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Monday, Apr 26, 2004

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Iraq: the violence spreads

By Jason Burke

Casualties on both sides are mounting as the violence spreads and jostling for power intensifies.

AMERICAN TROOPS fighting insurgents killed scores of civilians in protracted battles in a remote town on Iraq's Syrian border last week. The deaths, not previously reported due to the remoteness of the area, will raise tensions still further in the country and make the increasingly frantic attempts by the United States-led coalition to ensure security and stability even harder.

On Saturday, the fragile ceasefire in the western city of Falluja, where around 600 civilians are believed to have been killed in nearly two weeks of intermittent fighting between U.S. marines and insurgents, appeared close to collapse. Increasingly impatient American military commanders promised action `within days' if rebels continued to refuse their demands. They would not give details for reasons of `operational security'.

The battles on the western frontier — seen as critical to cutting off the flow of logistic support and volunteer fighters from Syria — are going unnoticed. The Saturday before last, in Qaim, a city of around 100,000, U.S. marines were surprised by a contingent of `anti-coalition fighters' — a loose alliance of former Baath party cadres and foreign militants behind the recent upsurge in violence. Five marines were killed and nine wounded. Medical sources in Qaim said the main hospital in the city had recorded 31 deaths, including the city's police chief, two women, a seven-year-old boy and a five-month-old baby, and 47 wounded. Locals claim the dead were civilians shot by snipers or caught in crossfire. U.S. official sources say most of those killed were armed fighters.

The news will further inflame public opinion in Iraq where many have been angered by heavy-handed U.S. military tactics. The ongoing siege of Falluja has sparked outrage throughout Iraq. Senior coalition figures admit that attempts to pacify the country will founder if the rate of civilian deaths does not fall.

Locals say the number of civilian casualties in al-Qaim could be much higher as street fighting prevented many dead and injured being taken to hospital. Islamic custom is to bury bodies as soon as possible and many casualties are said to have been interred in makeshift graves. In Falluja a sports ground has been converted into a cemetery.

Medical sources in Qaim say doctors treated people by telephone because fighting made it impossible to bring the wounded to hospital. "They just gave instructions on the telephone," said a source. "That means we don't know how many were injured or might have subsequently died of their injuries."

Last week saw widespread violence in Iraq. A series of car bombs in Basra, the southern port city under British control and previously free of such attacks, killed around 80 people including many schoolchildren. The strikes were aimed at the new Iraqi police force, essential to coalition plans to stabilise Iraq before the largely symbolic handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi caretaker government on June 30. Though several Iraqis have been arrested in connection with the attacks, American military officials said that Al-Qaeda or an affiliated group was responsible. On Saturday police revealed they had intercepted a truck full of munitions being driven into Basra.

On Friday Muqtada al- Sadr, the radical Shia cleric who has seized control of the city of Najaf, threatened to unleash a wave of suicide bombers if coalition troops attempted to oust him from his stronghold. Hours earlier an attack by his Mahdi militia killed a coalition soldier. On Saturday, a rocket attack killed four U.S. soldiers at a base north of Baghdad, bringing the number of U.S. soldiers killed in April so far to 100, the highest total for a single month since the end of the war last year. More than 900 have been injured, at least 600 seriously in the same period. With fewer than half the 135,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq deployed on active combat, military experts describe the death toll as `significant'.

One obstacle to restoring order is uncertainty over who will take control on June 30 and whether sufficient power will be ceded to any new administration to convince Iraqis that it is authentic. The Iraqi Governing Council has been deeply tainted by its failure to rein in the U.S. military.

Last week saw frantic politicking in Baghdad as candidates pressed for roles in the caretaker administration. Adnan Pachachi, a former Foreign Minister and likely choice for President, may have damaged his credibility by involvement with the IGC.

All Iraq's fractious minorities must be represented in the new government if it is to receive broad support. If Mr. Pachachi, from the Sunni minority, is appointed President then the Prime Minister will have to be a Shia, who comprise 60 per cent of the Iraqi population.

The new government also has to be acceptable to Iraq's powerful clerics. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a Shia religious scholar venerated by millions of Iraqis, has refused to deal with the Americans or the IGC so far. His backing, which may be secured only by concessions on the role of Islamic law, is critical to the success of any political set-up.

Last week the coalition authorities attempted to woo the Sunni population by reversing a previous ban on the employment of former cadres from Saddam's Baath party in the new army and civil service. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004.

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Iraq: the violence spreads