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Resistance from Sunni Arabs over the last year has been fierce and
the US 1st infantry division are bogged down in a bloody guerrilla war which
is destroying the city. A seven mile long, five foot tall earthen wall built
around Samarra by soldiers has failed to pacify the insurgency, despite three
military check-points positioned along the dirt wall, where residents must show
identification and submit to searches. Distrust runs deep and Major Curtis Strange
said, “It's apocalyptic out there.”
Following the destruction of the al-Askari shrine, Shia militia are now assisting
the US and Iraqi troops with reprisal attacks on the Sunni’s. No group
claimed responsibility for bombing the Golden Mosque, but four men, three disguised
in black and one in military uniform, entered the building and detonated explosives
which destroyed the dome. The Western media immediately implicated extremist
groups linked to ‘al Qaeda’ but Sunni’s claim it was the work
of “a foreign hand aiming to create differences among Iraqis.”
It worked, and Iraq is on the brink of a civil war, with an escalation in sectarian
violence which could lead to the break-up of the country and export greater
instability across the wider Middle East. This all coincided with a surprise
visit to Baghdad by UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, who was urging politicians
to speed up the formation of a new coalition government. This tenuous democractic
process is even more fragile now, as Sunni’s have withdrawn from negotiations
in protest over the revenge killings.
American soldiers have been seizing telephones with build-in cameras from Samarra
citizens to prevent news from being distributed on the internet and four journalists,
including Atwar Bahjat of al-Arbiya, were kidnapped and shot by gunmen on their
way to the city to report on the situation. The holy places are sacred to Muslims
from all different sects and the idea that they would blow up a shrine containing
tombs of revered imams, believed to be the successors of the Prophet Muhammad,
is inconceivable.
This act of desperation and desecration serves the interest of the warmongers
who wish to ignite conflict and expand the ‘war on terror’ further
a field, specifically into Iran and Syria, but Tony Blair said we must not listen
to “conspiracy theories” only stand up for liberty everywhere. He
said: “The struggle in Iraq today is the same struggle the world over
- it's democracy versus extremism and terrorism.” These timely events
also coincide with another tour of the Middle East by Condoleezza Rice, to promote
PNAC policy.
