06 July 2006

Uncle Sam's Mosque-Bombers Hit Sadrist Stronghold in Kufa

As part of their ongoing escalation of violence against the Sadrist movement, at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, Uncle Sam's Mosque-Bomber Death Squads attacked the Mosque in Kufa where Shiite cleric and political leader of the Sadrist movement, Moqtada al-Sadr, often delivers his Friday sermons. Middle East Online reports:
Eleven people were killed and 50 others wounded when a bomb in a minibus exploded Thursday near a Shiite shrine in the southern Iraqi holy town of Kufa, medical officials said....

Witnesses said a yellow minibus exploded next to two tour buses filled with Iranian pilgrims that had pulled into the parking lot of the Maytham al-Tammar shrine...

Medical sources, in an updated toll, said that 11 people were killed and 50 wounded, as another of the casualties died of his wounds....

Together with the nearby holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the shrines of Kufa represent some of the world's holiest sites for Shiites.
This attack against the Sadrist shrine promises to inflame tensions which were already high after the Mosque-Bombers 1 July attack on a Sadr City mosque. Stratfor reports:
A July 1 car bomb at a market and Shiite militia stronghold in the Sadr City area of Baghdad now looks to have killed some 74 people and injured nearly 200.
This attack set off a tit-for-tat spate of kidnappings and attempted killings between those loyal to Uncle Sam's occupation and the Resistance opposing it.
Tayseer al-Mashhadani of the Iraqi Islamic Party -- was kidnapped, along with seven of her bodyguards, from a Shiite-majority district in Baghdad. In what appeared to be retaliatory strike, an abduction involving a Shiite politician, Leqa al-Yaseen of the United Iraqi Front, failed the following day. Eight bodyguards for al-Yaseen (who is believed to be a relative of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr) were taken hostage in the incident, which occurred in an area on the southern outskirts of Baghdad that is known for Sunni insurgent activity. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Iyad Jamal al-Deen survived an assassination attempt in the capital...
For different reasons, each of these kidnappings helps us to understanding ever-changing political dynamics in Iraq.

Al-Mashhadani was a collaborator. Her Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party got its start in Iraq after the occupation began with its full support. When Uncle Sam talks about reaching agreement with Sunnis, this is usually the group about whom it's referring - those who came to political 'power' Sam's Tanks and Hummers. And because she is a Sunni, her abduction by the Resistance (the Sadrists have denied responsibility) offers a response to the Mosque attack which nobody - least of all the Sadrists - can call sectarian.

In response to the kidnapping of al-Mashhadani, Iraq's Vice President, Agencies rerported that:
Demanding her release, Sunni Arab MPs of the National Concord Front boycotted the parliament, a move seen as harming the country’s fledgling political process.

"We have decided to suspend our participation in the parliamentary sessions until Taiseer al-Mashhadani is released," Adnan al-Dulaimi, the front’s head, told reporters." boycott of the parliament.
Dulami is another collaborator - a man who has gotten paid by Uncle Sam starting long before the occupation began.

In what Stratfor said "appeared to be retaliatory strike" in response to the al-Mashhadani kidnapping, Reuters reports that in an effort to exacerbate sectarian fighting Uncle Sam's Death Squads attacked the convoy of Leqa Al Yaseen, "a doctor and member of the Shia Islamist Alliance bloc who is a senior official in the Health Ministry, controlled by the movement of Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr." The report continues:
An aide who speaks for Sadr’s movement in Baghdad, Abdul Hadi Al Daraaji, said Yaseen had survived the attack and was safe but an unknown number bodyguards had been abducted. He described her as a hospital director in Najaf, south of Baghdad.
In response to this attack, another collaborator was targetted. Iyad Jamal al-Din, a cleric who AP somehow calls, "a cleric from the secular Allawi List... escaped an assassination attempt Sunday when a roadside bomb missed his convoy in downtown Baghdad." Casting aside the oddity of AP calling a cleric/politician "secular," this attack is relevant because of the Sadrist enmity towards Allwai. Like the Resistance strike against the occupation, one simply cannot construe this attack on Allawi's party as "sectarian."

And yesterday Uncle Sam's main international propaganda outfit, the Voice of America, reported that:
Iraqi officials say gunmen have kidnapped the country's deputy minister of electricity and 19 of his bodyguards in Baghdad.

They say the gunmen wore camouflage uniforms and intercepted a convoy in which Raad al-Harith and his bodyguards were traveling.

The brazen attack and capture of al-Harith, who Reuters reports, "was not linked to any of Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni or Kurdish parties" and nineteen of his bodyguards not only again demonstrates the power and sophistication of the Resistance, but proves, yet again, its non-sectarian aims.

It is into this context - in the context of Uncle Sam's Mosque-Bombers and Death Squads assaulting Sadrist ministers and religious sites - that we must understand today's attack on the Kufa Mosque. Contrary to Uncle Sam's propaganda, each of the attacks demonstrate how the Resistance has taken the policical initiative by responding to Uncle Sam's efforts to foment a Civil War by making their most brazen attacks explicitly non-sectarian.