an explosion and fire on Saturday struck the pipeline carrying oil from Iraq's northern Kirkuk fields to Turkey.
The blaze further delayed resumption of the vital link, which costs Iraqis an estimated $7 million each day it is out of operation. The blast was the fourth to hit the line since it briefly reopened earlier this month.
Non sequitur alert.
The U.S. needs to create a viable Iraqi police force and military so they can handle things themselves. We can't be the police there. So far, it sounds this is not much of a priority.
The idea that Iraqis would greet us as their liberators now seems a very distant and utopian fantasy. Reality sucks.
Why in the hell do we worry what the Iraqi's think of us? That warm and fuzzy feeling we get when troops hand out candy to happy kids? Or that warm and fuzzy feeling Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky get whenever the NYTimes screams "Quaqmire!"?
The media line is that what the Iraqis want is no more U.S. and self-government. These are not compatible goals. Besides, what the Iraqis want is far less important that what we'll give them. To get their sovereignty (and not back -- they never had it), they gotta get us first. Everybody knows it. They know it. The media knows it, and this Admninistration damned well knows it.
The problem comes in who is willing to say it.
A fine example of this foolishness comes in today's (com)Post, with the Outlook article, "A Quagmire? More Like a Presidential Fixation". See Bromleyisms here for a reply.
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