Samarra: An Entire City Up In Arms
By May Ying
Aljazeera
06 December, 2003
As
the smoke clears from heavy fighting in downtown Samarra, what emerges
is the portrait of a city deeply connected to the Iraqi resistance.
Samarra is a town
of 200,000 inhabitants. While Baghdad and Falluja have witnessed high-profile
bombings, Samarra has been quietly engaged for months in an escalating
mini-war with US occupation forces.
Until a few weeks
ago, the US military had two camps within the Samarra city limits. But
incessant mortar attacks, at all hours of the day and night, forced
them to a grain silo in the desert several kilometres out of town.
A visit to the US
headquarters brings two hulking plain-clothes officers to the gate,
while a sullen soldier leans out of a distant doorway to stare at the
unusual spectacle of a visitor.
"What do you
want?" they ask, politely. Give us identification,
they demand. Leave now - it's about to get ugly here. They are
going to start up again, the officers say.
Spiritual centre
A few blocks from
the US fortress is one of the holiest sites for Shias in the world,
the Ali al-Hadi Shrine. The rest of the city and its economic life are
wrapped around this spiritual centre.
Suddenly the street
explodes with insurgent RPG and light weapons fire. A US tank patrol
returns fire down a main avenue sending residents scurrying through
the intersection, taking refuge in groups behind corners, daring one
by one to peer down the street at the sandy collection of US tanks.
All of Samarra
is with the resistance, explains Muhammad, a local resident.
The guerrillas
in Samarra can shoot at the Americans on a sidewalk in the middle of
town at noon knowing no one will report them. When they do this, the
people clap - men, women and children.
The Americans,
Muhammad continues, must get out of Samarra and out of Iraq. We
will never tolerate their staying; our religion does not allow it.
He explains that
there is an Islamic as well as a much larger secular resistance movement
in Samarra, including Baathists, and people who are simply nationalists
or patriots, or want revenge for family members killed or injured by
occupation forces
Relatives
Everyone seems related
one way or another.
Unlike cities like
Ramadi and Falluja, which have hundreds of tribes, Samarra has only
seven. This makes the already powerful network of blood and tribal ties
even more encompassing.
No one wants to
betray a member of one's own family or tribe. No one wants to make trouble
between his tribe and another. Those who talk to the Americans are considered
pariahs to be shunned.
The Americans,
says Muhammad, made many enemies for themselves here - by their
raids, arrests and firing on people.
"The US forces
have never understood the personality of the Iraqi people. They throw
us on the ground and put their feet on our heads. This makes us crazy.
The resistance in
Samarra was born in the spring of 2003.
According to the
story, now legend, there was a wedding party in the streets. US forces
mistook celebratory gunfire for an attack and fired on the wedding party
killing four and injuring 15.
That same night
saw three hours of attacks on the American camp, and from that day,
the daily acts of resistance began.
At the town's only
hospital, the ledger clearly records Samarra's ongoing state of war.
Every few days six or seven Iraqis are dead - from gunfire and shrapnel
as many as 20 on average a week.
Relations with the
Americans were not always so grim. When US troops first arrived in Samarra,
the city's elders acquiesced without a shot.
Sayyid Riyadh al-Kilidari
is the custodian of the Ali Al-Hadi Shrine. "They came here with
satellite dishes and a bunch of newspapers. I can't remember the names.
Have they brought anything else good? If they did, I can't remember
it.
No credibility
In October, US forces
arrested al-Kilidari himself.
They put a
bracelet on me with my name and number that said 'US attack,'"
he said chuckling to himself.
Samarra residents
don't deny the city had been a Baathist stronghold. But they seem to
bridle especially at the suggestion they liked Saddam Hussein.
There were
a lot of Baathists in this town, acknowledges al-Kilidari. Some
of the original founders of the Iraqi Baath party were from Samarra.
But they were real Baathists, says Kilidari, They
supported Arab nationalist ideas, not Saddam Hussein.
When Saddam Hussein
came to power in 1979, he exiled, killed or jailed some leaders from
the town.
In 1991, Samarra
was asked to send volunteers to help put down a Shia uprising in Karbala,
but the city refused.
By 1998, the town's
most important community and religious centre, the Big Mosque, had become
a meeting place for dissidents plotting to assassinate Uday, son of
the president.
That year Saddam
executed 11 citizens of Samarra and imprisoned seven others for their
alleged role in the plot.
One of them, Adnan
Thabit Mahir, emerged from five years in Abu Gharaib prison and is now
head of the US-appointed Samarra City Council. As such, he is one of
the sole communication channels between the angry city and the US military.
Even Thabit, who
is accused by his constituents of collaborating with the occupation,
has little good to say about the Americans.
They haven't
re-built anything in Samarra and they haven't invested anything here
either, he says.
Those opposed to
the occupation like Muhammad say that even if the US sets a withdrawal
date they will not believe it.
The Americans
have no credibility here. We will believe they are going when we see
them leave, he says.