Mehdi
Army Grows
By Dahr Jamail
27 May, 2004
The New Standard
Baghdad , May
25 - While US troops continue to damage mosques in heavy fighting
against resistance forces they say are holed up in holy sites of Kufa
and Kerbala, men in the Sadr City area of Baghdad rushed yesterday to
join the Mehdi Army, a militia force loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr.
The recruitment surge followed bloody overnight fighting here that left
many Iraqis dead. Not surprisingly, accounts of the overnight battle,
as with most recent engagements, differ greatly depending on whom one
asks.
Residents of this
vast, impoverished area of over one million saw US troops battle members
of the Mehdi Army early yesterday morning. According to Agence FrancePresse
, hospitals counted 18 civilians killed in the fighting, but Captain
Brian OMalley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, operating in the
area, said US forces killed 26 Iraqis, all of them militiamen loyal
to Muqtada Al-Sadr.
The heavily resisted
assault on targets in Sadr City by US forces came less than a day after
the US 1st Cavalry Division completed a weapons purchasing program in
the district, through which the Army bought assault rifles, rocket propelled
grenades, mortars and artillery shells, among other weapons, "at
or above market prices." The Army boasted that thousands of weapons
were turned over by Sadr City residents, but the real effect of the
program was unclear at the end of last yesterdays fighting, which
was possibly the fiercest this neighborhood has seen since tensions
between US forces and Muqtada Al-Sadr escalated in late March.
As men congregated around the newly rebuilt office of Muqtada Al-Sadr
in order to join his militia, Sheikh Hassan Al-Adari, a spokesman for
Al-Sadr, claimed that many of the people killed last night were civilians
and said such a slaughter will only serve to draw angry Iraqis to the
resistance. "Its normal to see people coming here from all
over Baghdad to join us in defending against the occupiers," he
said, "especially when the Americans are killing civilians and
attacking our holy places."
Al-Adari also said
that followers of Al-Sadr, along with the vast majority of Iraqis, are
enraged at what he and others here call "the wedding massacre."
He was referring to the incident in the tiny village of Makr Al-Dib
last Wednesday, where US gunship crews killed more than 40 Iraqis in
overnight airstrikes. Numerous Iraqi eyewitnesses, as well as home videos
obtained and other footage shot by the Associated Press Television Network,
suggest the victims were civilians who had attended a late night wedding
celebration.
The US military
insists the target was a terrorist safe house and has images it says
contradicts the locals version of events.
Eman Ahmed Khammas,
director of the Baghdad office of International Occupation Watch, who
visited the site of the bloodbath, located near the Syrian border, offers
an account that supports statements by local residents. "I saw
it with my own eyes," she recounted during an interview at her
home in central Baghdad. "It is only a sheep ranch and there were
no fighters there, nor any evidence of weapons."
Khammas described
a horrendous scene of bullet-riddled musical instruments from the 13
band members killed in the assault, blood and pieces of flesh drying
in the sand, and mourning neighbors and family members of slain wedding
celebrants.
A list of victims
from last weeks attack showed that 12 women and seven children
under the age of 18 lay among the dead, including a 4 year-old girl
named Fatima, as well as Raad, a one month-old baby boy. The list
was provided by Dr. Hambdi Al-Rawi, director of the hospital in Al-Qaim.
"Iraqis everywhere
are saddened by what happened there," said Khammas. "But they
are even more enraged at the lying of the American military and their
complete disrespect towards the Iraqi people."
Her outrage is shared
by participants of a funeral wake in Sadr City yesterday for Amir Yassin,
a member of the Mehdi Army killed while fighting US forces Monday morning.
"We are fighting to protect our homes here," said a Mehdi
fighter who asked to remain nameless but grew excited as he spoke. "Even
though the Americans only come here at night now, they are still invading
our city and killing our civilians. We are only guarding our homes and
our people."
The fighter is married
and has six children, but said he will be honored to become a martyr
if he is killed fighting against foreign troops occupying his country.
"God will save my children if I die because the Mehdi is the army
of the people," he stated. "This is an intifada of the people,"
the man continued, using Arabic that roughly translates to "shrugging
off." He added, "Our parents encourage us to get revenge for
every death."
A man identified
as commander of two brigades of the Shiite-run Mehdi Army in Sadr
City, who also asked to remain anonymous, said Sunni Muslims have joined
the Shiite-led resistance force. "We have 700 Sunnis fighting
with us here," he said, "because we are fighting so that our
holy places arent destroyed like they are in Najaf, Kut and Kerbala."
He angrily added, "The Americans invaded us, and now they have
made this a holy war."
A spokesperson at
the Coalition Press Information Center who refused to provide a name
also declined to relay any information concerning the nature of the
US military operation in Sadr City.