Anger
Erupts In Iraq Over
Baghdad Bombings
By James Cogan
21 April, 2007
World
Socialist Web
Four
more bombings on Wednesday by suspected Sunni fanatics have left Shiite
districts of Baghdad in a state of grief, shock and outrage against
the US military and the Iraqi government, which claimed the current
US-led security crackdown against Shiite militias would not leave the
population vulnerable to attack. In one of the bloodiest days of the
occupation, more than 200 people were killed and over 250 wounded.
Massive bombs were detonated
at a checkpoint in Sadr City, the working class stronghold of the Mahdi
Army militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and in a busy market
in Sadriya. Smaller explosions occurred outside a hospital in the upper-class
Shiite suburb of Karrada and on a bus in Rusafi, one of city’s
main retail districts before the 2003 invasion. In each case, the objective
was to indiscriminately kill as many Shiite civilians as possible.
Until the Bush administration
announced its Baghdad “surge” in January and declared it
would crackdown on Shiite militias, all of the targeted areas had been
defended to some extent by the Mahdi Army. However, on the urging of
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his fighters
to go to ground in order to avoid clashes with the US military.
Sunni extremists, embittered
by the rise to power of Shiite sectarian parties since 2003, have taken
advantage of the militia stand-down over the past two months to carry
out repeated sectarian atrocities.
In Sadr City, a suicide bomber
was able to exploit US security measures directed against the Mahdi
Army. He detonated his explosives-filled car while waiting in a queue
of vehicles to pass through a recently erected check-point. At least
eight cars were destroyed, 35 people killed and another 75 wounded.
One of the US “security stations” that have been established
in the Shiite working class district over the past month was less than
200 metres away.
In Karrada, a car bomb left
parked outside a hospital was exploded at noon, killing 11 people and
wounding 13. The blowing up of a bus in Rusafi killed four and wounded
six.
The largest death toll on
Wednesday was caused by the bombing of a market in the predominantly
Shiite suburb of Sadriya. At least 140 people were killed and another
150 wounded. The number of dead made it the single worst suicide bombing
since the US occupation began.
The final death toll will
be far higher than 140 however. The World Health Organisation reported
on Tuesday that Iraq’s hospitals are so dysfunctional that “70
percent of all critically injured patients with violence-related wounds
die in emergency and intensive care units due to a shortage of competent
staff and a lack of drugs and equipment”.
Many of the dead and wounded
were low-income day labourers, employed to rebuild the shops and businesses
that were destroyed by the bombing of the same market on February 3,
in which 137 people were killed. Wednesday’s massive car bomb
was detonated at 4 p.m. at an intersection near a market exit where
the labourers queued at the end of the work day for buses and taxis
to go home.
A number of waiting vehicles
were incinerated. A witness told Reuters: “I saw dozens of dead
bodies. Some people were burned alive inside minibuses. Nobody could
reach them after the explosion. Women were screaming and shouting for
their loved ones who died.” A shopkeeper said: “The street
was transformed into a swimming pool of blood.”
Adding to the terror, a sniper
operating from the adjacent suburb of Fadhil, where Sunni extremists
are known to be active, opened fire on rescuers seeking to give assistance
to the wounded. According to witnesses cited by the New York Times,
at least three people were gunned down. Nervous Iraqi government troops
inflicted more casualties, opening fire on a taxi that sped past taking
wounded people to hospital.
Survivors and rescue workers
vented their anger against American and Iraqi troops deployed on the
scene, pelting them with rocks. Crowds chanted “Down with Maliki”.
Journalists heard a man scream: “Where’s Maliki? Let him
come and see what is happening here.” Others shouted: “Where’s
the security plan? We are not protected by this plan.”
The US military’s crackdown
on the Mahdi Army was also condemned. A merchant told the Guardian:
“How is it that everyone knows where these killers are coming
from, yet nobody can do anything to stop them?” A Mahdi Army commander
stated: “Washington calls us the greatest threat to peace in Iraq,
but who is defending our citizens from Al Qaeda and the takfiris (Sunni
sectarian extremists)?”
The outpouring of anger highlights
the reasons for the resignation of six members of Moqtada al-Sadr’s
political movement from Maliki’s cabinet on Monday.
The Sadrists derive their
support from the Shiite working class and urban poor in Baghdad and
southern Iraqi cities, who are overwhelmingly hostile to the US occupation.
Since ending a short-lived uprising in 2004, however, Sadr’s movement
has played a pivotal role in supporting pro-occupation Shiite parties,
including Maliki’s Da’wa Party and the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The Sadrists have channelled
working class opposition behind the Shiite-dominated Maliki government,
promising it would improve living standards, guarantee security and
set a clear timetable for the withdrawal of the despised foreign forces.
Less than 12 months after
they helped form Maliki’s government, it has become untenable
for the Sadrists to claim that the US puppet government can meet any
of the aspirations of the Iraqi masses. To hold onto their own social
base, they have been compelled to somewhat distance themselves. The
Sadrists still form part of the ruling Shiite coalition and remain in
parliament.
The purpose of the US occupation
is not “democracy” but to ensure that the Iraqi government,
regardless of who heads it, is subservient to the long-term US objectives.
In defiance of the will of the overwhelmingly majority of Iraqis, Washington
is demanding the sell-off of the country’s state-owned oil industry
and the sanctioning of permanent American military bases that will facilitate
US acts of aggression against Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The Bush administration has
insisted that the Maliki government push the necessary legislation through
the Iraqi parliament to provide a figleaf of legitimacy for the US agenda.
If Maliki fails, the White House has made little secret of the fact
that it will replace him with a military strongman who will. The US
escalation announced in January is aimed at physically repressing every
potential current of opposition, with the growing Mahdi Army at the
top of the list.
As a consequence, Shiite
districts such as Sadr City are now facing incursions by US troops as
well as increased attacks by Sunni extremists such as Wednesday’s
bombings. At the same time, there is a humanitarian and social catastrophe.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died under the occupation and the
number climbs by the hundreds each week due to the US operations and
sectarian atrocities. The economy is in ruins and unemployment is 50
percent. As many as two million people have fled the country, while
another two million have been forced to flee from their homes.
In horrifying figures published
on Tuesday, the World Health Organisation estimated that 80 percent
of the population does not have effective sanitation or sewage; 70 percent
have no clean water; 40 percent have no access to public food distribution;
chronic malnutrition affects 21 percent of children; and preventable
illnesses such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections cause two-thirds
of deaths among children under five. Working class areas are the worst
affected.
Responding to the rising
popular anger, Sadrist leaders issued scathing condemnations of the
occupation following Wednesday’s bombing. Nassar al-Rubaie, one
of the ministers who resigned at the beginning of the week, declared
that Sunni extremists “target everything that has life in Iraq—universities,
schools, neighborhood centres, markets, gas stations and bus stations—but
the occupation forces and the government stand still, doing nothing,
and let the terrorists play”.
Sadr’s spokesman, Abdul
Razaq al-Nadawi, stated: “The Iraqi government is incapable of
establishing security as long as occupation forces are still present.
We are pessimistic and afraid of the coming days, because Iraqis are
getting fed up. And when nations are provoked, governments cannot stop
them.”
The pent-up hostility among
Shiites against the US occupation and the government is clearly reaching
breaking point. An estimated one million people assembled in the city
of Najaf on April 9 to take part in an Iraqi nationalist rally called
by Sadr to demand the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 took part in a Sadrist protest in Basra last
week to demand the resignation of the provincial governor over the appalling
living conditions that face the population. Media reports suggest that
Sadr loyalists would win control of most of the south if elections were
ever held for the provincial governments.
Four years of brutal US occupation
are creating the conditions for a looming political confrontation between
the Iraqi masses and the occupiers.
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