Foes of U.S. in Iraq Criticize Insurgents
Clerics and Militiamen Decry Violence
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 26, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, June 25 -- Key Iraqi opponents of the U.S.
occupation expressed unease Friday over the wave of
insurgent attacks that killed more than 100 Iraqis a
day earlier, and rejected efforts by foreign
guerrillas to take the lead in the insurgency and mate
it with the international jihad advocated by Osama bin
Laden.
The objections -- from anti-U.S. Shiite and Sunni
Muslim leaders, including rebellious cleric Moqtada
Sadr, and even from militia fighters in the embattled
city of Fallujah -- arose in part from revulsion at
the fact that victims of the car bombings and
guerrilla assaults in six cities and towns Thursday
were overwhelmingly Iraqis. But they also betrayed
Iraqi nationalist concerns that the fight against U.S.
occupation forces risked being hijacked by Abu Musab
Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom U.S. officials describe as a
paladin in bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
"We do not need anyone from outside the borders to
stand with us and spill the blood of our sons in
Iraq," Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae, a Sunni cleric
with a wide following, declared in his Friday sermon
at Umm al Qurra mosque in Baghdad.
Since they were appointed three weeks ago, Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi and members of his U.S.-sponsored
interim government have railed against the car
bombings and other attacks. But Friday's show of
disgust -- expressed in mosques and, in Sadr's case,
with fliers calling for cooperation with Iraqi police
-- marked the first time anti-occupation clerics and
fighters sided against violence associated with the
insurgency, for which Zarqawi has increasingly
asserted responsibility.
In that light, it could be an important moment in the
U.S. struggle to win acceptance for the military
occupation and for the interim government scheduled to
acquire limited authority next Wednesday. While far
from embracing the U.S. occupation or the new
government, the anti-occupation leaders seemed to
disavow the bloodiest edge of the violence and
Zarqawi's attempt to make it part of al Qaeda's vision
of international jihad.
"Which religion allows anyone to kill more than 100
Iraqis, destroy 100 families and destroy 100 houses?"
raged Samarrae in his sermon. "Who says so? Who are
those people who do this? Where did they come from? .
. . It is a conspiracy to defame the reputation of the
Iraqi resistance by wearing its dress and using its
name falsely. These people hurt the Iraqis and Iraq,
giving the occupier an excuse to stay longer."
Samarrae said he had learned that some Iraqi insurgent
leaders have begun to clash with Zarqawi loyalists,
insisting the jihadists do not represent the "right
and true resistance." He warned against those who he
said want to tear the country apart in the name of
Islam and suggested they were foreigners who should
not be part of Iraq's conflict.
In a similar vein, a group of masked fighters in
Fallujah stood before Reuters television cameras and
read a statement insisting that the city's violent
struggle against surrounding U.S. Marines is being
carried out by Fallujans, not Zarqawi or other foreign
fighters.
"The American invader forces claim that Zarqawi, and
with him a group of Arab fighters, are in our city,"
said one of the heavily armed men, reading from a
paper. "We know that this talk about Zarqawi and the
fighters is a game that the American invader forces
are playing to strike Islam and Muslims in the city of
mosques, steadfast Fallujah."
Shortly after their declaration, the U.S. military
launched precision weapons against what it called a
Zarqawi safe house, the third such strike in less than
a week.
In Baqubah, where scores of fighters proclaiming
allegiance to Zarqawi attacked police stations and
government buildings in Thursday's offensive, clerics
called on the faithful not to support such attacks.
The attackers, they said in their Friday sermons, were
foreigners attacking Iraqis.
"This is the first time we have heard the minaret
broadcast support for the Iraqi government," said
Edward Peter Messmer, the occupation authority's
coordinator for the Baqubah region, 35 miles northeast
of Baghdad. "And it couldn't come at a better time."
Sadr, whose Mahdi Army has fought U.S. troops in the
Sadr City slum in eastern Baghdad and in Najaf, 90
miles to the south, ordered his followers to lay down
their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi police in Sadr
City to "deprive the terrorists and saboteurs of the
chance to incite chaos and extreme lawlessness."
"We know the Mahdi Army is ready to cooperate actively
and positively with honest elements from among the
Iraqi police and other patriotic forces, to partake in
safeguarding government buildings and facilities, such
as hospitals, electricity plants, water, fuel and oil
refineries, and any other site that might be a target
for terrorist attacks," said an order from the Mahdi
Army distributed in Sadr City.
Interior Minister Falah Naqib said Sadr's militiamen
were welcome to join the police or army as
individuals, but not to patrol alongside regular
police units.
Abdul Hadi Darraji, a Sadr spokesman in Sadr City,
said Sadr's order was issued in part to see whether
U.S. occupation authorities were serious about
transferring power to Allawi's government. If they
were, he suggested, Sadr's movement could continue
cooperating with Iraqi authorities in combating
terrorists who, he said, come from outside the
country.
"This gesture is designed to distinguish between
honorable, legal resistance against the occupation and
the dishonorable resistance, which does not target the
occupation, but targets the Iraqi people," he said.
Aws Khafaji, a cleric in Sadr's militantly political
stream of Shiite Islam, disowned Thursday's violence
even more clearly in a sermon at the Hikma mosque in
Sadr City.
"We condemn and denounce yesterday's bombings and
attacks on police centers and innocent Iraqis, which
claimed about 100 lives," he said. "These are attacks
launched by suspects and lunatics who are bent on
destabilizing the country and ruining the peace so
that the Iraqi people will remain in need of American
protection."
Sadr's militia, as far as is known, has not been
involved in the car bombings and assaults against
Iraqi police and government officials across the
country in recent weeks. His fighters concentrated
their battle against U.S. troops in Sadr City and the
Najaf area, although they also fought with Iraqi
police seeking to patrol Najaf until a cease-fire was
established there earlier this month.
Shiite political leaders have sought for several
months to persuade Sadr to disband his militia and
transform his organization into a political movement.
He has expressed a tentative willingness to do so. But
his lieutenants have refused to participate in
choosing a national congress due to convene next
month, citing what they call a skewed formula for
representing Iraq's ethnic and religious groups.
Correspondent Scott Wilson in Baqubah contributed to
this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Al Qaeda seems quite determined to prove that the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. It's bad news for the terrorists if they've got both the Americans and the Iraqis after them. They'll find it hard to stay hidden if the people they're trying to hide among also want them dead.
4:25:16 PM 
Bush is an awful leader, but so far there's no indication that he's comparable to Hitler. But he's 