 |
|
|
| Before | After |
SAMARRA, Iraq – Insurgents detonated bombs inside one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, destroying its golden dome and triggering more than 90 reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. The president warned that extremists were pushing the country toward civil war, as many Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame.
As the gold dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine lay in ruins, leaders on both sides called for calm: But the string of back-and-forth attacks seemed to push the country closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
“We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq’s unity,” said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. “We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war.”
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top American commander in Iraq also warned it was a “critical moment for Iraq” and called the bombings a deliberate attempt to create sectarian tension. They promised the U.S. would contribute to the shrine’s reconstruction.
“This attack is a crime against humanity,” Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said in a joint statement.
In one ominous sign of how Shiites may react, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric and the country’s vice president hinted that local armed militias might play a bigger role in security in future, if the government can’t protect such holy shrines.
Iraqi blogger An Average Iraqi notes that militias loyal to Shi’a leader Moqtada Al-Sadr have lost no time in engaging in reprisals:
I believe that the reason for such an attack, is an attempt to stir up civil war, between the Shias and Sunnis. In addition, of course, Al-Sadr is not helping at all. His militias are already calling for revenge, and raiding Sunni mosques. Someone should tell him that Sunnis condemned these attacks, and that no one has claimed responsibility yet, why should he presume it is Sunnis. Does he not notice that he is falling into the plain trap laid in front of him?
The government has just announced tomorrow, Thursday, to be an official holiday.
Treasure of Baghdad fears that the country will descend into a Lebanon-like civil war:
And now, I am sad to see a country suffered from tyranny will suffer from a civil war. I am afraid that we’ll have the same fate of Lebanon. I don’t know if this civil strife will stop or continue. Even under dictatorship and tyranny, we have not gone through such a day. It is hard to see this beautiful and ancient country destroyed. It seems what the Americans have done was not enough. Iraqis should suffer, be killed, watch themselves humiliated, and kill each other just because America wants to remove Saddam from its way to make the world safer.
I don’t think that I’m entirely in agreement with his assessment. Rather, I believe that only Saddam Hussein’s suppression kept the ethnic and sectarian rivalries in Iraq from erupting into armed violence sooner.
Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail, newly returned from reporting in Iraq, has a substantial backgrounder on the mosque, attributes the attack to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and wonders if Al-Qaeda hasn’t miscalculated:
The Byzantine political situation in Iraq has just become more chaotic with the destruction of the Golden Mosque, but it also may provide an opportunity for Sunnis and Shiites to see just how close to the abyss they are with respect to a civil war, and work towards avoiding such a situation through political means. The Shiites currently control the levers of power in Iraq, including the military and police apparatuses, and could easily decimate Sunni mosques and cities if they so desired. The Sunnis have far more to lose by a sectarian war than the Shiites, and they know this. al-Qaeda may have scored a short term gain with yet another shocking display of violence, but this could be another miscalculation that further alienates them in the eyes of the Iraqi people. If the Shiites and Sunnis play their cards correctly.
Omar of Iraq the Model concurs that the attack was most likely the work of Al-Qaeda:
I believe there are foreign terror groups behind this attack and I don’t think local insurgent would do such a thing, simply because this particular shrine had been in Sunni territory for a thousand years and the residents of Samarra had always benefited from the movement of religious tourism and pilgrimage.
Things look scary here in Baghdad and I hope there won’t be more updates to report as I can’t see a positive thing coming out of this.
He continues with frequent updates of reactions from local politicians and the media.
