The Najaf ‘massacre’ divides country

 

By Nidhal Laithi

 

Azzaman, February 6, 2007

 

Iraqi tribes and legislators are pressing the government to conduct an independent investigation of the battle of Najaf in which hundreds of Iraqi Shiites were killed.

 

The battle took place on February 28 and after nine days the government is still reticent on the circumstances that prompt it to use force against what many now see were peaceful tribesmen on their way to pay homage to the shrines in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.

 

The battle is reported to have even split the Shiite community with many Shiite Arab tribes openly challenging the growing power of pro-Iran Shiite political factions.

 

A senior Shiite cleric, Aytollah al-hasani al-Sarkhi, is spearheading the calls for an independent inquiry into what many in Iraq now regard as a ‘massacre’ in which scores of women and children were killed.

 

Some members of parliament in a session on Monday requested the formation of a tribunal to look into the bloody incident.

 

Some legislators urged the parliament to form a tribunal like the one which sentenced former leader Saddam Hussein and two of his senior aides to death for the killing of 148 people from Dujail.

 

The government has said it mobilized troops to quell what it called a rebellion north of Najaf and asked U.S. military assistance to defeat the rebels.

 

But parliamentary speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said that he received letters from tribal leaders in the south refuting the government version of events.

 

Mashhadani called the battle ‘a massacre’, accusing the government of hiding the truth of what exactly happened in Najaf.

 

The government says it has seized more than 500 of what it describes as members of a mysterious Shiite cult, among them women and children.

 

Many of the wounded are still in hospitals but the government has turned several requests by media representatives to visit them.