Al-Hakim Targeted with Car Bomb;
Thousands of Shiites Protest US in Najaf;
Enormous Bomb Hits Habaniya Mosque
Late Saturday, the US Air Force launched a series of bombing raids on southeast Baghdad. This is absolutely shameful, that the US is bombing from the air a civilian city that it militarily occupies. You can't possibly do that without killing innocent civilians, as at Ramadi the other day. It is a war crime. US citizens should protest and write their congressional representatives. It is also the worst possible counter-insurgency tactic anyone could ever have imagined. You bomb people, they hate you. The bombing appears to have knocked out what little electricity some parts of Baghdad were still getting.
Guerrillas used a car bomb to target the residence of Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim in Baghdad on Saturday. Al-Hayat says that they killed 3 civilians and wounded 7 others. This report says that they killed one guard and wounded four. These were likely Sunni Arab guerrillas hoping that al-Hakim would see the attack as an American one. The US arrested al-Hakim's son on Friday, contributing to a fraying of US relations with Shiite Iraqis, especially those loyal to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Nearly 10,000 Iraqis demonstrated in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday against the US arrest of Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim the previous day. Smaller demonstrations were held in other southern Shiite cities, including Kut and Basra. This young cleric is the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament and an ally of the US.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called for the US military personnel who arrested Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim on Friday to be disciplined. He decried al-Hakim's treatment at US hands. Talabani, a Kurd, is typically a strong ally of the US.
A truck bomb devastated the congregation of a Sunni mosque in Habbaniya on Saturday, killing 45 and wounding 110.
AP speculates that the mosque was being punished for the stance of its imam against "extremism." The Baath Party and the Salafi Jihadis that dominate al-Anbar Province frequently kill other Sunnis whom they view as "collaborators" with the foreign occupation forces.
This article also discusses the way that the security plan in Baghdad and al-Anbar has displaced many guerrillas into Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, where direct attacks on US troops are up 70 percent!
In Baghdad itself, three bombings and a mortar attack contributed to a death toll of some 20.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/25/2007 12:30:00 AM
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9 Comments:
According to the current Iraqi regime, that area south of Baghdad, Bo'aitha, was quite a terrorist haunt and everyone in the area needed to be eliminated. The former regime got pretty good at this sort of mission, as you know. It seems like we could pull our troops out and just provide air support and some chemicals. A mixture of mustard gas and nerve gas did the trick for the former regime.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm
Dr. Cole, I'd be interested in your take on this
NY Times SADR article.
I too agree that bombing by the U.S. AriForce is immoral and a war crime. My question is, where are the parents and older more wiser teachers of our military-age youth who speak out against this barbarism? High school and college teachers who speak the truth to American youth about the immorality of killing people even when draped and camoflaged in army uniforms? Our American philosophers who can dissade our young people from signing up with the military? I think there has been a societal failure for the last 210+ years in American culture.
Roberto in Utah
PS Prof Cole, kudos for your daily important reporting and analysis.
I suppose air-bombing in Baghdad will be the new strategy to minimize helicopter shoot-downs;
perhaps the guerillas have been coordinating their convoy ambushes with attacks on helicopters, in which case these air-bombings would be a form of punitive reprisal and escalation.
Regarding aerial bombing, I think this particular tactical option was put on the table last year, as a part of the re-deployment option, wherein troops would be pulled out and air power would be used instead...
Of course, trust the Bushiites to exercise the worst of both options - put MORE troops in AND carry out the aerial bombardments...
I am fairly sure that you must have already come to this conclusion, but the LA Times report on the detention of Ammar al-Hakim says that the incident brought the Badr Corps and Jaish Mahdi supporters closer, and both parties were seen together in demonstrations demanding al-Hakim's release across Shiite cities in Iraq...
I am not sure how much tactical information the US got off of Ammar al-Hakim's cell phone and other materials - Was it worth bringing the Badr and Jaish Mahdi cadre together?
Also, Jalal Talabani has reportedly been flown to Amman because of kidney problems… Will this result in a power tussle from the Barzani camp to gain the presidency? I would like to know your views on this.
I discuss these developments, along with my own views on my blog .
Roberto asks:
My question is, where are the parents and older more wiser teachers...?
You are reading one of them right here, Roberto. Juan Cole's blog is a beacon of light and reason and I hope I live to see the day when he and his like are duly rewarded for their efforts.
As for the US bombing of Baghdad, that is an utter disgrace, a scandal, a war crime of the worst kind. But where is the media on this?
When the dead children and women are paraded on TV, will this become news? Or are we only supposed to care when the Al Quaeda terrorists kill innocent people, not the US terrorists?
"You can't possibly do that without killing innocent civilians, as at Ramadi the other day. It is a war crime. US citizens should protest and write their congressional representatives."
Dr. Cole,
I think that you are overestimating most US citizens, who are far more interested in celebrities who shave their heads and homicidal astronauts in diapers (not to mention Anna Nicole Smith).
Those of us who wrote our congressional representatives before the war in Iraq, asking them to vote against it, know just how much they care about such letters.
Yeah, U.S. troops are bombing innocent civilians. If we can blame the troops, we can also blame the author of this blog since he's an American. I hope you will apologize for your indiscretions.
I'm an American, in fact through my mother's line my roots here go back 385 years. I just wrote to my Senators and Congresswoman asking them what they are doing to stop Bush and his war crimes. I cited this blog post and the Baghdad bombing in particular.
I just hope I live long enough to see Bush and Cheney in the dock at The Hague. Best thing that could happen to our Republic.
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