Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
June 20, 2008
Pg. 8
By Alissa J. Rubin and Suadad Salhy
BAGHDAD — Despite reports of arrests and rough handling by the Iraqi security forces as they swept through the southern city of Amara on Thursday, supporters of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr stood by their promise to lay down their weapons peacefully.
Iraqi troops entered Amara, near the border with Iran, as part of a campaign against militias, seeking in this case also to reclaim government buildings taken over by political parties. The sweep officially began Thursday, although the military and the police have been massing for the operation for nearly a week.
Mr. Sadr’s restrained response seemed in sharp contrast to similar operations where he is influential, in the southern port city of Basra and in Sadr City, the Shiite enclave in Baghdad. In both those areas, a truce came only after days of fighting.
In Amara, Mr. Sadr seemed to have carefully changed his policy, both to preserve his followers’ lives and to ensure that if anyone’s behavior was rough, it would be that of the Iraqi government forces. “We do not want to give the government and its followers the chance to assassinate Sadrists in Amara,” said Sheik Adnan al-Selawi, a senior cleric whom Mr. Sadr sent to Amara to help organize the Sadr followers to ensure that they responded peacefully.
There were reports of rough treatment and especially of arrests of eminent followers of Mr. Sadr. It was unclear whether the units making the arrests had warrants, as required under Iraqi law. If so, Mr. Sadr’s followers said they would not protest the detentions.
However, Mr. Sadr’s supporters protested at least two cases in which Iraqi troops seized family members of wanted figures when they could not find the person they were seeking. Iraqi military leaders responded that they had arrested only one relative of a wanted man. The American military has used similar tactics, drawing criticism from Iraqis in and out of the government.
“We detained 17 wanted men, and in the case of one of these men, he is a leader of the Al Mahdi Army and the head of the economic committee in the Sadr office and he is very dangerous,” said Brig. Jaber al-Mohammedawi, an assistant of Maj. Gen. Tareq al-Azzawi, who leads the Iraqi Army’s operation room in Amara. “So we detained his father instead of him.”
Brigadier Mohammedawi said that the army had found many caches of weapons and ammunition, including ones that contained improvised explosive devices made in Iran.
The overarching worry of Mr. Sadr’s supporters is that the government is using this operation to reduce the number of influential figures in the movement, thereby reducing its ability to compete in local elections scheduled for the fall.
“The Sadrist movement is a victim of the political conflicts in the Parliament and the government,” said Abdul Latif Jawad, a member of the Amara provincial council. “They think the Sadr movement stands in the way of their ambitions. The aim of this operation is to terminate the Sadr movement and to prevent its members from participation in the next election.”
There was scattered violence elsewhere in Iraq. In Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, sectarian tensions appeared on the rise in some areas. In one district, Sunni extremists distributed leaflets warning Shiite families not to return to houses they had abandoned during sectarian fighting in the last few years. But in other parts of the province, villagers were managing to return to their homes.
Near Buhruz, in southern Diyala, there are now daily attacks against groups who are confronting extremists and are paid by the American military, several local sheiks said.
“We ask the government for a real security plan because our village is besieged from every side,” said Sheik Alwan Jameel Khader in a village a few miles south of Buhruz. “The situation here is catastrophic. There is a severe shortage of food and drinking water, we lost everything and Al Qaeda is creeping toward us.”
Tareq Maher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and employees of The New York Times from Diyala Province and Amara.
June 20, 2008
Pg. 8
By Alissa J. Rubin and Suadad Salhy
BAGHDAD — Despite reports of arrests and rough handling by the Iraqi security forces as they swept through the southern city of Amara on Thursday, supporters of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr stood by their promise to lay down their weapons peacefully.
Iraqi troops entered Amara, near the border with Iran, as part of a campaign against militias, seeking in this case also to reclaim government buildings taken over by political parties. The sweep officially began Thursday, although the military and the police have been massing for the operation for nearly a week.
Mr. Sadr’s restrained response seemed in sharp contrast to similar operations where he is influential, in the southern port city of Basra and in Sadr City, the Shiite enclave in Baghdad. In both those areas, a truce came only after days of fighting.
In Amara, Mr. Sadr seemed to have carefully changed his policy, both to preserve his followers’ lives and to ensure that if anyone’s behavior was rough, it would be that of the Iraqi government forces. “We do not want to give the government and its followers the chance to assassinate Sadrists in Amara,” said Sheik Adnan al-Selawi, a senior cleric whom Mr. Sadr sent to Amara to help organize the Sadr followers to ensure that they responded peacefully.
There were reports of rough treatment and especially of arrests of eminent followers of Mr. Sadr. It was unclear whether the units making the arrests had warrants, as required under Iraqi law. If so, Mr. Sadr’s followers said they would not protest the detentions.
However, Mr. Sadr’s supporters protested at least two cases in which Iraqi troops seized family members of wanted figures when they could not find the person they were seeking. Iraqi military leaders responded that they had arrested only one relative of a wanted man. The American military has used similar tactics, drawing criticism from Iraqis in and out of the government.
“We detained 17 wanted men, and in the case of one of these men, he is a leader of the Al Mahdi Army and the head of the economic committee in the Sadr office and he is very dangerous,” said Brig. Jaber al-Mohammedawi, an assistant of Maj. Gen. Tareq al-Azzawi, who leads the Iraqi Army’s operation room in Amara. “So we detained his father instead of him.”
Brigadier Mohammedawi said that the army had found many caches of weapons and ammunition, including ones that contained improvised explosive devices made in Iran.
The overarching worry of Mr. Sadr’s supporters is that the government is using this operation to reduce the number of influential figures in the movement, thereby reducing its ability to compete in local elections scheduled for the fall.
“The Sadrist movement is a victim of the political conflicts in the Parliament and the government,” said Abdul Latif Jawad, a member of the Amara provincial council. “They think the Sadr movement stands in the way of their ambitions. The aim of this operation is to terminate the Sadr movement and to prevent its members from participation in the next election.”
There was scattered violence elsewhere in Iraq. In Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, sectarian tensions appeared on the rise in some areas. In one district, Sunni extremists distributed leaflets warning Shiite families not to return to houses they had abandoned during sectarian fighting in the last few years. But in other parts of the province, villagers were managing to return to their homes.
Near Buhruz, in southern Diyala, there are now daily attacks against groups who are confronting extremists and are paid by the American military, several local sheiks said.
“We ask the government for a real security plan because our village is besieged from every side,” said Sheik Alwan Jameel Khader in a village a few miles south of Buhruz. “The situation here is catastrophic. There is a severe shortage of food and drinking water, we lost everything and Al Qaeda is creeping toward us.”
Tareq Maher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and employees of The New York Times from Diyala Province and Amara.