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Reports From Iraq > Wed., Apr. 7, 2004
American Apache Helicopters vs. Iraqi Residential
Neighborhoods
The remains of a US military vehicle in Baghdad's Showle
neighborhood. One of the results of the crack-down on
the movement of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. |
by Aaron Glantz
BAGHDAD, IRAQ--Hundreds of young men fire machine guns into
the air as their comrades carry the coffin of a dead boy into
Baghdad's abu Hanifa Mosque. Last night -- while the American
Army dug trenches around Fallujah -- the Sunni resistance
struck Iraq's Capital City, falling on an American Hum-Vee
patrol. The US Army responded with Apache attack helicopters.
The only victim: a young boy standing unarmed in front of
the mosque watching the action unfold.
It was a night of Apache helicopter attacks in Baghdad --
a new tactic of the American Army which is facing an increasingly
violent resistance. At about the same time Apache helicopters
stuck the poor, Shi'ite neighborhood of Showle killing 3 Iraqis
in their homes. The intended target was a nearby mosque, a
strong-hold of the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who opposes
the occupation and was declared an outlaw yesterday by George
W. Bush whose spokesman linked Sadr's movement to the anti-Israel
groups Hamas and Hizbollah.
"We are defending our country and demanding rights for
the people," says Sheik Nasser al-Sa'adi, head of Sadr's
office in Showle."Any good man - like Hizbollah's Hassan
Nasralla and Muqtada al-Sadr, any decent man in the world
should feel very proud of us. The Americans are making the
people angry by using the Apache helicopter and killing people
in their houses, killing the innocent."
In the streets of Showle, the anger is palpable. This morning,
a cheering crowd gathered around the smoldering remains of
an American military vehicle . Mudafrer Isrer is among them.
"I don't follow Muqtada," he says. "I just
want the occupation to end. A few young people just lost their
patience so they did it (destroy the American vehicle) but
the real thing hasn't started yet."
In a carefully worded statement, Iraq's most respected cleric
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said Sadr's cause was righteous,
but Sistani said there was no reason to resort to violence
-- a significantly softer statement than the ones coming from
Washington and Iraq's Bush-Administration appointed Interior
Minister Ayyad Alawie, who used to run a Pentagon-funded organization
dedicated to promoting a military coup in Iraq. He compared
Muqtadar al-Sadr to al-Qaeda.
"We used our brother Muqtada al-Sadr and all the others
to calm down," he told reporters. "There's a lot
of forces in Iraq -- like al-Qaeda, a lot of forces trying
to kill themselves as suicide bombers. They want to stop Iraq
from heading towards democracy and liberation and we will
move against that very strongly."
In the Shi'te slum of Showle Alwaie's words seem hollow.
Like everyone around him, Razi Abdurrada supports attacks
on the Americans.
"They Americans go round and round and make us uncomfortable,"
he says. "They block the street always checking us and
they put a lot of us in prison."
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