Official
Lies over Najaf Battle Exposed
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
02 February, 2007
Inter
Press Service
NAJAF, Iraq, Jan 31 (IPS) - Iraqi government lies over
the killing of hundreds of Shias in an attack on Sunday stand exposed
by independent investigations carried out by IPS in Iraq.
Conflicting reports had arisen
earlier on how and why a huge battle broke out around the small village
Zarqa, located just a few kilometres northeast of the Shia holy city
Najaf, which is 90 km south of Baghdad.
One thing certain is that
when the smoke cleared, more than 200 people lay dead after more than
half a day of fighting Sunday Jan. 28. A U.S. helicopter was shot down,
killing two soldiers. Twenty-five members of the Iraqi security force
were also killed.
"We were going to conduct
the usual ceremonies that we conduct every year when we were attacked
by Iraqi soldiers," Jabbar al-Hatami, a leader of the al-Hatami
Shia Arab tribe told IPS.
"We thought it was one
of the usual mistakes of the Iraqi army killing civilians, so we advanced
to explain to the soldiers that they killed five of us for no reason.
But we were surprised by more gunfire from the soldiers."
The confrontation took place
on the Shia holiday of Ashura which commemorates Imam Hussein, grandson
of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered of Shia saints. Emotions
run high at this time, and self-flagellation in public is the norm.
Many southern Shia Arabs
do not follow Iranian-born cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. They believe
the religious leadership should be kept in the hands of Arab clerics.
Al-Hatami and al-Khazaali are two major tribes that do not follow Sistani.
Tribal members from both
believe the attack was launched by the central government of Baghdad
to stifle growing Shia-Sunni unity in the area.
"Our convoy was close
to the al-Hatami convoy on the way to Najaf when we heard the massive
shooting, and so we ran to help them because our tribe and theirs are
bound with a strong alliance," a 45-year-old man who asked to be
referred to as Ahmed told IPS.
Ahmed, a member of the al-Khazali
tribe said "our two tribes have a strong belief that Iranians are
provoking sectarian war in Iraq which is against the belief of all Muslims,
and so we announced an alliance with Sunni brothers against any sectarian
violence in the country. That did not make our Iranian dominated government
happy."
The fighting took place on
the Diwaniya-Najaf road and spread into nearby date-palm plantations
after pilgrims sought refuge there.
"American helicopters
participated in the slaughter," Jassim Abbas, a farmer from the
area told IPS. "They were soon there to kill those pilgrims without
hesitation, but they were never there for helping Iraqis in anything
they need. We just watched them getting killed group by group while
trapped in those plantations."
Much of the killing was done
by U.S. and British warplanes, eyewitnesses said.
Local authorities including
the office of Najaf Governor Asaad Abu Khalil who is a member of the
pro-Iranian Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) had
claimed before the killings that a group of primarily foreign Sunni
fighters with links to al-Qaeda had planned to disrupt the Ashura festival
by attacking Shia pilgrims and senior ayatollahs in Najaf. The city
is the principal seat of religious learning for Shias in Iraq.
Officials claimed that Iraqi
security forces had obtained intelligence information from two detained
men that had led the Iraqi Scorpion commando squad to prepare for an
attack. The intelligence claimed obviously had little impact on how
events unfolded.
Minister of Interior Jawad
al-Bolani announced to reporters at 9 am Sunday morning that Najaf was
being attacked by al-Qaeda. Immediately following this announcement
the Ministry of National Security (MNS) announced that the dead were
members of the Shia splinter extremist group Jund al-Sama (Army of Heaven)
who were out to kill senior ayatollahs in Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani.
Iraq's national security
advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaii said just 15 minutes after the MNS announcement
that hundreds of Arab fighters had been killed, and that many had been
arrested. Rubaii claimed there were Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans.
But Governor Khalil's office
backed away from its initial claims after the dead turned out to be
local Shia Iraqis. Iraqi security officials continue to contradict their
own statements. Most officials now say that the dead were Shia extremists
supported by foreign powers.
The government of Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki has a pattern of announcing it is fighting terrorists,
like its backers in Washington. Many Iraqis in the south now accuse
Baghdad of calling them terrorists simply because they refuse to collaborate
with the Iranian dominated government.
(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist
writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq
and has been covering the Middle East for several years.)
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