Nir Rosen - Aftermath

Muqtada continued to test the limits of Americans’ tolerance, sometimes virtually declaring war on them, then retreating and welcoming them as friends. In March 2004 the Americans closed his newspaper, Al Hawza, accusing it of calling for violence, and arrested an influential associate of his. This further alienated his followers from the American-led project in Iraq and increased his prestige and following among Shiites, whose sect is preoccupied with martyrdom and resisting oppression.

Following the January 2005 elections, Muqtada’s representatives in the National Assembly demanded a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal, a demand also made by Sunni rejectionists. The initiative had the support of 120 of the 275 Assembly members. Muqtada joined these Sunni rejectionists in condemning the draft constitution—especially its federalism—warning that it would lead to the break up of Iraq. Like Sunni Arabs in Iraq, Muqtada opposed federalism for the Kurds as well as the move by Supreme Council leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim to establish autonomous Shiite regions in the south on the model of the northern Kurdish Regional Government. Muqtada’s followers demonstrated against the Constitution, marching with Sunnis in some cases. In the summer of 2005, militiamen loyal to Muqtada clashed with Supreme Council militiamen in several Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Nasiriya, Najaf, and Amara. Despite the tensions between Supreme Council and the Sadrists, Muqtada was invited by Supreme Council and Dawa to join the United Iraqi Alliance, the dominant Shiite list competing in the December 15 elections for the National Assembly. They needed the numbers he could provide. Muqtada was granted equal status with the two other parties and potentially more than thirty seats in the Assembly. He was legitimate now, it seemed, no longer on the outside. Later that year he visited Saudi Arabia on the hajj pilgrimage as an official guest of the Saudi king, and then he visited Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, practicing his diplomatic skills but also establishing a close relationship with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and with Lebanese Shiites. Muqtada would be the protector of newly targeted Shiites, and their avenger.

The articles that the Sunnis were reading in their newspapers, as well as the statements of prominent Sunni leaders however, made it clear that the alliance with Muqtada’s militant Shiites was a temporary measure to battle a common foe. One article in Basair , (The Mind’s Eye), a newspaper published by the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the (Shiite) police for killing Sunnis “for the benefit of groups for whom the police work [the Americans],” and supported the (Sunni) resistance’s attacks on the police. “Iraqis know about the conspiracy to cause sectarian strife among them,” an article began, quoting accusations made by Naseer Chadarchi, a Sunni member of the Iraqi Governing Council, that “thousands of Iranians [Shiites] are sneaking into Iraq.” “They should not get citizenship, as already happened in Amara, where 10,000 Iranians received Iraqi citizenship.” The article, voicing typical Sunni paranoia that all Shiites were in fact illegal Iranians, suggested that “many groups are sneaking into Iraq to get passports” and hinted at the Sunni fear of a democracy that would result in the Shiite majority determining the shape of the new country. “This is why some people [meaning Shiites] want direct elections and a census that will benefit them,” the article continued.

Another article expanded on this theme, describing the “dangerous demographic changes in Iraq after the war” and referring again to an imagined influx of Iranians who created a Shiite majority. “Occupation forces will change the demography of Iraq for their benefit,” the article warned, “using the huge capabilities of the occupation forces, their intelligence and experience in this field. These new demographic changes are worse than Saddam’s because they [Americans] are using migrations, economic rules and killing to increase the population of certain sects such as Iranians, Kurds and Turks. We want to say that the reaction [meaning violent attacks] of Arabs [meaning Sunnis] in the west and south is a reaction to these changes. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are also part of Iraq, so there are more Arabs [Sunnis] but borders separate them. America is the cause of these changes.”

The article attributed the secret plot to “the Jewish and Zionist strategy in the Middle East and the security of Israel in the future.” The author warned that “these demographic changes and their direct effects on future elections and the type of government will lead to a civil war to divide Iraq, and we will have a racist government that will oppress most nationalities and minorities.” The author explained that “Iranians want to increase the ratio of Persians among the [Arab] Shiites, which will increase the ratio of Shiites in Iraq and Baghdad in hidden and declared ways.”

Dora, in southern Baghdad, was one of the first areas where the civil war began. Although mixed, it was majority Sunni. The cleansing of Dora’s Shiites was mostly carried out by local insurgents who lived in the adjoining rural areas of Arab Jubur and Hor Rajab, but some of it was conducted by crooks who kidnapped members of rich families and demanded money for their release.

Solaf was a thirty-three-year-old carpenter working out of his large house in Dora. He was the youngest of five brothers and one sister from the poor Abu Mohammed family, which had lived in Dora since 1974. Mohammed, the eldest brother, joined the police in mid-2004, and in May 2005 he was told he would be killed if he did not quit. Mohammed moved out of his parents’ house and rented a small house in eastern Baghdad’s majority-Shiite Shaab district, but because he had no other profession to turn to, he kept his job as a policeman.

It took Solaf ’s family more than a month to find a good offer on their house. In mid-July 2005 they finally agreed to sell, though there was a delay in signing the contract. Solaf ’s street was full of children every evening, and he would spend many nights sitting at the gate of his home chatting with friends. On July 28 he was sitting there as usual with one of his Sunni friends when a white Hyundai stopped a few meters away from them. An unmasked gunman emerged wearing civilian clothes and started shooting, killing Solaf and his friend. Solaf ’s brothers and his relatives gathered the next day and buried his body. On the second day of Solaf ’s funeral, the family received another letter warning them to leave the city. The family ended the funeral and left Dora forever.

A week after Solaf’s murder, his mother phoned several of her old neighbors and bitterly complained about Sunnis and her family’s new but much smaller house in the majority-Shiite neighborhood of Shuula. She said she had received a call from the mother of Solaf ’s Sunni friend. The Sunni man’s mother told her that her family had received jizia (blood money) of two million Iraqi dinars and an apology from the mujahideen for killing her son, because Solaf had been the only target. Solaf had been targeted because his brother was in the police. The mujahideen who killed him were from the Jubur tribe, which dominated the insurgency in Dora and was the main Sunni tribe in Baghdad. Two Sunni families moved into Solaf’s old house; among them was a twenty-four-year-old man named Mustafa, who was a member of the insurgency.

Haji E’nad was a Shiite who owned a shop on the corner just down the road from Solaf ’s house. At the end of September 2005, three unmasked gunmen raided his shop and killed his son Rashid. They walked away; they did not even use a car. Haji E’nad’s family fled Dora the next day. They did not have a funeral, nor did they tell any of the neighbors where they were going. They simply locked the doors and moved out, leaving their property, and nobody in Dora heard from them again. Families were afraid to tell anybody that they had been threatened so as not to further antagonize those who had threatened them.