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US loses discreet Iraqi ally
30/08/2003 11:25 - (SA)
Baghdad - The assassination of leading Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim in a deadly car bombing, the third in less than a month, has fuelled a growing impression that US troops are unable to stop the chaos and anarchy of post-war Iraq.
The attack in the holy city of Najaf robbed America of a discreet ally, whose endorsement of the US-sponsored Governing Council and regional bodies, kept at bay the more radical elements of Iraq's 15 million strong Shi'ite majority.
The spate of car bombings, which kicked off with a blast at the Jordanian embassy three weeks ago that claimed 14 lives, have made a mockery of the coalition's claims the situation is improving in the country.
Until August, only US forces were the target of a shadowy resistance. All that has changed as the coalition's foes hit "soft" targets which have little military protection but are rich in symbolism.
Even before Friday's perfectly-timed explosion in Najaf, 180 kilometres south of Baghdad, which killed at least 82 people and wounded more than 200 others, Washington had been grappling with the question of whether to change its approach to Iraq.
The turning point was a suicide truck bombing on the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19 which killed 23 people and wounded more than 100 others and has prompted some aid agencies, notably Oxfam, to pull out of the war-ravaged country.
The United Nations cut its staff in Iraq to less than 200 from more than 300 following the blast, while diplomats in the corridors of the world body's headquarters in New York were also warning it might shut its doors in Iraq.
Major strategy review
A major strategy review by top US military and civilian officials in Baghdad is set to unfold next week, top US General John Abizaid, tasked with the Iraq theater, told The New York Times on Friday.
Specifically, the Americans are looking to expedite the creation of an Iraqi army, police and civil defence.
The US general said he would like to get a 40 000-soldier Iraqi army trained more rapidly than the planned two to three years, even if it was a less than perfect military body.
"Somewhere between the perfect army and the just-good-enough army is the right answer," he said.
Abizaid's ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, also signalled this week that America could not fight its foes in Iraq without better intelligence, which would only come by standing up an indigenous security force.
Abizaid has also called for the bringing in of Muslim peacekeepers, probably from Turkey and Pakistan, as it looks to calm the polarised atmosphere in Iraq.
Washington has also approached the United Nations about a new UN Security Council resolution, although the fate of the initiative is far from clear.
Suspects
The gallery of suspects in the Najaf bombing is long.
Holdouts of fallen dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party, feuding Shiiite factions, and foreign fighters all had motive.
Elite members of Saddam's web of security services possess the hands-on knowledge to carry out a powerful car bomb blast.
After the Jordanian embassy bombing, US overseer Paul Bremer, who has raised alarm over a foreign terror threat, warned Saddam's top intelligence agents should definitely be counted as suspects, due to their bomb-making capabilities.
Among those still on the loose are Saddam's intelligence service chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, and Rafi Abed al-Latif Tilfah al-Tikriti, who directed the Baath regime's general security services.
Since Saddam's regime fell, the remnants of the Baath party have managed to construct a network of safehouses from the north around Mosul, where Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were finally killed, to the western province of al-Anbar, the theatre of regular ambushes on troop convoys.
Along with the Baathists, foreign fighters have also managed to construct underground networks around the country.
The possibility also exists that Hakim was struck down in the struggle for power among the leading Shi'ite factions.
The push by supporters of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr to force the traditional religious hierarchy into a more antagonistic approach towards the Americans witnessed three attacks on mainstream clerics in July.
Violence erupted again when one of the top four Shi'ite clerics in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Seyed Mohammad Said al-Hakim, a relative of the slain Hakim, was targeted in a bomb attack that killed three people.
Although Sadr has denied any links to those incidents, he has consistently challenged the accommodating tact with the Americans, favoured by Hakim and other pre-eminent clerics ranked much higher than him among scholars in the Shi'ite world.
Sadr, who is himself scion of an illustrious family of ayatollahs, has openly defied the hierarchy by condemning all contact with US forces and organising a private militia among his supporters.
- AFP
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