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Religious Conflicts Loom in Iraq! Shi’a and Sunni’s on Pay Per View!
I’m happy Mo’ got his raisins. EFL.
Mohammed Salem Abu Bakr, devout Muslim and seller of religious books, reached inside a wooden cabinet and took out a large knife, a present from a friend in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. "Do you think it’s sharp enough to slaughter an American?" he asked, running his fingers along the blade. Killing Americans was an obsession of Abu Bakr, a Sunni Muslim who sold his wares from a rickety stand outside the mosque of the al-Imam al-Azam in the city’s al-Azamiyah district. The 35-year-old father of four was killed Aug. 29 - not by the Americans but in a gun battle with Shiite Muslims.
Beers at Jimmy’s Tap for those Shiites!
While much attention has focused on the zeal of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, Abu Bakr’s death highlights another side of the picture, and the potential for further violence and score-settling between Shiites and the Sunnis who were dominant as long as Saddam Hussein was in power. The clash that claimed his life was one of the first of its kind in the Iraqi capital since the collapse of Saddam’s regime in April. Abu Bakr, who spoke to The Associated Press many times between January and July, had a stricture on his brain strict interpretation of Islamic teachings. As an Arab and a Muslim, he was deeply offended to see non-Muslims running his country. "You know why we in Iraq are occupied?" Abu Bakr asked in June. "It’s because Saddam became an intolerable threat and was a murderous thug we abandoned our religion. Our dignity and glory are in jihad (holy struggle) and our weakness is in loving life and dreading death. Why should I linger in this world when I can seek martyrdom and meet my maker."
Maybe because He put you in this world to do something other than make faces and brag about killing people?
His appearance bore the hallmarks of a devout Muslim - beard, baggy trousers and a dark mark on his forehead which Muslims call a "zibiba" or raisin. It comes from the forehead scraping the carpet during prayer.
I think the 1st Armor guys have a different name for his mark, particularly when a red dot dances on it.
Neighbors said Abu Bakr was a Wahhabi - a follower of an austere and stark raving nuts brand of Sunni Islam practiced mostly in Saudi Arabia. When the Americans overran Baghdad in April, his militancy grew, they said. He spent the final weeks of his life writing a book about his experiences in a government militia along with fighters from Syria, Libya and Morocco who formed a line of defense against approaching U.S. troops.
Guess the little woman will be cashing the royalty checks.
After Baghdad fell, friends say, his militancy became directed not only against Americans but against Shiites, many of whom felt that Saddam was ousted. "Lately he was very abusive to Shiites in the area," said Jawad Kazim, 25, a neighbor. "He was fine until Saddam’s fall and then he changed completely and began to say that Shiites are ’kafara,’" — infidels.
"He was a quiet man."
Word spread among neighborhood Shiites that Abu Bakr had defaced a poster of a Shiite cleric. A mob, including his old schoolmates with whom he played soccer as a youth, attacked his house in the hours after the Najaf bomb. Neighbors said Abu Bakr had gloated over al-Hakim’s death. After an intense 2 1/2-hour battle, Abu Bakr was dead, probably from a grenade. He was found on the roof of his house clutching a Kalashnikov when U.S. troops stopped the battle.
Couldn’t have happened to a ... except for Uday and Qusay, of course.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-09-30
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=19252