Sunnis Wait
For Their Moment
By Nir Rosen
Asia Times
29 October, 2003
The
recent sucide bombings means that now the targets in Iraq are not merely
occupying forces, but the West and the international system as a whole.
The use of an explosive-laden truck and a suicidal driver resemble the
tactics of al-Qaeda, Hamas and even the Lebanese Hizbollah in the 1980s.
In a speech last
Friday, President George W Bush warned of "al-Qaeda-type fighters"
infiltrating Iraq. It is unlikely that Shi'ites would have been involved
in the attack since their community has generally refrained from attacking
US and British soldiers, while their leaders have criticized the style
more than the substance of the occupation. Shi'ites, the primary victims
under Saddam Hussein, are also still inclined to feel grateful for the
liberation. The Shi'! ! ite leadership was vehement and united in its
condemnation of the UN bombing. Shi'ites are most likely to benefit
from the new social order developing in Iraq, and thus least likely
to obstruct it.
Sunni radicalism,
however, is less likely to distinguish between targets. Iraqi Sunnis
were typically privileged under Saddam although in the minority and
their leaders are far more hostile to the foreign presence. Al-Qaeda
bears grudges against the UN going back to Afghanistan and the Ansar
al-Islam, a radical Sunni group that was based in Kurdistan, had clear
links with al-Qaeda. Ansar is said to have moved south towards Baghdad.
Until now, however, even Sunni clerics like Imam Mahdi al-Jumeili of
the small Hudheifa mosque of Baghdad's Shurti neighborhood have refrained
from advocating violence.
"We are sure
they came here to steal the country and protect Israel," Jumeili
says of the Americans. "They plan to take over the whole world.
Everyone wants to control Iraq an! ! d take a piece of our wealth, Japan,
Europe, Russia." Jumeili is conspiratorial in his view of international
affairs. "Judaism and Masonism are at war with Islam and they share
the same goals with America in the world. What is happening tells us
the truth about their intentions. The American army consists of mercenaries
and bastards. The control of Iraq is an evil thing and those who help
control it are evil. The US helped Saddam 300 times. In the war with
Iran, the US helped Saddam because it needed him. Now the US wants to
play a role in the area by itself so it got rid of Saddam."
Jumeili explains
that "many simple people ask us why don't we wage a jihad, but
we refuse to grant a jihad so that there will be no more bloodshed.
All the people are mad and want to fight the US and we tell them the
US promised to leave Iraq and we have to wait, but we think eventually
people will take things into their own hands."
This barely veiled
threat is heard in Sunni mosques throughout Iraq. Sheikh Kheiri, leader
of Tikrit's main mosque, still called the Saddam Mosque, "I told
you many times not to attack the Americans now," he lectured his
listeners. Instead, he exhorted his flock, "Wait and prepare yourselves.
Your enemy is very strong and whatever you do you cannot defeat him.
When you organize yourself secretly, and plan secretly and collect weapons
secretly, then you will succeed in whatever you do. Don't let your enemy
know what you are doing. Your government is gone, your supporters are
gone, everything is gone right now."
Sheikh Kheiri admonished
his listeners, who numbered about 500, for supporting the Ba'ath Party
of Saddam and for straying from Islam. Before the war, criticism of
the secular and corrupt Ba'ath Party would have led to death, but now
he blamed their support of the Ba'athists for the American presence.
Kheiri reminded his listeners that "Mohammed worked secretly for
three years before he began his campaign for Islam". He urg! !
ed them to organize and recruit people, warning against small random
attacks because "you are between the lion's teeth and if you do
anything he will kill you and your family. Don't do anything until we
tell you."
Tikrit is the center
of the area in Iraq known as the "Sunni Triangle", which was
referred to by the head of the US Central Command, General John Abizaid,
recently. "The terrorist threat that is emerging and is certainly
becoming a problem for us is clearly being fueled by extremists within
a fairly distinct geographical area - Tikrit, Ar Ramadi, Baghdad."
In Samara, a city
located between Tikrit and Baghdad, Mullah Hatim Samarai, leader of
the Great Mosque, told his supporters, "I hope God will help us
see them leave our country," Mullah Hatim spoke to a congregation
of 1,000 people in his mosque, where he wields tremendous influence
as one of the leading clerics of northern Iraq. But he, too, urged his
listeners not to take matters into their own hands.
In the nearby al-Jubeiria
neighborhood of Samara at the mosque of Ahmad bin Hamad, the sermon
is usually angrier. This mosque is reputed to be Wahhabi, the same strict
brand of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia and which counts Osama bin
Laden among its adherents. The mosque is known for its sermons that
demand of Muslims not to speak with Americans, not to help them and
to begin fighting them. Graffiti on the mosque walls supports Ansar
al-Islam. Until recently, there was also a weapons market nearby.
At the Alburahman
mosque of Samara, Sheikh Ahmad al-Abasi has taken a comparatively moderate
approach, advising his listeners to work with the Americans, and help
them, but that "if after a year they do nothing for the people
here, we will tell them to go home". Presumably he meant violently.
The speech resembled
the recent sermon in Baghdad of Iraq's most prominent Sunni cleric,
Sheikh Ahmad Kubaisi, the Sunni fundamentalist leader of the Iraqi National
Movement, who spoke in Baghdad condemning the attacks against American
soldiers because they were premature and should not begin until it is
seen whether or not the Americans act on their promise to leave as soon
as possible.
Kubaisi admitted
that Sunnis were pushed aside because the US viewed them as hostile
and that the Shi'ites were the temporary victors. In June, Kubaisi spoke
in the Great Mosque of Samara. He prohibited attacks against the Americans.
"We waited 35 years under Saddam and we should give the Americans
a year before we fight them and tell them to leave," he said.
Kubaisi, who was
exiled in 1998, returned to Iraq after the war and made his debut sermon
at the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad, Iraq's most important Sunni mosque.
The minaret, or tower, of the mosque still bore the scars of an American
missile that went through it during the war. Hundreds of people stood
and knelt barefoot outside the packed mosque. On top of its walls stood
young me! ! n holding banners proclaiming "One Iraq One People",
"We Reject Foreign Control", "Sunnis are Shi'ites and
Shi'ites are Sunnis, We are all One", "All the Believers are
Brothers", and similar proclamations of national unity.
The sermon that
followed the prayer was unique for its nationalism. Baghdad had been
occupied by the Mongols, the sheikh said, referring to the sacking of
the capital of the Muslim world in 1258. Now new Mongols were occupying
Baghdad and they were creating divisions between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
The Shi'ites and Sunnis were one, however, and they should remain united
and reject foreign control. They had all suffered together as one people
under Saddam's rule. Saddam oppressed all Iraqis and then he abandoned
them to suffer.
There were no Sunnis
or Shi'ites, all Iraqis were Muslims and they had defended their country
together from the Americans and British, as a united people. The sheikh
also thanked the Shi'ite people of Basra for "defending ! ! their
country against the foreign invaders". Kubaisi then formed a political
party and limited his overt religious activity.
Sheikh Muayad, the
imam and speaker of the Abu Hanifa mosque, was chosen by Kubaisi to
lead it after the war. He, too, has strategically chosen to cooperate
with the Shi'ite majority, although Shi'ites grumble that both he and
Kubaisi were denouncing them as apostates until the war started and
that their new-found brotherhood is merely tactical. In a demonstration
called for by Baghdad's Shi'ite leadership, Muayad told the thousands
of Shi'ites that "we are brothers and we won't be separated. Our
enemies want to separate us but we won't be divided and we will be united".
In a recent interview,
given in the dark because there was no electricity that night, Muayad
complained about the American presence. "All good people of the
world reject foreign occupation," he said, "whether they are
Muslim or not. Americans rejected British imperialism, so w! ! hy do
they deny other people the right to do what they did? We as Muslims
reject any foreign occupation because Muslims do not recognize slavery
to anyone but God."
On the steps outside
the Abu Hanifa mosque a book seller displays a thin book supporting
bin Ladin and defending his actions entitled "Bin Ladin: Our Enemy
is America".
Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online