The Iraqi 9-11
"This is as 9-11 in the United States,"
--Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite and one of two vice-presidents of Iraq
"If I could find the people who did this, I would cut him into pieces…I would rather hear of the death of a friend than to hear this news."
--Abdel Jaleel al Sudani, 50-year old employee of the Iraqi Health Ministry, quoted in the New York Times, February 23, 2006
It wasn't just the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, as the Golden Mosque is called, located some 60 miles north of Baghdad. The bombing followed several days of savage attacks on Shi'ite citizens, leaving dozens dead. The destruction of one of the four holiest shrines in the Shi'ite religion seemed to pour kerosene on a smoldering fire.
Thousands of Shi'ite mourners thronged into the streets to demonstrate their outrage, and the militias, particularly Sadr's Mahdi Army, went on the rampage, torching or bombing up to 100 Sunni mosques, kidnapping and killing Sunni clerics, and murdering even innocents out shopping for bread for their families.
Shi'ite police and security forces did nothing to intervene in the destruction of Sunni neighborhoods.
"We didn't know how to behave," said one Sunni man, "Chaos was everywhere."
Even moderates used scorching language. A Shi'ite newspaper, Al Bayyna al Jadidah, angrily editorialized, "It's time to declare war against anyone who tries to conspire against us, who slaughters us every day. It is time to go to the streets and fight those outlaws."
And the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most revered and influential Shi'ite religious leader, who has spent three years urging restraint and patience on his followers in order to avoid just this sort of bloodshed, seemed to lose his patience, releasing a statement that read, in part, "If (the government's) security institutions are unable to provide necessary security, the faithful are able to do that by the will and blessings of God."
This seemed to give tacit approval to the militias.
But by the second day of savagery, Sistani, who never appears in public, actually allowed himself to be shown on television with other leading Shi'ite ayatollahs, urging peaceful demonstrations.
Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening.
--Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite and one of two vice-presidents of Iraq
"If I could find the people who did this, I would cut him into pieces…I would rather hear of the death of a friend than to hear this news."
--Abdel Jaleel al Sudani, 50-year old employee of the Iraqi Health Ministry, quoted in the New York Times, February 23, 2006
It wasn't just the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, as the Golden Mosque is called, located some 60 miles north of Baghdad. The bombing followed several days of savage attacks on Shi'ite citizens, leaving dozens dead. The destruction of one of the four holiest shrines in the Shi'ite religion seemed to pour kerosene on a smoldering fire.
Thousands of Shi'ite mourners thronged into the streets to demonstrate their outrage, and the militias, particularly Sadr's Mahdi Army, went on the rampage, torching or bombing up to 100 Sunni mosques, kidnapping and killing Sunni clerics, and murdering even innocents out shopping for bread for their families.
Shi'ite police and security forces did nothing to intervene in the destruction of Sunni neighborhoods.
"We didn't know how to behave," said one Sunni man, "Chaos was everywhere."
Even moderates used scorching language. A Shi'ite newspaper, Al Bayyna al Jadidah, angrily editorialized, "It's time to declare war against anyone who tries to conspire against us, who slaughters us every day. It is time to go to the streets and fight those outlaws."
And the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most revered and influential Shi'ite religious leader, who has spent three years urging restraint and patience on his followers in order to avoid just this sort of bloodshed, seemed to lose his patience, releasing a statement that read, in part, "If (the government's) security institutions are unable to provide necessary security, the faithful are able to do that by the will and blessings of God."
This seemed to give tacit approval to the militias.
But by the second day of savagery, Sistani, who never appears in public, actually allowed himself to be shown on television with other leading Shi'ite ayatollahs, urging peaceful demonstrations.
Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening.
posted by Deanie Mills at 9:07 PM
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