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Media Repression in a 'Liberated' Land •
Anti-election Cleric Killed in Iraq •
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'Baghdad is Now a Battlefield, and We are in the Middle'
By Hamza Hendawi
The Chicago Sun-Times
Monday 22 November 2004
Baghdad - The Iraqi capital, on edge for months because of unrelenting violence, has shed its business-as-usual veneer and become a city at war.
Last week's U.S.-Iraqi raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque - one of the most revered shrines for Sunni Muslims - sparked street battles, assassinations and a rash of bombings.
The chaos has fanned sectarian tension and deepened Sunni distrust of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite installed by the Americans five months ago. It has also heightened the anxiety of the city's 6 million people - already worn down by years of sanctions and tyranny, then war, military occupation, crime and deprivation.
"Baghdad is now a battlefield, and we are in the middle of it," said Qasim al-Sabti, an artist who kept his children home from school Saturday, which is a work day in Iraq. When he sent his children back to school Sunday, the teachers didn't show up.
In a sign of public unease, merchants in the outdoor markets, where most people buy their meat, vegetables and household supplies, say crowds are below normal. Many shops near sites of car bombings have closed.
Adding to the sense of unease, U.S. military helicopters have begun flying lower over the city. The distant roar of jets has become a fixture of Baghdad at night.
The latest escalation appeared to have been triggered by a U.S.-Iraqi raid Friday on the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah as worshippers departed after midday prayers. Witnesses said three people were killed and 40 arrested.
The next day, heavy street fighting erupted in Azamiyah between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Sunni insurgents who tried to storm a police station. The fighting raged for several hours and left several stores ablaze, according to witnesses.
Almost simultaneously, clashes broke out in at least five other Baghdad neighborhoods. In all, at least 10 people, including one American soldier, were killed throughout the capital Saturday.
Lt. Col. James Hutton, spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, which is in charge of security in Baghdad, acknowledged an increase in insurgent activity there.
But he linked the increase to the fighting in Fallujah, where U.S. troops are still fighting pockets of resistance, rather than the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque.
The Iraqi government has said the raid was carried out because of suspicions of "terrorist activity" there. It appears the operation was part of a crackdown on militant Sunni clerics, many of whom are believed to have links to insurgent groups and who had spoken out against the Fallujah operation.
Tensions are likely to sharpen as the Jan. 30 election nears. Balloting is expected to confirm the domination of Iraq's Shiite community, estimated at 60 percent of the nearly 26 million population.
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Media Repression in a 'Liberated' Land
By Dahr Jamail
Voices in the Wilderness
Monday 22 November 2004
Journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah.
The "100 Orders" penned by former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer include Order 65 passed March 20 to establish an Iraqi communications and media commission. This commission has powers to control the media because it has complete control over licensing and regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, information services and all other media establishments.
On June 28 when the United States handed over power to a 'sovereign' Iraqi interim government, Bremer simply passed on the authority to Ayad Allawi, the U.S.-installed interim prime minister who has had longstanding ties with the British intelligence service MI6 and the CIA.
A glaring instance is the curbs placed on the Qatar-based TV channel al-Jazeera.
Within days of the 'handover' of power to an interim Iraqi government last summer, the Baghdad office of al-Jazeera was raided and closed by security forces from the interim government. The network was accused of inaccurate reporting and banned initially for one month from reporting out of Iraq.
The ban was then extended "indefinitely." On Tuesday this week the interim government announced that any al-Jazeera journalist found reporting in Iraq would be detained.
The al-Jazeera office in Baghdad had been bombed by a U.S. warplane during the invasion of March last year. The TV channel had given their exact coordinates to the Pentagon to avoid such an occurrence. One of their journalists was killed in the bombing.
Al-Jazeera now broadcasts a daily apology "because we cannot cover Iraq news well since our offices have been closed for over three months by orders from the interim government."
Other instances of political repression abound. The media commission sent out an order recently asking news organizations to "stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action." The warning was sent on the letterhead of Allawi.
The letter also asked media to "set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear."
Last week a journalist for the al-Arabiya network was detained by U.S. forces outside Fallujah when he attempted to enter the besieged city.
Citing another al-Arabiya correspondent as its source, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the Arabic satellite station had lost contact with Abdel Kader Saadi, a reporter and photographer living and working in the Sunni Muslim city, on Nov. 11.
French freelance photographer Corentin Fleury was detained by the U.S. military with his interpreter, 28 year-old Bahktiyar Abdulla Hadad when they were leaving Fallujah just before the siege of the city began.
They had worked in the city for nine days leading up to the siege, and were held for five days in a military detention facility outside the city.
"They were very nervous and they asked us what we saw, and looked over all my photos, asking me questions about them," Fleury told IPS. "They asked where the weapons were, what the neighborhoods were like, all of this."
Fleury said he had photographed homes destroyed by U.S. warplanes, and life in the city leading up to the siege.
"They wanted information from me regarding the situation in Fallujah, but they have yet to release my translator," he said. "I made a silly photo of him holding a sniper rifle, and I think this is why they are holding him. I've been trying to get information for the last five days on him, and the French embassy has been trying to get him out, different journalists he's worked with are sending letters, but there has been no luck so far."
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Anti-election Cleric Killed in Iraq; Jan. 30 Vote is Set
By Mariam Fam
The Associated Press
Monday 22 November 2004
Baghdad - Gunmen on Monday assassinated a member of an influential Sunni clerics' group that has called for a boycott of national elections, just a day after Iraqi officials announced the balloting would be held Jan. 30 in spite of rising violence in Iraq.
Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, was shot by gunmen at his home in northern Mosul - a sign of the continuing violence that wracks the country.
Iraq's first elections since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship are scheduled for Jan. 30, and Iraqi authorities said ballots will be cast even in volatile areas - including Fallujah, Mosul and other parts of the Sunni Triangle
The vote for the 275-member National Assembly is seen as a major step toward building democracy after years of Saddam's tyranny.
The ongoing violence, which escalated this month with the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah, has raised fears voting will be nearly impossible in insurgency-torn regions - or that Sunni Arabs angry at the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown will reject the election. If either takes place, it could undermine the vote's legitimacy.
Elsewhere Monday, a U.S. patrol that came under attack returned fire, killing two attackers, according to eyewitnesses. The insurgents launched the attack in Hawija, about 150 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. military had no immediate confirmation.
The former police chief of the northern city of Mosul was arrested after allegations that his force allowed insurgents to take over police stations during this month's uprising, Deputy Gov. Khasro Gouran said Monday.
Brig. Gen. Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi was arrested Sunday by Kurdish militia in northern Irbil, where he fled after he was fired in the wake of the uprising
Several loud explosions rocked central Baghdad on Monday, sending a giant cloud of black smoke over the capital. The blasts seemed to hit the eastern side of the Tigris River, where several deadly car bombs were detonated last week.
Meanwhile, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric condemned the U.S.-Iraqi raid on a Sunni mosque in Baghdad on Friday, an official from his office said Monday.
The official, who identified himself only as Sheik Besheer, said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque through his spokesman in an interview with Al-Manar television, the station of the Iranian-backed militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.
"The raid on Abu Hanifa mosque is unacceptable, and we denounce and condemn this action," spokesman Hamed al-Khafaf told Al-Manar. "Abu Hanifa mosque is a sacred place and a scientific university and they have to deal with it on this basis like other sacred places."
On Friday, Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops raided the mosque - one of the country's most important Sunni mosques - killing three and wounding five others. About 40 people were detained.
The Iraqi government has warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as "participating in terrorism." Some already have been arrested, including members of the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars.
Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, insisted that "no Iraqi province will be excluded because the law considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore it is not legal to exclude any province."
To bolster Iraq's democracy, 19 creditor nations - including the United States, Japan, Russia and many in Europe - agreed Sunday to write off 80% of the $38.9 billion that Iraq owes them.
U.S. and Iraqi troops have been clearing the last of the resistance from Fallujah, the main rebel bastion stormed Nov. 8 in hopes of breaking the back of the insurgency before the election.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said he believed the battle did "serious damage" to the insurgency.
In Fallujah, Marine Maj. Jim West said Sunday that U.S. troops have found nearly 20 "atrocity sites" where insurgents imprisoned, tortured and murdered hostages. West said troops found rooms containing knives and black hoods, "many of them blood-covered."
Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent Sunday who opened fire after pretending to be dead. The U.S. military is investigating a Nov. 13 incident in which an NBC videotape showed a Marine shooting a wounded man lying in a Fallujah mosque. Marines could be heard yelling that the man was pretending to be dead.
The storming of Fallujah has heightened tensions throughout Sunni Arab areas, triggering clashes in Mosul, Beiji, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere.
In Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, insurgents ambushed an Iraqi National Guard patrol, killing eight guardsmen and injuring 18 others, police said.
The clerical leadership of the country's Shiite community, believed to comprise about 60% of Iraq's nearly 26 million people, has been clamoring for an election since the April 2003 collapse of the Saddam regime, and voting is expected to go smoothly in northern areas ruled by the Kurds, the most pro-American group.
However, Sunni Arabs, estimated at about 20% of the population, fear domination by the Shiites. Sunni clerics have called for a boycott of the vote because of the Fallujah attack.
During the January election, Iraqis will choose a National Assembly to draft a new constitution. If it's ratified, another election will be held in December 2005.
Voters in January also will select 18 provincial councils and in Kurdish-ruled areas a regional assembly.
A stable, legitimate government could enable the United States to begin drawing down its 138,000-strong military presence and gradually hand over security responsibility to Iraqis.
"Having elections in Iraq are very important, and having them on time is also so important for the Iraqi people to have more security in Iraq," said Salama al-Khafaji, a Shiite member of the interim Iraqi National Council, a government advisory body.
Ayar, the election commission spokesman, said 122 political parties were registered for the elections. The commission has asked the United Nations to send international monitors; 35 experts already have arrived.
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