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Sunnis shiites are together { April 8 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-2iraq0408.artapr08,1,1638594.story?coll=hc-headlines-topnewshttp://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-2iraq0408.artapr08,1,1638594.story?coll=hc-headlines-topnews
Insurgency Widens
Sunnis, Shiites, Former Enemies, May Have Found Common Ground
April 8, 2004
By RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Violent resistance to the American occupation of Iraq spread to new parts of the country on Wednesday, including previously quiet parts of Baghdad, and rebel militia tightened their grip in several southern cities.
Even as U.S. and allied forces struggled to quell separate uprisings by Sunni and Shiite Muslim insurgents, signs emerged of a troubling new development: that the two Islamic groups, historically foes, might be moving toward forming a common bond against their occupiers.
In Fallujah, an epicenter of the Sunni resistance, U.S. Marines attempting to root out insurgents pushed toward the center of the city, drawing heavy rifle and grenade fire. After a contingent of Marines was attacked by gunmen hiding inside a mosque, a U.S. jet and a helicopter took the unusual step of bombing the compound's outer wall.
In central and southern Iraq, fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric who vowed Wednesday to turn Iraq into "another Vietnam for America," extended their control in the holy cities of Karbala, Kufa and Najaf. Members of the Al-Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to al-Sadr, took command of Kut, a city to the southeast of Baghdad, when Ukrainian troops withdrew after an overnight gun battle.
The U.S. military's director of operations in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said American troops would "destroy the Mahdi Army."
The unrest also spread to northern Iraq for the first time as U.S. troops in Hawijah, near Kirkuk, fired on an angry mob protesting American tactics in Fallujah, killing eight Iraqis. Although Baghdad's Sadr City slum, the site of bloody clashes earlier in the week, was largely calm, violence erupted in other parts of the capital. Shortly after nightfall, gunmen opened fire on a U.S. base in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Kadhimiya and on another in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya.
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, issued his first official comments about the violence Wednesday evening, condemning the U.S. approach to the Shiite uprising. In a written statement bearing his seal, al-Sistani called for both sides to pursue a peaceful resolution and "refrain from escalating steps that will lead to more chaos and bloodshed."
But across Baghdad, al-Sistani's moderate message appeared to have been drowned out by an increasingly vocal cry from mosque minarets for people to resist the occupation and to donate money and blood to help resistance fighters in Fallujah. In perhaps the clearest sign yet of the convergence of Sunni and Shiite uprisings, announcements from Shiite mosques called on people to help Sunnis in Fallujah, while residents of Sunni neighborhoods lauded al-Sadr and his followers.
Portraits of al-Sadr and graffiti lauding him have appeared on mosques and government buildings in Sunni towns west of Baghdad, according to Arab media reports. On Monday night, gunmen loyal to al-Sadr joined with Sunni insurgents in Baghdad in attacking U.S. soldiers on patrol in the first reported act of collaborative Sunni-Shiite resistance activity.
"The Sunnis and Shiites are now together," said Fatah Abdel-Razzaq, 31, the owner of a falafel stand in Sadr City, a sprawling slum of 2 million that has long served as al-Sadr's stronghold.
"America came and destroyed the country," he said. "What's America doing?"
Unconfirmed rumors heightened the tension: Those involved in the insurgency said Sunnis, Shiites and even Palestinians would gather in a war summit in Sadr City today.
"The Sunni people, the Shiite people, we share the same God, the same suffering under the Americans and the same goal, to end the occupation of Iraq," said Said Ammer al Husainie, the Al-Mahdi Army leader in Sadr City. "We have been working together, and will continue to work together, to see that our aims are met.
"We would be willing to see a peaceful solution. We do not like all the bloodshed," he added. "But we have no trust left for the Americans. They have proven themselves again and again to be liars."
The most intense fighting Wednesday occurred in Fallujah, where Marines fought their way farther into the city in an effort to flush out hundreds of well-armed insurgents, who are described by U.S. officials as a mix of Sunni extremists, loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein and common criminals. With the fighters lurking in mosques and residential areas, the Marine strategy has been to advance into open areas to draw fire from the insurgents, who then are targeted with return fire.
Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that his forces control a quarter of the city, where four civilian contractors were killed last week and the bodies of two of them were mutilated. Although some Marine units had pushed well into the city, most remained on the outskirts.
As the Marines fought their way into the Fallujah, Byrne and other officers said, about 40 armed men opened fire on the Americans with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades from a bunker at the Abdul Aziz Samarai Mosque. Four Marines in a Humvee several blocks away were wounded.
After ground attacks failed to flush out the fighters, Marine officers at different command posts in the city debated how to respond. After a few hours of discussion, they decided to order an airstrike.
An AH-1W Cobra attack helicopter fired a rocket at the mosque compound, and an F-16 fighter jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on the site, military officials said. They said the bomb and rocket destroyed part of a wall surrounding the mosque but not the mosque itself.
The insurgents "firing from the mosque wrongfully violated the law of war by conducting offensive military operations from a protected structure," the Marine statement said. "As a result, the mosque lost its protected status and therefore became a lawful military target."
One Marine was killed in Wednesday's fighting and six were wounded by rifle and grenade fire, military officials said. Eighteen Marines have died since Monday in fighting to the west of Baghdad, including at least 12 in an attack on Tuesday in the vicinity of the provincial governor's office in Ramadi.
The Marines have not released any details about the incident in Ramadi other than a brief statement noting that the firefight lasted for seven hours and that 11 soldiers died in the fighting and a 12th died later of his wounds. The Associated Press, citing witness accounts, reported that the gun battle started when gunmen hiding in Ramadi's main cemetery opened fire on U.S. patrols.
A Knight Ridder report is included.
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