Iraqis blame U.S. for death toll in bombings

by Gerry Foley

The past few weeks in Iraq have been dominated by a series spectacular guerrilla attacks, directly primarily against the U.S. forces’local allies and the Iraqi security forces being built under the aegis of the occupation. These actions aroused speculation about the conceptions and organizations of the resistance. But overall, these questions cannot obscure the clear evidence that opposition to the occupation is continuing to spread and deepen.

February began with the suicide bombing of a celebration of the main Muslim festival of the year organized by the largest Kurdish nationalist organizations. Well over a hundred people, including some important officials, were killed.

For the resistance to the occupation, the effect of this attack was negative. It hardly discouraged the Kurds from collaborating with the U.S., but rather widened the gap between Arabs and Kurds. The attack had the signs of an Islamist operation. And although there are Kurdish Islamists, those who have been carrying out suicide bombings in Iraq are generally identified with Arabs hostile to the West and to Kurdish nationalism.

The most devastating suicide attacks, on March 1, were aimed at crowds of Shiites in Baghdad and Kerbala celebrating their most holy day. Reportedly, at least 150 people were killed.

In the Iraqi capital, according to The New York Times, furious crowds of Shiites reacted to the carnage with slogans against the United States and Israel, indicating, the underlying mood of resistance to the U.S. occupation among the masses of Shiites as well as Sunnis. Nonetheless, it is obvious that these atrocities are a grave danger for the resistance, in that they can exacerbate the rift between the two major Muslim sects.

The latest wave of suicide attacks and other daring guerrilla actions fueled speculation about the involvement of Islamists from other Arab countries. In the boldest assault, the attack on the Falluja police station in the middle of February, occupation authorities initially claimed that two of the four guerrillas who were killed carried Lebanese identification papers. But they later declared it was the local resistance that had carried out the action.

In its Feb. 17 edition, the Beirut daily L’Orient Le Jour reported a statement attributed to a resistance organization in Falluja that condemned the action. "We, the Mujahadin of Falluja, declare that we had nothing to do with the cowardly operation carried out by airheads without faith or law who want to besmirch our reputation." The alleged guerrillas claimed that it was foreign fighters that had carried out the attack.

The statement went on to say, "We assure our brothers in the police force that this action had nothing to do with the Jihad for God but rather with the Jidad for the Devil. The true jihad is attacking the Americans without causing damage in the cities, because shedding Muslim blood is graver in the eyes of God than destroying the Kaaba [the Muslim holy of holies in Mecca."

The Lebanese newspaper claimed that the statement had been distributed as a leaflet in Falluja. Curiously, none of the Western press seems to have picked up this report. The Falluja incident thus raises some tricky political questions. It is strange, moreover, that guerrillas would carry identification papers with them on a raid.

The assault in this center of resistance to the U.S. occupation was not a suicide operation but a well-coordinated military attack. The fighters reportedly numbered about 40 men and they managed to kill 23 policemen, according to the U.S. authorities. They freed about 60 prisoners being held in the station.

In its Feb.17 issue, Le Monde noted that this was the largest scale operation that Iraqi guerrillas have launched so far. "The police had no chance. ‘There were more of them than of us,’ Ibrahim, a policeman recounted. His friend Hamid, hospitalized for a leg wound, added, ’They had rocket launchers, grenades, and assault rifles. We had Kalashnikovs, pistols, and very little ammunition. The Americans only allow us 14 bullets a day per Kalashnikov. It is scandalous, and the American army did not come to help us. At least they could have given us more ammunition.’"

Although the occupation authorities declare that they are turning over "security" in the country to the Iraqi police, they are keeping them on a short leash, obviously because they suspect they cannot trust them. It seems that many if not most of the Iraqis who join the police force are attracted by the chance of getting a job, when unemployment is massive, rather than by any belief in the promises of the occupation authorities.

Le Monde indicated that the reason the U.S. army did not intervene in the Falluja attack was that its commanders feared touching off a popular insurrection. More and more, the U.S. army has been trying to avoid showing its face in the stronger resistance centers.

The Paris paper also indicated that the attack was of broader scope than that reported in the U.S. press, that the guerrillas had actually taken over the center of the city for a brief time.

On the ABC-TV news commentary, "The Week with George Stephanopolous," on Sunday morning, Feb. 29, the Mideast expert of the talk show, Fareed Zakharia, claimed that the Bush regime is trying to retreat from its previous plans for Iraq, seeking to build up an Iraqi security force in a year instead of a five years, proclaiming that it is withdrawing some troops from the country, and backing off its schemes for immediately privatizing (that is, plundering) all the state corporations.

Zakharia’s statements are another indication that despite its public stonewalling, the Bush administration is more and more feeling the heat for its predatory operations in Iraq, as well as the lies it used to justify the invasion and occupation of the country.

U.S. military authorities in Iraq claim that now the bulk of guerrilla attacks are against Iraqis collaborating in one way or another with the occupation. They claim that this is both to obstruct their plans to transform Iraq into a "democracy" and because the U.S. forces have become too difficult a target. But attacks on U.S. forces are continuing and U.S. soldiers are still dying. The military sources claim that these attacks have diminished, but there are conflicting reports about that.

Certainly, it is in the interests of the U.S. rulers to try to portray what is going on in Iraq as a civil war rather than resistance to a foreign occupation. Thus, in February, the occupaton authorities claimed to have captured a letter showing that al Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq is to provoke a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

The armed resistance has been centered in the Sunni areas. The Shiites were persecuted under the Saddam regime, and so they generally accepted the U.S. occupation initially. But even the most moderate of their leaders, such as Ali al-Sistani, are restive, demanding an end of U.S. occupation sooner rather than later. Al-Sistani is now demanding direct elections by the end of the year.

Furthermore, Shiite clerics maintain their own militias, which the U.S. occupation forces have been obliged to tolerate, and they want to impose Islamic law on the country. They walked out of the body drafting a new constitution at the end of February because of the opposition from the U.S. occupation authorities to provisions going in the direction of an Islamic state, which would inevitably by under the shadow of Iran, the Shiite power.

Approval of the draft constitution had been blocked reportedly by differences both over Islamic law and Kurdish autonomy. These issues are key to the only (uneasy) alliances the U.S. occupation has been able to achieve, with the elder Shiite clergy and the conservative Kurdish nationalists.

On Feb. 29, the big international press announced that a compromise had been reached on the constitution. It reportedly involved agreement to incorporate the Kurdish armed forces into the National Guard rather than the army and accepting Islam as a source of law but not the only source.

Al Jazeera’s web page, however, reported a Shiite spokesman as saying that the compromise meant that no law could be passed that was in contradiction to Islam. If that is accepted, it means that the Shiite clergy will have the right of veto at least over legislation. Also, the actual status of the Kurdish area has been relegated to a later version of the constitution. Thus, it seems pretty clear that the basic differences have only been papered over.

In particular, in the recent period Kurdish demands for self-rule have been becoming more insistent. In its Feb. 26 issue, the Italian left daily Il Manifesto reported that 1,700,000 Kurds have signed a petition demanding a referendum on self-determination. It quoted Mahmud Othman, a Kurdish representative appointed to the Governing Council by the occupation authorities, as saying, "After all that has happened to the Kurdish people, murders, genocide, I cannot go to my people and tell them to accept what the Americans want to impose on the Kurds."

Thus, the political situation of the occupation authorities is becoming more and more precarious at the same time that the governments of the main occupying powers are facing mounting criticisms of their policies toward Iraq at home. In fact, Bush’s besieged ally, Tony Blair, the British prime minister, is now assailed by yet another major scandal, involving British spying on UN leaders and diplomats of countries opposed to the Iraq war.

Regardless of the political weaknesses of the Iraq resistance forces, there is no doubt about the groundswell of opposition to the occupation. For example, the Feb. 28 New York Times carried a feature article on rising tensions in Youssefiah, a town 15 miles south of Baghdad, where U.S. forces and resisters have been engaged in sporadic fighting. It quoted a local resident:

"Abu Yousef said some villagers sympathize with the fighters, and while they might not provide them with help, they don't report them to the Americans either. ‘If this continues much longer, many people will be active fighters. The Americans are not welcome here.’"

Resistance songs have become popular in Baghdad, and almost certainly other Iraqi cities, Le Monde reported in its Feb. 7 issue. The occupation forces are trying to ban them, but they can hardly suppress such a phenomenon of mass culture and will undoubtedly only spread the flames.

Le Monde’s reporter interviewed a bookseller: "Let’s call him Mohammed. ‘A couple of weeks ago, the GIS came. They broke my store window. They turned everything in the store upside down. They arrested my brother. We haven’t heard from him since.’

"He made the mistake of talking to journalists and mentioned the songs against the American occupation that are the favorites of the Iraqis. In Baghdad, some passages are even played in the streets, to the delight of passersby. ‘America came to occupy Baghdad, but the army and the people have guns and ammunition, in the name of God, let’s fight.’ Or ‘We will drag Bush’s corpse in the dust.’

"Obviously, these calls to jihad by the most famous of the rebel singers, Sabah al-Jenabi are not to the taste of the Americans. Coalition spokesman Dan Senor has announced, ‘any systematic public expression that incites violence against the Coalition is banned.’

"Two weeks ago, the GIs descended on the Sabah Recordings store and destroyed everything they could. … Since then Sabah al-Jenadi has been on the run. Another singer, Abdel Rahman al-Refai, a taxi driver by profession, has disappeared.

"Besides songs against the occupiers, CDs have been burnt that reproduce the sounds of raids and the violence committed by the GIs and broadcast over the Arab channels, Al Arabia and Al Jazeera. Everything is mixed with resistance tunes. This has been a smashing success and become a particularly lucrative business. For the moment only six cassettes have been distributed. The CDS are being sold surreptitiously on the sidewalks. A third singer, Sayed al-Hassouni, from Mosul, has joined the rebels. The three bards have become national stars."

This article also reported that resistance activists were distributing leaflets explaining their plans for Iraq after the occupiers left.

Thus, there is some indication that groups in the resistance are trying to offer political alternatives. There is apparently some sort of political debate going on within the resistance, although the terms of it are not yet visible from outside the country.