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Sectarian divisions after Falluja
Beyond the innumerable expressions of defiance at the loss to the insurgents of Falluja, some expressions of pessimism have crept into jihadist forums - always a useful barometer of mujahideen morale. The fall of the city is of great significance "since it was considered the citadel of the Sunnis who were counting on its persistence as a military force to support their political policy and guarantee them against marginalization", as one thoughtful contributor to the alsakifah.org forum put it. However, he went on to note what he felt was the more ominous development, "the beginning of the empowerment of the Shi'ites". The search for scapegoats has received a boost, and it is taking the form of exacerbated sectarian tension. The leader of the Salafi Movement in Iraq, Sheikh Mahdi As-Sumaidai, in a November 11 interview to the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, (http://www.alhayat.com), openly accused Shiite forces of "seeking and inciting the option of war against Falluja and other Sunni areas", and called upon the Shi'ite ulema (scholars) and hawza (Central authority) to issue a fatwa banning the participation of Shi'ite soldiers in the fighting. The fact that there were Shi'ite Iraqis at all in the ranks of the National Guard fighting in collaboration with the coalition forces has been a point of considerable tension. On 19 November, Mufakkirat al-Islam (http://www.islammemo.cc/news) reported with outrage the sight of the black flags of the Shi'ite Hawza in Falluja, and the presence of National Guard bearing "an image of what the Shiites call 'Imam Ali' and 'Imam al-Husayn' (the two major religious figures in Shi'ite Islam). Some of the pictures bear the inscription, "With the blessings of our Master Ali we are entering Falluja!" There followed reports of "massacres of unarmed civilians ⊠the mutilation of corpses" and the conclusion that the Shiite soldiers were "motivated by sectarian hatred fed by declarations and fatwas from the religious figures of the Shi'ite Hawza at Najaf". The reported 'silence' of the supreme Shiite authority, Ayatollah Ali as-Sistani, on events in Falluja have fed Sunni convictions of a conspiracy against the community, a sentiment shared by nationalist authors outside the country. On 22 November, Osama Saraya commented in the Cairo daily al-Ahram (http://www.ahram.org.eg): "The suspicious silence and double standards of the [Iraqi Shiite] religious marja'iyyahs ⊠have raised many doubts" which led him to deduce that "the US occupation is now trying to plant the seeds of sedition between the Arabs and the Iranians who have immigrated to Iraq under Shi'ite pretenses". Posted by: Steve 2004-12-01 |
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