Shias Feel The Deadly Force Of Sunni Hate

The crowds in Karbala wanted to blame everyone except the people most likely to be responsible for yesterday's devastating attacks.

For some, it was the Americans who had stayed out of the Karbala area to avoid inflaming local sensitivities who were the likeliest culprits. More originally, one man claimed to have seen an Israeli jet flying over.

No one seemed willing to draw the obvious conclusion: that the bombers were in all probability fellow Arabs and fellow Muslims, though not of the Shi'ite tradition whose holy ceremony of Ashura they defiled with innocent blood.

The attacks in Karbala and Baghdad fit perfectly the declared aim of Iraq's most wanted terrorist. In a letter found on a CD-rom seized in a raid in Baghdad in January, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi spelled out his mission in the clearest possible terms.

Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who joined up with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and is believed to be closely linked to al-Qa'eda, is open in his hatred of Shias who he describes as "the most evil of mankind". He tells his followers: "They are the enemy. Beware of them. Fight them."

Through "martyrdom operations and car bombs" he hopes to provoke the Shias into a civil war with their Sunni neighbours which, despite their superior numbers, they are bound to lose.

In the 10-page document, now widely accepted as genuine, he even sets a date for the climax of the campaign. "Zero hour will [come] four months or so before the promised government is formed," he wrote. The United States is due to hand over power to an Iraqi interim government at the end of June - in four months' time.

Although the American-led coalition admitted privately that it would be impossible to prevent atrocities during Ashura, there will be dismay at the scale of the bloodshed. Officials believed that al-Zarqawi, who has a $10 million reward on his head and is suspected of planning suicide attacks that had already killed 200 people, was feeling under pressure.

They pointed to a passage in the letter in which he concedes: "There is no doubt that the space in which we can move has begun to shrink." He also complains of the problems created by the growing strength of the reconstituted Iraqi police and army.

The coalition was also buoyed by its recent success in killing an important al-Zarqawi lieutenant, Abu Mohammed Hamza, and capturing several suspected non-Iraqi cohorts.

Hamza, a bomb expert who was carrying a Jordanian passport and is said to have fought in Afghanistan, was discovered in a safe house in Habbaniya in the Sunni area west of Baghdad. Large quantities of plastic explosive and sodium nitrate and timing and detonation devices were also found.

Despite these blows and other successes in capturing and eliminating insurgents, yesterday's atrocities proved that terrorists, whether from al-Zarqawi's organisation or not, can still strike with terrifying ease.

The Shia security guards manning the half a dozen checkpoints on the way into Karbala yesterday seemed reasonably efficient. But it was clear that without searching every single man - and woman - entering the city and every house and hiding place inside it, a determined bomber was always going to be able to get through.

It is also apparent that despite large cash rewards on terrorists and intensive intelligence efforts, the counter-terror campaign is badly hampered by lack of information about the identity and habits of the perpetrators.

Pure terrorism in its blackest form

By Patrick Bishop in Karbala
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 03/03/2004)

Everyone had been expecting something to happen but the first explosion still came as a shock. It erupted in a corner of the main square below the tomb of Hussein, whose martyrdom the pilgrims had come to mourn, tearing through the flesh and bone of men, women and children alike. There was a moment of awful silence, followed by the clatter of descending debris.

At first people stood immobilised by panic. Then they ran, blindly, some of them seeking the deceptive security of the narrow streets that lead up to the golden-domed mosque. It was a terrible mistake. By accident or design it was in one of these that the next blast erupted.

It seemed as if they came every few minutes after that. I counted six in the first wave and two half an hour later.

This was violence of the most callous and cynical strain, pure terrorism in its blackest, bitterest form. The only crime of the victims was their Shi'ite faith, one of whose great days they were marking fervently and openly for the first time after decades of enforced secrecy.

The morning had started well enough as thousands of pilgrims trooped in hot spring sunshine along the canalside roads that lead into town. Women in billowing black robes shepherded flocks of chattering children towards the beckoning glint of the tomb while their men worked themselves into an ecstasy of anticipation, chanting, beating their chests and waving huge flags.

Trouble was expected, both by the Shi'ite authorities and the coalition. A display of Shi'ite triumphalism was bound to attract the attentions of their two worst enemies: the fanatical Sunni followers of Osama bin Laden who regard the Shi'ites as the hated enemies of Islam, and the dispossessed adherents of the old regime.

Caution had kept the numbers down but there were still hundreds of thousands prepared to make the pilgrimage and put their faith in fate and the efficiency of the Shi'ite security forces and the local police.

Ashura is supposed to be a time of grief but most of the pilgrims looked cheerful, calling greetings to strangers and passing around orange drinks and cakes. Some of the most pious had walked the 50-odd miles from Baghdad.

Our car passed through at least half a dozen checkpoints on the way there and vehicle and passengers were searched twice. Three miles from the centre we were told to park and made the rest of the journey by shuttle bus.

We were walking up to the narrow streets that lead to the mosque when the first crack and thump came. We turned to see a dirty banner of smoke hanging over a corner of the square 50 yards behind.

Sights seem clearer, sounds seem sharper in the second after a blast. Everyone knew what had happened but no one reacted, frozen by the enormity of the event. Then the screaming started. Some ran away. Some ran towards the eddying smoke, the guttering flames and the human debris.

The few ambulances that were standing by in the square switched on their sirens and scythed through the crowd. As soon as they started there was another explosion. Then another. Then another. It was impossible to tell what caused them.

In the broad expanse of the square there was nowhere to take cover. The tide of pilgrims pouring towards the mosque faltered and turned, back the way it had come. Amazingly, there was little sign of panic.

On the faces of the pilgrims as they streamed away there was grief and bewilderment. Most seemed gripped by a sullen anger. At the main checkpoint on the edge of town frustrated policemen picked on foreigners to vent their frustration at having failed to prevent the bloodbath.

Back in the city the inadequate emergency services struggled to cope with the carnage. Corpses were trundled away on handcarts and casualties lugged off on blankets. Half an hour before the town had throbbed with life and joy. Now it reeked of sadness and death. The terrorists had done their job well.

44 killed as gunmen fire on parade in Pakistan

By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore
(Filed: 03/03/2004)
The Telegraph (UK)

Armed men firing automatic rifles and throwing grenades attacked a Shi'ite procession in the Pakistani border city of Quetta yesterday, killing 44 people and wounding at least 150 others.

The gunmen, believed to be Sunni Muslims, attacked the procession in the congested city centre and then fired at random into the crowd.

People run from the rifle and grenade attack in Quetta

"Terrorists started firing from a balcony on the participants of the procession," said Riaz Khan, the city's police chief.

Armed Shi'ites then returned fire, he said. "When the terrorists saw themselves surrounded, at least two of them blew themselves up. I saw their bodies dangling from the balcony over the electricity wires."

The attackers' guns were reported to have been painted with the name of the outlawed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has carried out many sectarian attacks in the past.

The Shi'ite procession marked the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed who died in battle 1,300 years ago. After the attack, the Shi'ites ran riot, attacking and setting fire to at least one Sunni mosque along with 50 shops, offices and hotels. Cars belonging to members of the majority Sunni community were also set on fire.

The office of Geo, the most popular private television network, was also set on fire. The office was empty and nobody was injured.

As plumes of smoke rose from the main market in the city, troops were sent on to the streets after Abdul Raheem Kakar, the mayor of Quetta, declared a curfew over the city of 1.2 million people.

"I was present near the procession when we first heard an explosion and then some people fired shots," Kakar told Geo television news. "Do not come out, a curfew has been imposed," police warned citizens over loudspeakers. However firing continued for several hours after the killings.

Meanwhile, one Shi'ite and one Sunni were killed and 40 wounded in clashes in Phalia, a town in Punjab province 100 miles east of Islamabad.

Allama Hussain Turabi, a prominent Shi'ite leader in Karachi, demanded that President Pervaiz Musharraf sack the interior minister for failing to prevent the attack.

• Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, is to visit Pakistan tomorrow. He is expected to have discussions with President Pervaiz Musharaff.

Unfortunately, this might turn out to be the truth. The problem for the people of the Middle East is the West is accelerating away from them in terms of technological advancement, military might, quality of life, free flow of ideas. If they choose to remain in their current situation for much longer, they will never ever be able to catch up with the West. The West will become their overlords forever and they will remain the equivalent of 'savages' for generations to come.

In ten more years, the US will be able to do things to their countries that they would not believe is possible. In the even further future, a typical Arab martyr who is trying to fight the US military will find himself having to detonate his suicide bomb belt in order to destroy robotic drones- not US flesh and blood soldiers. They will be shouting Allahu Akbar as nano-weaponry destroys their own military capability and infrastructure. They will waste vast amounts of money and blood trying to shoot down a single robotic aerial fighter while hundreds of others make it to their target destination. All the while, losing thousands of their own fighters while our own losses are practically non-existant.

The future isn't very promising for them. They better get on the train right now, or kiss it all good-bye.

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