Karbala still under curfew after bloody clashes

 

By Hadeel al-Jawari and Basel Abdulmajeed

 

Azzaman, August 31, 2007

 

The carnage in the religious city of Karbala could not have come at a worst time for the U.S. and the pro-government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

 

More than four years into the occupation, U.S. troops and their Iraqi-trained forces are not yet in a position to spread their authority on a single Iraqi city.

 

The government is so weak that it even cannot point the finger at the real perpetrators, with Maliki preferring to blame “armed criminal gangs and outlaws and remnants of the Saddam regime.”

 

The clashes on Tuesday left more than 50 dead and 200 injured and took place while hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Muslim Shiites had gathered for a major religious festival.

 

The fighting cut short the celebration and the angry pilgrims returned home without fulfilling any of the rituals required by the occasion.

 

Maliki and his senior aides including ministers of defense and interior rushed to Karbala but they could almost do nothing despite the heavy presence of Iraqi police, security and army.

 

Residents say many police officers in the city refused to fight or simply left the scene of clashes. Now Maliki has ordered the expulsion of what he has described as “defeatist elements in the police force who did not shoulder their duties in confronting the gunmen.”

 

But if Maliki carries through his threat of dismissing the police officers and other security personnel who did not move a finger while innocent Iraqis were being gunned to death, he will have to sack the entire Iraqi police force and security personnel.

 

Iraq’s new police and security forces are built on sectarian and factional lines and members owe their allegiance to their sects and factions rather than the national government – if there is such a government in Iraq.

 

Residents and pilgrims give a version of events which runs contrary to that of the government. They speak of popular discontent and anger which many pilgrims vented during the ceremony.

 

Not only bullets were used in the clashes. Many pilgrims resorted to stones and sticks to attack government-appointed guards of the shrine as well as officials.

 

The government is in fact not telling the truth about the scale of the clashes, damage and casualties. Some of those involved, who we cannot name for security reasons, described the events as a revolt against the government and its U.S. protectors.

 

Vehicles were set ablaze and Azzaman correspondents counted at least 15 torched cars among them police vehicles and ambulances.

 

Three days after the clashes the city was still under curfew with tanks and armored vehicles cordoning off the shrines’ area as thousands of pilgrims conducted a vigil demanding the government to remove its siege.

 

The correspondents could hear pilgrims shout slogans condemning the central government.

 

Hospital sources say more than 50 people were killed and at least 300 were injured. The sources said the toll could be higher because ambulances still cannot move freely in areas where the clashes took place.