In a Reversal, Sunnis Vote, to Retain a Voice in Iraq

Image by Kurdistan KURD كوردستان كردستان ا via Flickr

By ANTHONY SHADID

FALLUJA, Iraq — In this town, nicknamed the City of Mosques, the scratchy loudspeakers of muezzins that once preached resistance to the American occupation implored Sunni Arabs to defy bombs and vote Sunday. They did, in a landmark election that demonstrated how far Iraq has come and perhaps how far it has to go.

The droves of Sunni Arab residents casting ballots in towns like Falluja — the name itself synonymous with the cradle of the insurgency, where relatively few voted in the last election five years ago — promised to redraw Iraq’s political landscape. The turnout delivered Sunnis their most articulated voice yet on the national stage, seven years after the American-led invasion ended their dominance.

Yet the act of their empowerment Sunday may make that landscape even more combustible, possibly even risking a revival of sectarian conflict. The demands of Sunni voters, from securing the presidency for a Sunni to diluting Iran’s influence, could make the already formidable task in Iraq of forming a coalition government even more difficult.

At polling stations near cratered buildings, past blast walls that still bore the pockmarks of bullets, the sentiments of voters who largely boycotted Iraq’s national elections in 2005 illustrated that divide.

Even as many cast ballots for the slate of Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former prime minister, they condemned religious Shiite parties. With the invective once reserved for Americans, voters now attacked Iran, seen here as the patron of Iraq’s Shiite-led government.

“There’s no more war, it’s true, but we’re still not free,” Riyadh Khalaf, 47, a laborer, said as he stood near a polling station in the neighborhood of Andalus, where distant bombings reverberated through the morning. “We have an American occupation and an Iranian administration.”

A civil defense worker, Raad Mustafa, shouted, “We have to save our country.”

Ammar Ali, a police officer, interrupted them.

“We want someone who lives with us, someone who is from Iraq,” he said, carrying his rifle. “We don’t want the politicians who spend the night in Iran.”

In a day of remarkable images, none may have been more startling than those in Anbar Province, where just 3,375 people voted in January 2005, out of fear of insurgent threats or in protest of the occupation. People often cast the boycott then as a matter of survival, refusal to participate in an order that disenfranchised them. Similar words in another context were heard Sunday; failure to vote would amount to surrender.

“I voted for the sake of the generations to come,” said Yunus Adel, 22, a student. “My vote is going to determine my destiny. We have to have a voice.”

In another neighborhood, Mohammed Hatem walked past Martyrs School where, on April 28, 2003, American soldiers, saying they had been shot at, fired on a protest and killed 15 people, a seminal moment in unleashing an insurgency that would not end for five years. The school, on this day, was a polling station.

“The memories remain,” Mr. Hatem said. “But if you have the right, you have to exercise it.”

Voters in the Jolan neighborhood, the scene of some of the most intense fighting in 2004, barely flinched at blasts, which killed no one. Mosques that once served as refuge for insurgents blared messages imploring voters to defy the bombings.

Politics in Anbar are not for the faint-hearted. They tend toward the nasty, brutish and loud, where even nuances are conveyed as shouts. The governor lost his hand in an attack in December. A candidate near Falluja talked of the 11 attempts on his life as he might about car wrecks. Unfortunate, but they happen.

Nevertheless, in Anbar, as in predominantly Sunni regions elsewhere, politics have become far more diverse since the days when the Iraqi Islamic Party, a descendant of the venerable Muslim Brotherhood, dominated the regions. Since 2009, the province’s other currents — neo-Baathist and tribal — have rallied around lists loyal to Mr. Allawi and Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, another secular Shiite.

“Everyone in Anbar — no, in Iraq — knows that the Islamic Party is lying,” said Sheik Aiffan Saadoun al-Aiffan, a tribal leader and candidate on Mr. Bolani’s list. “They deal with Iran, they steal money and they’ve lost the support of the people.”

Mr. Aiffan is part of a new breed of politician here, as traditional as he is worldly, with a kinetic energy that helped him, on a recent day, hit the campaign trail in the afternoon, greet a procession of relatives wearing what amounts to Anbar chic — headdress, sunglasses and bandolier — at night, then run an hour on the treadmill until 3:40 a.m.

He speaks with the entitlement of inherited power. “I’ll win, sure,” he said, with a touch of humor. “People like me, and God is with me.” And in a province where conversation, hours and hours of it, is the favorite pastime, he understands a constituency that deems politics’ ambiguous grays as effeminate.

Mr. Aiffan called the surrender “of even an inch of territory” in the border disputes with Kurds a sacrilege. (“This is our faith,” he said.) He threatened to fight the Islamic Party with guns if there was a hint of vote stealing. (“It could happen.”) And he insisted that the presidency was the right of a Sunni Arab, not a Kurd — someone like his ally, Ahmed Abu Risha, another tribal leader here who leads Mr. Bolani’s list.

“This time, the decisions will be different,” he said. “We can vote for what’s right, who’s good. We’ll make the right choices.” He looked at his computer, next to three cellphones, one of which got 150 text messages in an hour.

“The problem is,” he asked, “who will be with us in Baghdad?”

Even before the voting ended, politicians and voters speculated about the fragility of coalitions, in particular Mr. Allawi’s, which seemed to enjoy a groundswell of support as the one force that could counter Iraq’s religious Shiite parties. Some speculated that Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi’s candidates might leave it and return to the Iraqi Islamic Party, from which they split.

Others wondered whether Mr. Allawi, with his reputation for high-handedness, could keep the loyalty of emerging Sunni figures like Saleh al-Mutlaq, a member of Parliament banned from the election for ties to the Baath Party, and Rafea al-Issawi, a deputy prime minister who hails from one of Anbar’s biggest tribes.

“We won’t have a war, but it will be a conflict,” predicted Mohammed Zaal, an engineer in Falluja. “It will be a political conflict of Sunni against Sunni and Shiite against Shiite. Once they lose power, they’ll look for other ways to keep their influence.”

“I’m still optimistic,” he added, “but even in the civil war, I was optimistic.”

Murky Candidacy Stokes Iraq’s Sectarian Fears

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By MARC SANTORA and MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAGHDAD — A politician widely accused of running death squads might not be expected to have an easy time running for public office.

But this is Iraq. In a nation sadly inured to years of sectarian bloodletting, Hakim al-Zamili not only has a place on a prominent Shiite election slate, but stands poised to win a place in the Parliament, as early voting began Thursday morning for the infirm, people with special needs and members of the military and the police.

It is an astonishing turnabout that shows the limits of political reconciliation. While some Sunni candidates have been barred from running in the election for their alleged support of the Baath Party, Mr. Zamili’s candidacy has provoked nary a protest from the nation’s leading Shiite politicians. That runs the risk that Shiite leaders will be seen as taking steps against only those who persecuted Shiites, not Sunnis.

Mr. Zamili’s new political role has heightened concerns that for all the talk of cross-sectarian alliances among some Shiite and Sunni factions, Iraq may be unable to firmly break with its troubled past.

The embrace of his candidacy “sends the worst possible message to loyal Iraqis,” said one American official who was involved in a fruitless effort to convict Mr. Zamili at a high-profile trialin 2008. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified because he was not authorized to comment on Iraqi political developments.

Sitting inside his ramshackle campaign headquarters in Sadr City, Mr. Zamili insisted that the charges against him were no more than politically motivated fabrications. But he was unapologetic about the attacks that Shiite militias like Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army carried out in past years against the Americans and Sunni insurgents.

“Many people in politics understand that resistance was our right because we were occupied,” he said. “We had a duty to protect the people from the U.S. forces and the attacks of terrorists.”

Now that American troops are withdrawing, Mr. Zamili, the dark circles under his eyes giving him a worn look even when he smiles, said it was time to abandon armed struggle. As candidate No. 15 on the Iraqi National Alliance slate, he is part of a coalition that includes Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the former prime minister, and Ahmed Chalabi, the longtime political survivor who led the effort to disbar Sunni candidates and who draws support, American officials charge, from Iran.

“They thought they would end the Sadrist movement, but we persevered,” Mr. Zamili said.

Several years ago Mr. Zamili was a protagonist in a very different drama. The Ministry of Health and the hospitals that it oversaw were some of the first institutions that Mr. Sadr’s supporters controlled after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Zamili, American officials say, was appointed to his ministry post with Mr. Sadr’s backing.

According to the inquiry that led to Mr. Zamili’s trial, the ministry’s protection service was used as a private militia to kidnap and kill hundreds of Sunnis from 2005 to early 2007. A deputy health minister, Ammar al-Saffar, who was gathering data on abuses at the ministry, disappeared before he could turn over his findings to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. He vanished after telling associates that Mr. Zamili had threatened him.

Mr. Zamili was arrested in early 2007 after Mr. Maliki had a falling out with Mr. Sadr. American officials worked closely with Iraqi officials to build a case that Mr. Zamili was involved in murder, kidnapping and corruption. His trial was to be the first of a high-ranking Shiite official for sectarian crimes — an event, one American official asserted, that would be as important in establishing the rule of law in Iraq as the trial of Saddam Hussein.

After a two-day trial, marred by accusations of witness intimidation, the charges were dropped and Mr. Zamili was freed after spending more than a year in American custody.

Mr. Zamili denied in the interview that he had ever orchestrated the kidnappings and killings. “They accused me of fueling the violence,” he said. “Each and every person resisting and opposed to the occupation is a terrorist, a thief, a criminal,” he said dismissively.

As it turns out, he said, his arrest actually was a political boon. He has trumpeted his position at the Health Ministry in his campaign. Quoting Gandhi, he has portrayed himself as a political martyr. “It was a benefit to me because people related to me,” he said. “They saw me suffering. And suffering is good for the soul.”

The families of those he stood accused of ordering murdered say they are aghast. Ali al-Saffar, Mr. Saffar’s son, said in a telephone interview from London that Mr. Jaafari had been a family friend and that when he met with the former prime minister three years ago Mr. Jaafari acknowledged receiving information linking Mr. Zamili to his father’s disappearance.

“Despite their emphasis on personal morality, they have sadly shown they are willing to forfeit their ideals in the pursuit of power, including by welcoming into their ranks people like Hakim al-Zamili,” Mr. Saffar said, referring to the Iraqi National Alliance slate.

Manal Finjan, a candidate in the election and a spokeswoman for Mr. Jaafari’s list, said the courts had exonerated Mr. Zamili, and he should therefore be treated like any other candidate.

“We actually deal with people on the basis of evidence and documents,” she said. “He was acquitted by the court, and anybody who has evidence against him could go to the proper authorities.”

While Mr. Zamili is now a player in the political game, he did not rule out the possibility that the militias might be once again called on to defend the people. “If there were a bad situation, an increase in attacks, the continuation of unjust arrests, they will force us to defend ourselves and our leaders,” he said.

This may be a bit of bravado. Support for the Sadrists drained as Iraqis tired of violence and sectarian killings. But judging by the mood of the dozens of young men in the muddied track suits that were once the unofficial uniform of the Mahdi Army, some seem willing to return to the fight.

Before Mr. Zamili arrived, they had just received news — later denied by aides to Mr. Maliki — that a court had reissued an arrest warrant for Mr. Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, should he return to Iraq. As angry denunciations rang in the smoke-filled room, one burly young man made it clear that Sadrists would not stand for any such action.

“We had Maliki surrounded in Basra when he visited and could not get him,” he said. “But this time, if this report is true, we will go to the Green Zone and pull him out by his head and roll him in the street.”

Iraqi Sunnis Pin Their Hopes on Elections

By MARC SANTORA

BAQUBA, Iraq — Here in Diyala, a quarter of provincial council members, all Sunnis, have warrants against them. Most don’t show up for votes, fearing they will be jailed. The leading Sunni candidate was arrested this month on what supporters call trumped-up terrorism charges. Crushing poverty is the norm. So is mistrust of a central government and the Shiite-dominated security forces.

Yet Sunnis here say they are determined to participate in the March 7 national parliamentary elections. Even after a call last week by a national Sunni political party to boycott — a call it later rescinded — Sunnis continued to hang banners of their preferred candidates, including those barred from running.

In some ways, it is an inspiring measure of progress in Iraq that Sunni Muslims, the minority that long ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein, are trusting in the ballot box to improve their fortunes.

But the hope they place in politics also reflects weakness: how sharply Sunnis’ choices have narrowed after nearly seven years of war. Past boycotts denied them electoral positions they might have won and deprived them of the spoils of power. Violence drew deadly retribution, from both American soldiers and Shiite death squads. Now elections seem the only way to forge a more formal and enduring political role.

Interviews in this once restive area make clear that Sunni expectations from these elections are high, and that renewed violence may not be far behind electoral disappointment.

“If the government does not change, there will be a problem between the Sunni and the Shia, and it will not be good,” said Sami Dawoud Salman, a local leader of a branch of the Sunni militia that allied with the Americans to do battle with Al Qaeda.

Without a change, he said, “I think the government will hunt down every Sunni person, and the Sunnis will have no choice but to hold their own weapons and defend themselves.”

He plans to vote in any case.

Across Diyala Province, about 17,000 square miles stretching from Baghdad to the Iranian border, the conditions that existed as the fighting subsided have hardened in place. Once mixed villages have either been razed or remain in the control of one sect. Few of those displaced from their homes have returned. Lingering blood feuds bring daily reports of violence.

Shiite towns, like Khalis, bustle with commerce. In Sunni neighborhoods, the shops are fewer, the tension is higher and the uncertainty palpable.

Shiites dominate both the local police and the Iraqi Army in the region, making up about 90 percent of the forces, American officials say, although the population is more than 50 percent Sunni. Sunnis see reminders of Shiite ascendancy and intimidation all around. For instance, during a recent Shiite holiday, nearly every police checkpoint was decorated with portraits of Imam Hussein and Ali, two revered Shiite martyrs.

The mistrust has deepened in recent months as government security forces have staged a series of arrests.

Over three days in December, 101 people were arrested, predominantly Sunni, according to an American intelligence briefing paper.

“Continued, pervasive, and biased targeting by the Iraqi Security Force” raised the possibility militants might have more success in recruiting fighters, according to the report. In recent weeks, there has been evidence that those networks have stepped up their recruitment efforts, American military commanders say.

In the provincial elections last year, Sunnis took control of the local government, which helped ease tensions. However, 7 of the 29 provincial council members have arrest warrants against them. The arrest in early February of Najim al-Harbi, the Diyala leader of the important Sunni political bloc that won six seats, was considered the most recent provocation.

Mr. Harbi, who gained widespread support for his role battling Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has been the frequent target of assassination attempts, and 23 members of his family have been killed by militants. Six months ago, his 6-year-old son was kidnapped by Al Qaeda and killed. His arrest on terrorism charges, with no evidence made public, stirred anger and was viewed as politically motivated, because his slate of candidates poses a serious challenge to both Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s alliance and the candidates of other Shiite parties.

“Of course the sectarian nature of the politics will be reflected on the street,” said Rasam Esmael Hamud, a member of Mr. Harbi’s party. “If we fail to control the politics, then we will fail to control the street.”

There has been hope that the elections would be a step toward reconciliation. But as the campaign has heated up, so has the oratory, with distinct sectarian overtones. The fiery campaign speeches have been coupled with actions by the government security forces and political leaders that are viewed by Sunnis as an attempt to diminish their standing.

For months, Mr. Maliki, who once hoped to court a substantial alliance with powerful Sunni political blocs but was largely rebuffed, has repeatedly raised the specter of the Baath Party to justify a crackdown on Sunni and secular leaders.

Mr. Maliki’s rival, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has been joined by powerful Sunni blocs to pose a serious electoral challenge, has accused the Shiite dominated blocs and the prime minister of being beholden to Iran.

When the Iraqi government pressed ahead with its anti-Baath campaign by seeking to bar more than 500 candidates from running in the election, Mr. Allawi suggested that such heavy-handed tactics could lead to civil war.

With only a little more than a week until the election, though, Sunnis still view the voting booth as the best place to secure influence in Iraq, according to American and Iraqi officials and dozens of interviews with residents.

“We are always facing pressures by the security forces, which are dominated by the Shiite parties,” said Baqir Jalalaldin al-Khashali, a 24-year-old employee of the Education Department in Baquba. “I think that the pressures will be useless, because there is a great desire of Sunnis to participate in the election.”

How they will react once the votes are counted, especially if there is a perception of fraud, is uncertain.

“We have spent a lot of time studying the question: What is the Sunni breaking point?” said Col. David Funk, commander of the Third Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division, which has responsibility for Diyala Province. “It won’t likely be a single event. It will be the slow erosion over time of the belief that they have a role in this country.”

An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Diyala Province.

Sunni Iraqis fear disenfranchisement after hundreds of candidates banned

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By Leila Fadel and Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A07

BAGHDAD -- By barring hundreds of candidates from an upcoming parliamentary election, a controversial commission whose members have close ties to Iran is threatening to disenfranchise members of Iraq's Sunni minority and weaken its fledgling democracy.

The commission, led by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician who supplied faulty intelligence to the United States in the run-up to the war, and Ali Faisal al-Lami, a former U.S. detainee, was established to help cleanse the Iraqi government of officials who adhered to the ideals of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

But the panel sent shockwaves through Iraq's political establishment when it recently announced the disbarment of 511 candidates for their alleged allegiance to the party. The move has led to recriminations that Iran, through proxies, is trying to rig the vote to ensure that Iraq is solidly in the hands of politicians loyal to Tehran.

U.S. officials, who were caught off guard by the decision, now fear that it could reignite sectarian violence and dash their hopes of political reconciliation in Iraq -- the end goal of the U.S. military strategy known as the "surge."

"If there is no balance, there will be violence," said Mustafa Kamal Shibeeb, a Sunni who was among those banned.

Outside a cemetery in the Sunni Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, Ibrahim Hamid, 22, glanced over a railing at about 6,500 graves of Sunnis buried during Iraq's sectarian war.

"This is Iraq," he said. "Always the men with dignity are banned. I'm sure there is going to be a lot of violence."

Many Sunnis boycotted a national election in 2005 to protest the U.S. occupation. Their disenfranchisement contributed to the rise of an insurgency and a civil war fought along sectarian lines. This time, there is little talk of boycotting, but there is widespread fear that Sunnis will once again believe they got a raw deal.

On Friday, at a Sunni mosque in Adhamiyah, the Iraqi army stopped a demonstration over the disbarments, residents said. Sunnis in Baghdad complain that in recent months the Iraqi army has sharply restricted movement in their districts, stifling commerce and imposing de facto martial law.

"People will keep their mouths shut," said Zaki Alaa Zaki, 38, a member of the local Sunni paramilitary force established by the U.S. military and now controlled by the Iraqi government. "We are the living dead now."

The committee that announced the disbarments is known as the Supreme National Commission for Accountability and Justice. Its chairman, Chalabi, is an erstwhile Pentagon and CIA ally who played a crucial role in the run-up to the invasion. He's fallen out of favor, and most U.S. officials now call him an Iranian agent. Chalabi's deputy on the commission, Lami, spent nearly a year in U.S. custody after being implicated in the bombing of a Sadr City government building that killed two American soldiers and two U.S. Embassy employees. He has denied involvement in the attack and claims that U.S. interrogators tortured him.

An aide to Chalabi said he was unavailable for comment. In an interview, however, Lami said he wasn't to blame that candidates failed to qualify for elections. He also disputed allegations, from U.S. officials and others, that he and Chalabi were acting at the behest of Tehran or in the interest of their own coalition vying for seats in the next parliament.

The list of barred candidates, which was endorsed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, provides vague justification for the banishments. It includes Sunni and Shiite politicians, but it seems to disproportionately target prominent Sunnis and secular leaders. There were 6,592 candidates who were screened for Baathist ties.

Being labeled a Baathist in today's Iraq, which is led by exiles driven out by Hussein, is tantamount to being called a communist during the McCarthy era. The disbarment would be likely to benefit Maliki's coalition and the predominantly Shiite bloc that includes Chalabi and Lami.

Barred candidates have three days to appeal to a newly empaneled body of three judges. Sunni politicians and U.S. officials worry that the appeals process could inflame tensions and potentially derail the election, scheduled for March 7.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill said he worries that the process could overwhelm the democratic system.

"It's a tough issue. It involves deep emotions," Hill said in an interview. "Frankly, the weight of these emotions sometimes exceeds the capacity of the institutional framework to handle them."

Vice President Biden called the Iraqi speaker of parliament Sunday to push back the disbarment of politicians until after the vote, according to the speaker's spokesman. But the call and other, similar efforts by the U.N. envoy to Iraq and Western diplomats appear to have gone unheeded.

Some Sunni leaders and analysts said more aggressive American intervention is the only way to avert a bigger crisis.

"We need to hear from you Americans. Please don't just watch this from the outside," said Mithal al-Alusi, a former member of the now-disbanded commission on de-Baathification. "The White House needs to move and move quickly."

Special correspondent Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.

Iraqi Shiites protest Maliki's government

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By Qais Mizher
Monday, December 28, 2009; A09

KARBALA, IRAQ -- A group of 5,000 Iraqi Shiite demonstrators in the city of Karbala turned the religious observance of Ashura into a political protest against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday, expressing wide-ranging criticisms as the country prepares for a critical national election in early March.

The protesters gathered outside the Imam Hussein shrine to greet the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had descended on the city. "We don't vote for people who steal public money," the protesters shouted.

The anti-government overtones surrounding the religious holiday, banned under Saddam Hussein's regime, were a marked change from recent years.

After the U.S. invasion, the day had been embraced by the country's Shiite majority as a moment to express solidarity in their newfound political power and long-frustrated religious freedom.

This year, Ashura fell at the beginning of the campaign season for the March 7 national election, which is to decide the face of the Iraqi government during and after the U.S. withdrawal. Tens of thousands of Iraqi security forces were deployed on the streets to prevent possible violence that would further weaken the credibility of Maliki's government, which has been severely tested by a string of deadly bombings.

On Saturday in Baghdad, Shiite leader Amar al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, offered thinly veiled criticisms of the government during a speech commemorating Ashura, comparing what he claimed were the struggles of Imam Hussein's fight against corruption to the present day.

Ashura is the day of mourning for Imam Hussein, the Shiite saint whose death in the 7th century sealed the rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims over the succession of the prophet Muhammad.

"We can see that history is repeating itself. We can see the political money, temptations and seductions," Hakim said at the Kihlani mosque in central Baghdad. "Iraqi people don't want the promises to disappear after the elections. People will not obey any extortions."

The political potential of Ashura was exactly why Saddam Hussein had so feared it, according to Shakir al-Najjar, a 70-year-old poet who helped organize the protests in Karbala.

"We had believed that Maliki's government and most of the politicians were a part of us, and we used to support them, especially after they executed Saddam," he said. "But finally we discovered that they don't represent us, so we decided to protest against them for the first time on Ashura this year."

In Baghdad on Sunday, tens of thousands of pilgrims marched toward the al-Kadihmiyia mosque, braving the threat of bombings and violence, and shedding their own blood with cuts on their foreheads to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein.

"The politicians want to associate themselves with such a great leader as Imam Hussein," said 29-year-old shopkeeper Bajir Hassan.

Red Crescent tents were set up to deal with pilgrims who had passed out from loss of blood and dehydration.

Although Shiite pilgrims had been the target of multiple attacks over the past week, there was only one major bombing on Sunday, in Kirkuk, killing four pilgrims and injuring 18, according to police officials.

Mizher is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Michael Hastings contributed to this report.

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Bomb attack on Shia march in Pakistani city of Karachi

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At least 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide bombing on a Shia Muslim march in the Pakistani city of Karachi, officials say.

The attacker had been walking amidst a procession with tens of thousands of people, said the interior minister.

After the explosion, marchers turned their anger on ambulance workers, security forces and journalists.

Pakistan's security forces have been on high alert as Shia Muslims marked the holy month of Muharram, or Ashura.

Monday was the climax of the holy period, which commemorates the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

Blood-stained walls

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, which comes amid an upsurge of attacks by Taliban militants in Pakistan.

“ I am hearing people are clashing with police and doctors, that is what terrorists want, to see this city again on fire ”
Mustafa Kamal Karachi Mayor

Karachi has a long history of sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis.

There have been numerous attacks on such processions across the country over the last few days, says the BBC's Aleem Maqbool.

On Sunday, eight people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a Shia march in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed Monday's blast on extremists who wanted to destabilise Pakistan.

"Whoever has done this, he cannot be a Muslim. He is worse than an infidel," he told reporters.

Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed said the severed head of the bomber had been found, reports Reuters news agency.

One survivor, Naseem Raza, told AP news agency: "I saw walls stained with blood and splashed with human flesh. I saw bloodstained people lying here and there."

Fleeing the scene of the blast, another mourner told AFP news agency: "My sister, her husband and children are dead."

The bombing unleashed further pandemonium as angry Shia mourners fired shots in the air.

Smashed ambulances

Rioters torched dozens of shops and vehicles, while members of the security forces who had been guarding the procession were pelted with stones.

TV footage showed smashed police vehicles and ambulances.

Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal appealed for calm.

"I am hearing people are clashing with police and doctors. Please do not do that," AP news agency quoted him as saying.

"That is what terrorists are aiming at. They want to see this city again on fire."

Our correspondent says an incident like this was feared by the authorities. Stringent security measures had been put in place across the country over the last month.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in bomb attacks in recent months as Pakistan's army pursues an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan and surrounding areas.

Pakistan also has a long history of violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims that is estimated to have killed several thousand people in the last three decades alone.

Some radicals in the Sunni majority regard Shias - who make up about 20% of the population - as heretics.

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Yemen's fight with rebels a regional concern - washingtonpost.com

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Sunni-Shiite tensions grow as Saudis allege Iran's involvement

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 14, 2009

MAZRAQ, YEMEN -- Along the jagged, oatmeal-colored mountains of northern Yemen, civil war has transformed the windswept landscape into a canvas of human misery, bolstering al-Qaeda's efforts to create a haven in the Middle East's poorest nation.

It is a war largely hidden from the rest of the world the past five years, and it pits the Hawthi rebels, who are Shiites, against Yemen's government. In recent days, however, it has also drawn in Saudi Arabia. Yemen and Saudi Arabia, both ruled by Sunnis, accuse Shiite Iran of backing the rebels, raising the specter of a proxy war that could elevate sectarian tensions in this oil-rich region.

The fighting could have serious implications for the U.S. anti-terrorism effort in a failing nation where al-Qaeda is gaining strength, Western diplomats and Yemeni analysts say. The war is drawing attention and scarce resources away from efforts to combat poverty, a secessionist movement in the south and piracy along the nation's shores. A prolonged conflict, they say, could further weaken Yemen's government and deepen societal fissures, allowing al-Qaeda militants to thrive.

"The longer the war in the north continues and the longer the problems in the south continue without resolution, the more we pave the road for al-Qaeda," said Yahya Abu Asbu, a Foreign Ministry official and deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party. "Yemen will become more dangerous than Somalia."

Ruling party officials concede that the war is siphoning resources from other pressing problems, but they say their priority is to crush the rebellion.

"You cannot say the Hawthis are less dangerous than al-Qaeda," said Yasser Ahmed Bin Salim al-Awadi, who heads the government's ruling bloc in parliament. "Al-Qaeda is not doing something like what the Hawthis are doing now."

The war has forced more than 175,000 Yemenis to flee their homes; many more remain trapped in areas gripped by violence.

Ali Abdu and his family are among the war's newest victims.

They escaped to Saudi Arabia two months ago. But last week, the Hawthi rebels crossed into Saudi Arabia and attacked a Saudi patrol. The kingdom retaliated by bombing rebel positions in Yemen, but also forced Abdu and hundreds of other desperate refugees back across the border.

Evading bombs and bullets, the family reached Mazraq, a crowded refugee camp less than five miles from the front lines.

"It is our destiny," said Abdu, 45, with no hint of emotion. He paused, then added: "Only Allah knows why they are fighting."

The clans

The Hawthis, who believe in the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, ruled northern Yemen as a religious imamate for nearly a millennium before being overthrown in a 1962 coup. Ever since, Yemen's rulers have been wary of them and other Zaydi clans. The Zaydis make up more than a quarter of Yemen's population and constitute a majority in the north.

The rebels accuse the government of trying to dilute their religion by installing Sunni fundamentalists in mosques and official positions in some Zaydi areas. The government maintains that Hawthis seek to bring back the Zaydi imamate.

The conflict began in 2004 with a few hundred rebel fighters. It has grown into a full-fledged insurgency that Yemen's undisciplined military has struggled to contain, despite its deployment of military units and resources to the north. Last year, the fighting reached the outskirts of Sanaa, the capital.

In the town of Mazraq on Thursday, the market was crowded with disheveled Yemeni soldiers in ragtag uniforms. Many carried aging Kalashnikov rifles and rode in the back of pickup trucks, chewing khat, a mildly narcotic leaf popular in Yemen.

Yemeni officials expressed confidence that they could crush the rebellion, now that the Saudis were pushing from the north. The kingdom is deeply concerned about having a hostile Shiite region on its southern border.

The rebels say they staged the border attack, which killed a Saudi soldier, because of Saudi support for Yemen. Hawthi rebel commanders have denied Iran is supporting them. Iran, too, has denied arming or financing the rebels. Yemen and Saudi Arabia have not provided credible evidence of Iranian support, Western diplomats and analysts say.

Still, Saudi Arabia's entry into the conflict has touched a nerve with Iran. This week, Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, declared that no nation should "interfere" in Yemen's internal affairs, a veiled snipe at Saudi Arabia. Some analysts say if Saudi Arabia continues to attack the rebels, Iran might decide to back the Hawthis, if it hasn't already, as a way to gain leverage over Riyadh.

"Iran believes the biggest obstacle to its growing influence in the region is Saudi Arabia," said Najib Ghallab, a political researcher at Sanaa University. "To weaken Saudi influence, Iran believes Yemen is the starting point."

Sectarian differences

Many Yemenis say al-Qaeda is already taking advantage of the government's focus on the north. An al-Qaeda ambush this month in the east that killed five security officials raised questions over whether the thinly stretched government can control the entire country. "In this environment, security is weak and the government is busy with wars. This is the environment al-Qaeda wants."

Some officials allege that the Hawthis are allied with the Sunni militants of al-Qaeda, but they provide no evidence. Most analysts view it as an attempt by a weak government to generate support from the United States and other Western powers that fear Yemen is descending into chaos. The Hawthis have long been deeply antagonistic toward hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, making any alliance with al-Qaeda unlikely.

Critics of the government declare that the war can be ended quickly through negotiations. They accuse Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, of engaging in war to bolster his military authority, weaken political rivals and milk more economic and military aid from Western powers.

Awadi dismissed such suggestions. "It's not in the government's interest to make war in the hope it will bring more instability."

As the conflict rages, sectarian and tribal animosities are deepening. In the camp, some refugees said Hawthis had forced Sunnis from their villages.

"They were the first to be exposed to any dangers," Ahmed Garela Al-Balawi, 43, a Zaydi Shiite who fled Haidan, a Hawthi stronghold, said last week.

In Sanaa, government forces have detained Shiites thought to support the Hawthis, human rights activists say. Shiites have been banned from sensitive jobs and were ordered to hand in weapons, said Hassan Zaid, the Shiite leader of the al-Haq party, which supported the Hawthis. His party has since been dissolved.

Awadi doesn't dispute taking action against Hawthi supporters, but he said there were no sectarian motives.

Outside the camp, Ahmed Davish, 37, shooed away flies buzzing around his face. He and his family had arrived five days earlier -- also forced from Saudi Arabia.

In the previous years of war, Davish, who is Sunni, returned to his village of Raza to live side by side again with Shiites. This time, "it's very difficult to return," he said. "You should be a Hawthi, or you will be killed."

Safety Regained, Al-Rabie Street Again Teems With Life - washingtonpost.com

Image by ChuckHolton via Flickr

By K.I. Ibrahim
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

More than a year ago, al-Rabie Street, a two-mile swath of office buildings, apartments and homes, was a deserted stretch of Baghdad. Commercial life had stopped. Shops were either shut down or bombed out. Three hospitals catering to the wealthy closed when doctors, nurses and patients simply stopped coming. Their gates were barricaded with metal bars. Restaurants were driven out of business by roaming squads of masked men carrying rifles and ordering everyone, especially women, to comply with strict Islamic dress codes. Jeans were banned -- too Western. Barbers had to close or post signs saying they would do only traditional styles -- no crew cuts, no long hair, no spiky hairdos. One bookshop was burned twice because it sold the government-supported newspaper and magazines with pictures of unveiled women.

Along that urban landscape, there was hardly an intact window. One shop was particularly hard to miss. Inside, tucked behind shattered windows, were chandeliers and light fixtures intact and collecting dust. The shop had given rise to its own rumors. Some said the owner died in a car bomb blast that targeted a soldiers' checkpoint nearby. Others said he just ran for his life, leaving everything behind.

The slow death of al-Rabie Street began with the flare-up of the sectarian civil war in 2006. Within a few months, the majority of the Shiite families living in the Jami'a-Khadraa neighborhood, through which al-Rabie Street runs, were driven out of their homes by armed bands of Sunni extremists linked to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq. Those who refused to leave were attacked. The men were usually killed, while women were allowed to leave unharmed as long as they left everything behind.

This summer, as the government slowly regained control of neighborhoods in western Baghdad, life started to return to the street. The Sunni insurgency was broken, with the help of a U.S.-backed militia, and Shiite militias went underground. Checkpoints proliferated as people returned to the streets. Sidewalks were rebuilt, new medians were constructed and solar-powered street lights were installed.

Windows were replaced by shining new glass imported from Turkey. A music shop boldly displayed a large poster of Dalli, a curvaceous Iraqi pop star, who has become famous the past two years. On Thursday and Friday nights, the shop loudly plays Iraqi pop music. Through the cacophony, wedding parties careen down the street. Ice cream shops have reopened, and at least one adds to the chorus with its own blaring pop tunes.

Restaurants reopened, and no less than three new ones started, with polished entrances and well-lighted billboards. Some have become more ambitious: one hole in the wall that served roasted chicken has graduated to a broader menu of Iraqi favorites: minced meat kebab, charcoaled mutton ribs and soaked tripe.

At midday, the street is bustling with the latest model cars and shoppers buying everything from doormats to computers. Food stalls and shops selling electric appliances, satellite receivers, household items and furniture dot both sides of the street, while construction on half-finished buildings has resumed.

At night, the street is well lit. Shops have small generators to provide them with power even when the national electric grid comes to a halt.

More often than not, the street feels serenely ordinary.

"Everybody's happy," Abdullah Khider said.

The owner of a shop selling cosmetics and perfumes, Khider sees the revival of al-Rabie Street as a blessing. His story is one of thousands of Iraqis who lived through years of violence only to embark on a new era that feels precarious but hopeful.

A machinist at a military plant south of Baghdad, he found himself jobless when American soldiers drove into the capital city in April 2003. To survive, he set up a stall selling household items. Soon, the violence forced him to close down. He left for Syria, where he stayed until last December. Hearing that security had improved, he returned to Baghdad, arriving on New Year's Eve.

"I wanted to make a new start with the new year," he said.

While in Syria, Khider worked at a cosmetics shop, where he learned the trade. On his return, he opened his own shop selling imported cosmetics. Within a few months, he hired a female assistant, who tends to female customers.

He is dressed in a smart suit and tie and smiling as he looks about his store. He said he has finally found the right job: a nice clean shop selling lipstick, false eyelashes, skin conditioners and other cosmetics.

"Business is good and getting better, as the street comes to life again," he said. "People feel safer. You can see them on the street as late as 10 at night, and they want to look better. So they come here to buy what makes them feel alive again."

Head of Banned Pakistani Militant Group Shot Dead

Pakistani police say the leader of a banned Sunni Muslim militant group was shot dead Monday during an attack in the south.

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier stands guard at a tense area after the killing of an Islamic religious leader Ali Sher Haideri, in Karachi, 17 Aug 2009

Officials say gunmen killed Ali Sher Haideri and one of his companions as they were driving in Sindh province, northeast of Karachi. One of the attackers was also killed when Haideri's guards returned fire.

Police said the killing appeared to be related to a personal dispute - not sectarian violence.

Haideri led Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni extremist group blamed for attacks against Pakistan's minority Shi'ites. The group was banned in 2002.

In a separate incident Monday, a truck bomb exploded at a fuel station in the northwest, killing at least six people. The blast hit the town of Charsada, near Peshawar. Officials say two women and at least two children were among the dead.

Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba in 2002 after joining the U.S.-led fight against terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. State Department has labeled the group a terrorist organization.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Iraq’s Shiites Show Restraint After Attacks

By ROD NORDLAND

BAGHDAD — Shiite clerics and politicians have been successfully urging their followers not to retaliate against a fierce campaign of sectarian bombings, in which Shiites have accounted for most of the 566 Iraqis killed since American troops pulled out of Iraq’s cities on June 30.

“Let them kill us,” said Sheik Khudair al-Allawi, the imam of a mosque bombed recently. “It’s a waste of their time. The sectarian card is an old card and no one is going to play it anymore. We know what they want, and we’ll just be patient. But they will all go to hell.”

The patience of the Shiites today is in extraordinary contrast to Iraq’s recent past. With a demographic majority of 60 percent and control of the government, power is theirs for the first time in a thousand years. Going back to sectarian war is, as both Sunni extremists and Shiite victims know, the one way they could lose all that, especially if they were to drag their Sunni Arab neighbors into a messy regional conflict.

It is a far cry from 2006, when a bomb set off at the sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra killed no one, but ignited a fury at the sacrilege that set off two years of sectarian warfare.

This year the equally important shrine of Kadhimiya in Baghdad, the tomb of two revered Shiite imams, was attacked by suicide bombers twice, in January and April. More than a hundred people were killed, but there was no retaliation.

Bombing Shiite mosques has become so common that Sunni extremists have been forced to look elsewhere to provoke outrage — much as they did in 2005, when Shiites similarly showed patience when attacked. They have attacked groups of Shiite refugees waiting for food rations, children gathering for handouts of candy, lines of unemployed men hoping for a day’s work, school buses, religious pilgrimages, weddings, marketplaces and hospitals in Shiite areas and even the funerals of their victims from the day before.

Iraq’s Shiites, counseled by their political and religious leaders and habituated to suffering by centuries as the region’s underclass, have refused to rise to the bait — for now. Instead, they have made a virtue of forbearance and have convinced their followers that they win by not responding with violence. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has brought once violent Shiite militiamen into the fold, while the Shiites’ spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has forbidden any sort of violent reprisals.

“I wouldn’t look for this to become a repeat of 2006,” said the American ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill. “It’s very different.”

No longer are there tit-for-tat bombings of Sunni mosques after Shiite mosques are hit.

Now, even some of the most violent of Shiite extremists of past years are clamoring to join the political process. Last week, the Maliki government announced that Asa’ib al-Haq, one of the so-called special groups that continued to fight after other Shiites had stopped in 2008, now had renounced violence against Iraqis.

To some extent, the recent attacks against Shiites were expected, as many Iraqis braced for a general increase in violence after the American military withdrawal from towns and cities on June 30. On Monday, several bombs went off around Baghdad, and two huge truck bombs destroyed an entire village of Shiites from the Shabak minority near Mosul, in the north.

Ten days earlier, five mosques were bombed during Friday Prayer in poor areas around Baghdad, where followers of the anti-American cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, are numerous. In the bloodiest attack, at the Shoroufi mosque in the Shaab area, a car bomb hit an outdoor prayer area, killing 41 of Mr. Sadr’s followers.

More mosque bombings followed during Friday Prayer last week, and on Tuesday night, at least eight people were killed in twin bombings at a cafe and a mosque in the predominantly Shiite Al Amin area of the capital.

Sheik Allawi, the imam at Al Shoroufi, recounted the lesson another preacher gave a week after the bombing there. “He reminded them of Imam Hussein and drew a connection between his suffering and the Shoroufi bombing,” he said. “Blood will spill on the ground until the Mahdi shows up.”

Shiite Islam is all about patience and the long view, waiting for the hidden 12th imam, the Mahdi, to return and redeem the faith’s followers. And it is also about enduring suffering, as illustrated by the annual and always passionate commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the seventh-century Shiite saint, when many flagellate themselves in bloody displays of regret.

Anger after such bombings is common, but now it is more likely to be directed against failures by Iraqi security forces, not against Sunnis.

In 2006, people had little confidence in the security forces to protect them, so they turned to the militias instead. “The Iraqi Army is not the one people worried about three years ago,” said Ambassador Hill. “They were considered part of the problem a few years ago; now it’s an army that is broadly understood not to be engaged in sectarian violence.”

Militias got a bad name during that period, even among the people they were supposed to protect. Many were blamed for extorting money from their neighborhoods and carrying out kidnappings for profit. “The time of the militias is over and they will not come back,” said Sheik Abdullah al-Shimary, leader of the Shiite Al Shimer tribe in Diyala. “There are security forces now, and they are the ones who have the responsibility to control our areas.”

Another important factor is the influence the Shiite clerical leadership has over its followers, with Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other members of the howza, the top religious leadership, condemning any sort of violent reprisals.

“Sayid Moktada al-Sadr has told us in his instructions that we have to follow the orders of the howza,” said Sheik Jalil al-Sarkhey, the deputy head of the Sadr office in Sadr City, the huge Shiite slum in Baghdad. “We are all agreed; there will be no spilling of Iraqi blood.”

Another important difference has been the rejection by Sunni politicians of attacks on the Shiites, which was rarely heard in 2006. “The Sunnis openly and clearly are condemning these attacks,” said Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a political analyst who directs the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development. “And they’re all emphasizing that this is trying to stir up sectarian violence.”

Majid al-Asadi, a cleric in Najaf, said, “We will not react against these efforts to ignite sectarian conflict because that is exactly what our enemies want and not what our Iraqi people want.”

Still, some Shiite leaders warn that their patience will not be infinite. “As human beings, every person has his limits,” Sheik Sarkhey said. “So we ask God to protect us from any sectarian war.”

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Basra, Karbala, Diyala and Baghdad.

One of Yemen’s 3 Insurgencies Flares Up

By ROBERT F. WORTH

BEIRUT, Lebanon — An intermittent rebellion in northwestern Yemen has flared up again in the past 10 days, leaving dozens dead and wounded and adding a new element of instability to a country that is already facing a violent separatist movement in the south and an increasingly bold insurgency by Al Qaeda.

After a series of armed clashes with the military, Shiite rebels led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi appeared to be in control of several areas of Saada Province, the remote, mountainous area in the north where an insurgency has raged on and off since 2004, witnesses and local officials said. Efforts toward a cease-fire were under way on Sunday and Monday, with no clear result.

Yemen, a poor, arid country in the southern corner of the Arabian peninsula, has gained new attention in recent months from American military officials, who are concerned about Al Qaeda’s efforts to set up a regional base there. Late last month, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top United States commander in the Middle East, visited Yemen and pledged to support its counterterrorism efforts.

The New York Times

The military has clashed with rebels in Saada Province.

Al Qaeda’s growing presence in Yemen — where it took credit for a deadly attack on the American Embassy last year — is especially troubling because the country’s fractious tribes and rugged geography make it notoriously difficult to control.

In recent months, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has expertly played Yemen’s various tribes and factions against one another for decades, has faced more serious threats to his authority.

In the south, a simmering protest movement has burst into open rebellion, with armed rebels raising the flag of the formerly independent South Yemen. In late July, at least 20 people were killed after demonstrators in southern Abyan Province threatened to break open a local prison where detainees were being held. A series of ambushes by rebel forces has left a number of police officers dead; details are difficult to ascertain because the government has clamped down on news coverage.

As important as the violence has been the defection of some leading political figures. In April, Tareq al-Fadhli, an important ally of Mr. Saleh, joined the southern secessionist movement. Mr. Fadhli is an influential tribal figure who fought with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and helped organize former jihadists to fight against a southern secession movement on Mr. Saleh’s behalf in 1994.

North and south Yemen were unified in 1990 after years of turmoil, but many southerners, including former military officers, say they are treated as second-class citizens. Rising unemployment has fueled the discontent.

Last week, in an interview on Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, a member of one of Yemen’s most powerful families surprised the country’s political establishment by calling for Mr. Saleh to step down. The man, Hamid al-Ahmar, whose father was one of Mr. Saleh’s most important allies, brazenly said he could speak out against the president — something scarcely anyone dares to do — because his tribal confederation would protect him.

Yemen has long been a haven for jihadists, and the turmoil of recent years — along with a severe crackdown on terrorism in neighboring Saudi Arabia — has led some Qaeda figures to resettle there. Several former Guantánamo detainees fled this year to Yemen from Saudi Arabia and pledged to mount attacks on Saudi Arabia and other countries from their Yemeni redoubt. The Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda has an active propaganda arm and appears to have built relationships with tribes in the Marib region that have helped protect it, analysts say.

Despite the Yemeni government’s periodic claims that all three insurgencies — in the south, the north and by Al Qaeda — are united against it, there is no evidence that they are working together. Still, the convergence is troubling.

“All of these problems are coalescing and exacerbating each other in ways that are not completely knowable at this time,” said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert who is currently in the country. “The three crises have combined, along with the economy, to make things look bleaker here than they have in a long time.”

Although Yemen has had some notable successes in fighting jihadists and has built a crack counterterrorism strike force, the government has been hampered by a lack of money and by widespread corruption. The country’s small oil supplies are rapidly disappearing, a water crisis is growing worse and the population of 22 million is swelling.

Yemen has also long suffered from violent tribal feuds, banditry and kidnapping, much of it beyond the control of the central government. In June, nine foreigners were kidnapped while on a picnic in Saada Province, and three soon turned up dead. Six remain unaccounted for: three toddlers and their parents, who are German, and a British engineer.

In that context, the renewed violence in the north — where a truce last summer seemed to have ended the war — bodes ill for Yemen’s stability. The conflict has already left thousands dead in the past five years and produced tens of thousands of refugees. It also has troubling sectarian overtones: the rebels are Zaydis, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and the government has sometimes used hard-line Sunni tribesmen as proxy warriors.

The media office for Mr. Houthi, the Shiite rebel leader, issued a statement on Friday saying government helicopters were dropping leaflets calling on the people to take up arms against his supporters. The statement called on the government to stop its attacks and to release Houthi supporters being held in prison.

The rebels and the Yemeni military appear to be building up their forces in the area, and some military officials have predicted that if another round of conflict breaks out in Saada, it will be bloodier than any of those in the past.

Bomb Attacks in Iraq Kill Dozens

A series of bomb blasts in Iraq have killed more than 40 people and wounded at least 200.

Two truck bombs exploded in a Shia village near the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 28 people and injuring more than 130.

Meanwhile, Baghdad was hit by a string of bomb attacks that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 90.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has warned of an upsurge of violence ahead of next January's elections.

Insurgents "will try in any way they can to give the impression that the political process is not stable", he said in a televised news conference.

But he said the government was doing all it could to "deny them a safe environment for [the] planning and implementation of further attacks".

The BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad says the Iraqi government is keen to show its troops are fully in control and capable of doing their job without the help of US forces.

But many Iraqis say this wave of violence is what they feared would happen when US troops pulled back from Iraqi cities a month ago.

Few believe the country's army - perceived by many to be corrupt - is capable of protecting them, our correspondent says.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks, but one minister said they bore the hallmark of al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda stronghold

Truck bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in the village of Khaznah, 20km (13 miles) east of Mosul, at about 0400 (0100 GMT) on Monday.

ANALYSIS
Natalia Antelava, BBC News, Baghdad This string of attacks seems to be well co-ordinated, well organised and it certainly sends a very powerful message to the government of Iraq.

The big question now is can the government handle the security situation? They say they absolutely can.

There are forces in Iraq though that don't want this violence to stop.

And for more and more Iraqis the confidence they have in their government to protect them is decreasing.

Many see the Iraqi security services as corrupt and many fear the violence will escalate.

The blasts were so powerful they completely destroyed at least 30 houses and left a 7ft (2m) crater in the village, which is home to the tiny Shia Shabak ethnic group.

Witnesses spoke of scenes of chaos as people searched through piles of bricks, twisted metal and rubble for buried family members.

"I was sleeping on the roof and I woke up as if there was an earthquake. After that I saw a plume of smoke and dust spreading everywhere," resident Mohammed Kadhem, 37, told the AFP news agency.

"A minute later another bomb went off, knocking me off the roof on to the ground. I was struck unconscious by shrapnel and stones.

Ethnically-mixed Mosul - Iraq's second city - is considered one of the last strongholds of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and still sees frequent attacks despite a decline in violence elsewhere in the country.

Deadly blasts

However, despite security gains in Baghdad, at least three bombs went off in separate parts of the capital on Monday.

Two of the blasts appeared to be targeting labourers who were gathering in the early morning looking for work.

One of the bombs was hidden in a pile of rubbish when it went off in the western district of Hay al-Amel, killing at least seven people and wounding 46.

KEY ATTACKS AFTER US PULLBACK

7 August: A car bomb outside a mosque in Mosul kills 30 people. Six people die in attacks in Baghdad

31 July: At least 27 people die in a string of attacks outside five mosques in Baghdad

9 July: 50 killed in bomb attacks at Talafar (near Mosul), Baghdad, and elsewhere

30 June: Car bomb in Kirkuk kills at least 27 people

30 June: US troops withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities

Minutes later a second bomb went off in the northern area of Shurta Arbaa, killing at least nine people and wounding 35.

There were also reports of a roadside bombing in the southern suburb of Saidiyah, killing at least two people and wounding 14.

This is the latest in a series of deadly blasts in Iraq since US troops pulled back from Iraqi cities at the end of June.

A car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Mosul during a funeral service last Friday, killing 30 people.

Three bombs killed six people returning from a pilgrimage in Baghdad on the same day.

On the Road in Iran

By Hooman Majd | NEWSWEEK

Published May 23, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Jun 1, 2009

On a warm Friday in late April, as I rode back from prayers at the Molla Esmail Mosque in the dusty central Iranian town of Yazd, my companion was a loaded Kalashnikov rifle. The weapon belonged to the man who had just led the Friday prayers, as he does every week: Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Sadoughi, a kindly 60-year-old cleric who normally uses a cane but leans on the rifle when he delivers sermons. Sadoughi is the official representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution for Yazd province. This means that, in addition to leading Friday prayers, he plays host to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei whenever the Iranian leader visits Yazd, where his mother's family is from. This afternoon I too would be a guest at Sadoughi's sumptuously restored historic home in the ancient city center. While I have spent most of my life in the West, Yazd is my hometown as well, and whenever I visit Iran I return there to see relatives, one of whom (through marriage) is Sadoughi's wife, Maryam. Mrs. Sadoughi is a highly educated and erudite woman who, notwithstanding her black chador and obvious Islamic piety, holds reformist—even liberal—political views and is a strong supporter of her brother, the former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami. So too is her husband, owner of the Kalashnikov that lay next to me.

The layers of contradiction that make up the modern Islamic Republic of Iran are both pervasive and confounding, and not any less so in Yazd. Set amid the blistering deserts of central Iran, the city is home to the kind of fierce religiosity bred in Islam's starker landscapes, and many of its sons were sacrificed to the bloody war with Iraq. Yet it is also a capital of pre-Islamic Persia, and is well known for its Zoroastrian temples and grave sites. (At one fire temple, priests continue to tend a flame that they claim has burned for more than 500 years.) It is the only city in the world that can boast two native sons, Khatami and Moshe Katsav, who simultaneously served as presidents of Iran and Israel. Even the mosque where Sadoughi leads prayers is named after a Jewish convert.

The sermon that Sadoughi had delivered that morning had been equally impossible to categorize. He defended the inflammatory speech that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had delivered earlier that week at a United Nations conference on racism, chiding Western nations who "allegedly are … defenders of free speech" for walking out. But he also criticized the government, in this case for failing to ensure that Iranian pilgrims traveling to Iraq were adequately protected, a large number of them having been killed the day before in a suicide bombing near Baghdad. And he conceded that the United States had elected a new president who had promised to change its relationship with Iran. He declared that Iranians were waiting to witness real deeds from Washington, not mere rhetoric. But at the end of his 30--minute sermon, unlike past Friday prayers and prayers that same day in Tehran, there were no chants of "Death to America" or "Death to Israel," not even halfhearted ones. Later that night in his office he repeated, wistfully, the same sentiment—that words alone were not enough from the United States, not for Iranians, who are master rhetoricians, and who well understand the many uses to which they can be put.

Anyone reading a translation of Sadoughi's sermon would quite likely miss the sincerity of his appeal, the doors it carefully left open. After 30 years of enmity, the United States and Iran have almost entirely lost the capacity to interpret such subtle signals. Very few serving U.S. officials have met their Iranian counterparts, and almost none have ever visited Iran. Yet such expertise is more critical than ever, as the administration of President Barack Obama prepares to embark on what could be months of difficult negotiations aimed at halting Iran's nuclear-enrichment program.

After Obama videotaped a Persian New Year's message for the Iranian people, reiterating his offer of unconditional talks, most Western commentators interpreted Khamenei's lengthy and defiant response as a slap in the face. But what would have been most significant to any Iranian listening was a passage at the very end of the speech, when Khamenei said, "If you change, our behavior will also change." Iran's supreme authority had never before used the word "change" in such a context, for up until now the Islamic Republic's position has been that there is nothing objectionable about its behavior. If the Obama administration truly wants to forge a new relationship with Iran, it will have to learn to hear the things Iranians are saying to them, whether it be the Supreme Leader or the rifle-toting Sadoughi.

I had come to Yazd to begin a road journey north, to Tehran. The route is a well--traveled one; it starts all the way in the south at the ports on the Persian Gulf, crosses deserts, and runs past cities such as Isfahan and Qum before entering the capital, a megalopolis that is home to 20 percent of Iran's population. While that 20 percent is of great significance in terms of what Iran is and how Iranians think, we, and even Iranians themselves, often forget or neglect the other 80 percent. Only by getting out of the confines of Tehran can one fully appreciate all the different, contradictory worlds that constitute modern Iran.

The drive from Yazd to Isfahan, along highways 71 and 62W through the vast desert, can be a colorless, mind-numbing journey, punctuated by occasional patches of green as one crosses villages and towns, and green highway signs every few miles praising Allah or offering a Shia exhortation. If one has any doubt that the common people of Iran are as pious as their government, one need only read the signs painted on virtually every private truck and bus traversing the highway, which all spell out the same messages. They often compete with absurd images of Mickey Mouse or misspelled English words like "rode warrier," and even Shia expressions written in the Latin alphabet.

Along the highway, I passed through two police checkpoints, one ostensibly to catch illegal immigrants (Afghans, mostly, who cross the border almost as frequently as Hispanics do the Mexican border with the United States), the other to catch smugglers (mostly opium and heroin, again from Afghanistan). The magnitude of Iran's drug problem—more than 1 million Iranians are estimated to be addicted to narcotics—was visible not just from the checkpoint but also at a teahouse I stopped at near Naien, where a young man in his 20s was dozing off on a bench by the door. Every few minutes he would open his eyes and stare absent-mindedly into the distance, ignoring my driver and me, and then nod off again. When the proprietor brought out our tea, he looked at me apologetically and gestured to a third cup on his tray. "When they smoke a pipe, they get sleepy," he said, shaking his head as he placed the cup in front of the young man and exhorted him to drink.

Built by the 16th-century Safavid dynasty (which first declared Shia Islam the national religion) as its capital, Isfahan is perhaps Iran's most beautiful city. Famous for its large town square and the mosques and palaces that surround it, the city is also known for its bazaar and for the business acumen of its citizens, some of whom trade in the exquisite Persian carpets that, along with its stunning architecture, make Isfahan world-renowned (or at least that's what the Isfahanis think). Isfahanis seem to other Iranians the way Iranians often seem to the rest of the world: they can be a prickly lot and fiercely chauvinistic, not least because they view their city as the epitome of culture, and have, for as long as can be remembered, referred to Isfahan as "nesf-e-jahan," or "half the world." This self-regard is evident almost from the moment one enters the city, as first my Yazdi driver asking directions complains about the surly reaction from locals, and then the clerk at my hotel, after having a few words in English with an irate European tourist, turns to me and says, in Farsi, "They ride us over there and want to ride us here too."

Our image of a bazaar—a maze of tiny shops and shopkeepers hawking inferior goods or preying on unsuspecting and often lost customers—is only partially accurate. Isfahan's bazaar houses not just hundreds of stalls but offices, often hidden away, where the real business is done: the coppersmith hammering pots and pans may be working for a man engaged in the wholesale trade of copper wire and piping. When the bazaar goes on strike (as it did during the revolution, contributing greatly to the fall of the shah) or threatens to do so (as it did more recently, in reaction to a planned new tax) it's not just shoppers who are inconvenienced; the entire economy of the country can grind to a halt.

At one dark shop selling shoes, not too far from the bazaar's grand entrance, I noticed some traditional slippers interspersed among cheap Iranian- and -Chinese-made shoes. They are hard to come by, since most Iranians prefer Western styles, and I engaged the shopkeeper, asking him which style he thought was best. This threw him for a moment. He sized me up, wondering if I might be a tougher negotiator than he'd imagined. "Who do you want them for?" he asked. "Yourself?" I told him I was just wondering, and he then listed the relative advantages of each style, told me which city they were from and why each of them might be best suited to my ambiguous purpose. He guided me to one pair that I'd paid a little more attention to than the others, rather nice, and told me they were particularly fine, and only $40. I picked up the pair next to it, identical to the ones the doormen at my hotel wore, and he launched into a sermon on how they were the finest shoes, completely handmade and indestructible. They happened to cost only $60, he said, but I knew they could be had for less than $40 in Tehran. I also knew, of course, that I could bargain him down to $40, but I thanked him and left.

Contrary to the perception that bazaar merchants will follow a customer out of the store, as some do in tourist-heavy Arab countries such as Morocco, in Iran a bazaari would consider that kind of behavior beneath his dignity and a sign of weakness and desperation. The shoe salesman knew two things: one, that if I really wanted a pair of Persian slippers I would be back, and two, if I came back he'd negotiate in earnest and make a sale. He did not need to waste time with someone he wasn't sure was serious, and he would not enter into negotiations unless he felt both he and the customer could and would deliver, and part satisfied with the transaction. Negotiating, in the bazaar or elsewhere, is a practical matter for Iranians. As Ali Larijani, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator and now speaker of Parliament, said when asked if he'd been moved by Obama's video message: "Our problems with America are not emotional."

The highlight of the drive from Isfahan to Qum, at least for someone from the West, has to be the Natanz nuclear-enrichment facility, located outside a once unremarkable town and conveniently right alongside the highway. It is easy to miss, but few drivers resist the temptation to point it out, especially to foreigners. What is visible in the distance are a number of buildings, which can also be seen on Google Earth, but it is up to one's imagination to picture the now thousands of centrifuges spinning tens or hundreds of meters below ground, depending on whom one believes. Stopping by the side of the road will invite a swift response by the Revolutionary Guards. Still, the facility's presence right there for all to see on one of the more heavily traveled highways in Iran naturally raises the question of whether Iran's nuclear program has been worth the cost. The answer is yes, according to the vast majority of Iranians, even though some may disagree with their government on almost any other matter.

Ever since Iran's enrichment program was revealed, the government has done a much better job of justifying it to its own people than to the outside world. Iranians know well that before the Islamic revolution, their country suffered at the hands of the great powers—Great Britain, Russia and the United States—whether through cripplingly one-sided tobacco and oil concessions, land grabs or outright regime change. Framing the nuclear issue as one of the rights, or haq, of the Iranian people that the same powers now want to deny them was a brilliant move. It ensured support for the government's insistence on taking full advantage of every right afforded it under the Nuclear Non--Proliferation Treaty, whether absolutely necessary or not. The United States has questioned Iran's need to make its own fuel for reactors not yet built. But to Iranians, the idea that their nation should be dependent on outside sources for fuel when the reactors finally are built is anathema. If President Obama would like to liberate America from dependence on foreign oil suppliers, many Iranians argue, then why should Iran be forced to depend on foreign sources for its energy?

That doesn't mean every Iranian agrees with the Ahmadinejad style of negotiating the nuclear issue, in which he's conflated defending Iran's rights with denying the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist. But Iranians do agree with the fundamental principle, one that the more genteel Khatami government also adhered to—i.e., that Iran will not give up its haq simply because greater powers say it should.

My driver on the road to Qum—an off-duty Isfahan policeman who much to my alarm could barely keep his eyes open at the beginning of our journey, thankfully due to a sleepless night of crimefighting rather than a heavy dose of morning opium—was no exception. I wondered, given that he admitted he couldn't make ends meet on his policeman's salary of $300 a month and was forced to drive a car two or three days a week, whether he might still be as enamored of President Ahmadinejad as he was when he voted for him four years ago. "He's done many good things," he said to me, "and he works really hard for the people." Patrolman Ali was unconcerned with Israel, and granted that better relations with the United States could improve the deteriorating economic situation in the country. But he felt that he should leave the big political issues to the experts, for he had only a high-school diploma. That Iranian scientists have mastered enrichment technology at Natanz is not only a source of pride for Isfahani policemen, but also for almost all Iranians, who place a premium on scientific study and who rigorously apply an honorific—"Mohandes"—to anyone who has a degree in engineering.

Qum, Iran's religious capital, holds a special place in the hearts of the pious, though my driver was not starry-eyed about its virtues. "Blessed as this place is," he said as we entered the city, "it is cursed by its hot weather and salty water. God gives and he takes." I mentioned that the birthplace of Islam in Arabia was also no paradise in terms of ab o' hava ("water and weather," a favorite expression and obsession of -Iranians), and although the thought hadn't occurred to a native of Shiraz who lived in Isfahan, two cities known for good ab o' hava, it only confirmed to him that Allah works in mysterious ways.

Qum is home to a major pilgrimage site—the grave of Fatemeh, sister of Imam Reza—and its dozens of seminaries are the foundation of the clerical establishment at the heart of the Islamic Republic. But five minutes outside town lies another mosque, at Jamkaran, the site of a vision of the hidden Twelfth Imam, who went into occultation 11 centuries ago. For years Jamkaran was an obscure site, apart from the Qum orthodoxy, but since Ahmadinejad came to power and started talking about the return of the Mahdi, or messiah, it has grown into what can only be described as a megamosque, and one that dwarfs the megachurches of California or Texas. On Tuesdays (the day the Mahdi allegedly appeared at the site) and on Fridays hundreds of thousands of pilgrims show up, on foot, by car and by coach, to pray, picnic and to drop a handwritten note into a well (actually two wells, gender-segregated but close) where some believe the Mahdi will read them and perhaps grant the wishes of the petitioners. I had visited three years ago on a Tuesday evening, in time for the dusk prayer and in the company of an overflowing crowd of what seemed like millions. But on this trip my car pulled into the new parking area on a Sunday afternoon, a normal workday in Islamic countries. I was struck by the scale of the construction: hundreds of thousands of square feet of new covered space surrounded the main mosque, and new minarets on the edges of the grounds could be seen from miles away.

It is tempting to think of Jamkaran as emblematic of a Shia obsession with the end of days—some have used it to argue that Ahmadinejad's government is seeking nuclear weapons in order to hasten the apocalypse and the return of the Mahdi. But Jamkaran is much more a place for people, admittedly pious, to get away from the rigors of life, and to hope that through their journey here they will somehow be saved. Begging favors of a hidden imam (as preposterous as his presence at the bottom of a well may seem) is not, as far as some Iranians are concerned, that different from Roman Catholic belief in the healing powers of a visit to Lourdes. On this day a group of a half dozen or so women in chadors were picnicking and enjoying themselves under one section of the half-finished extension to the mosque. At the well, I approached a group of young boys dropping notes down to the Mahdi. One of them, trying to peer through the grate into the pitch-black depths, asked me if I had a flashlight. "Do you think there's someone down there?" I asked him. "We want to see," he replied, and I suspected he and his friends were unconvinced by the myth. An older man stood at the counters nearby, deep in thought and jotting down words on a small piece of paper, collecting his thoughts, and then writing some more.

A tall, slender and handsome young woman in a black chador, with the faintest hint of makeup, furiously scribbled at another counter, oblivious to the fact that she was in the men's section. She folded her note, walked up to the well and dropped it through the grate. "A special favor?" I asked her. She looked at me suspiciously for a moment, and I explained that I was a reporter. "It's private," she said, "but we all have problems, don't we?" She walked away, perhaps skeptical that I had no ulterior motives. Her answer and her demeanor, however, spoke volumes. She was purposeful and had no time for state-imposed gender segregation. Whatever her "problem" was she didn't want to take it to a mullah in Qum who might lecture her on the fine points of Islam or Islamic behavior. (Indeed, a yearning for the Mahdi can be seen as a rejection of clerical rule, for the ayatollahs exist to defend Islam only in the absence of the Mahdi, and presumably will have outlived their usefulness upon his return to the physical world.) And she felt she had a place to go, on a weekday when perhaps her family or husband were at work, to unburden herself. Other people I talked to, both times I visited, were hoping for everything from a cure for a backache to a relief from debt, and the presence of well-marked infirmaries on the grounds suggests that Iran, a nation of hypochondriacs, is as concerned with survival as it is with salvation.

Just before reaching Tehran's train station, traditionally the southern gateway to the capital, one passes through a neighborhood called Javadieh. Once a notoriously rough area—Tehran's South Bronx or Compton, and nicknamed "Texas" for its Wild West atmosphere—it is rarely visited by most Tehranis even today. Yet the neighborhood is far less seedy than it once was. Modern apartment blocks compete with the older mud-brick buildings crowded onto narrow alleys and streets. New cars are parked everywhere.

This is Ahmadinejad territory. Although the president was actually raised in a lower-middle-class neighborhood farther north, his appeal as a man of the people, an incorruptible and unpretentious politician who has the interests of the poor at heart, is strongest in places like Javadieh. South Tehran is deeply religious, yes, but, more important, working class—suspicious and resentful of authority, particularly if that authority is identified with Iran's wealthy elite (many of whom are clerics). Residents turn out to vote in great numbers, with good reason: the Tehran mayors they've elected, including Ahmadinejad, have transformed this part of the city. Its denizens now enjoy good schools, parks and clean streets, as well as something that was once impossible in a strict class society: hope. Ahmadinejad's health-insurance plans for the poor and doubling of government pensions have won him many fans in Javadieh, but at least as important is his example of a poor-boy-made-good. Often he is respectfully referred to as Dr. Ahmadinejad, to note his Ph.D. (in traffic management).

The freedoms we value so much in the West are nowhere near as attractive as this new social mobility. On the streets of Javadieh, I stopped to talk to a man parking a late-model Pride (basically an -Iranian-made Kia) in front of a butcher shop displaying the heads and feet of sheep on the sidewalk. "In my father's day we could not have imagined owning a car, much less a new one, or taking vacations," he said, adding, "Shokr"—an expression meaning "one must be grateful." As bad as the economy is in Iran, with double-digit inflation (meas-ured in dollars) and unenviable unemployment statistics, every single motorcyclist I saw on Javadieh's traffic-clogged streets had a cell phone poking out of his pocket.

The Middle East's longest street begins at the railway station. Once vaingloriously and eponymously named by the Pahlavi dynasty, it is now Vali-asr Boulevard, and it runs uphill to the very northern extremes of the city. Whereas downtown one sees mostly older men and women dressed conservatively—even shabbily, almost as a badge of pride—jeans, colorful headscarves and gelled hair become more common in the boulevard's northern stretches. At Vanak Circle, a busy intersection with a JumboTron in one corner that unofficially demarcates North Tehran from the rest of the city, I stopped at a newsstand to pick up an English-language newspaper while a young man pushed in front of me to pay for his. I asked him who he thought would win the June 12 elections. "God forbid that anyone but Ahmadinejad does!" he replied. I was taken aback, and he noticed my surprise. "Let Ahmadinejad win," he explained, "and he'll be the downfall of the entire system."

Sentiments like that often give outsiders the impression that it's only a matter of time before Iran's youth—who make up three quarters of the population—overthrow their government. Yet while young Iranians can be just as focused on having fun as they are everywhere else in the world, the rights we ordinarily think of as lacking in Iran, such as the right to dress or behave as one pleases, are not their main concerns. Generally speaking, they are free to do as they please behind closed doors. They can watch first-run (if bootleg) Hollywood movies, on Samsung flat-screen TVs, while downloading songs to their iPods. (They can also drink alcohol, bootlegged through Kurdistan, and, even more cheaply, do drugs.) Even those who rebel against the austere social climate are as proud of their Persian-ness, their history and their culture as any other Iranian. Although they tend to be wealthy, well traveled and in many ways quite Westernized, they don't necessarily want their nation to be anything but independent of both East and West.

North Tehranis react with the same outrage as other Iranians whenever an American map shows the Persian Gulf as "the Gulf," or whenever Hollywood depicts Persians in anything less than a flattering light (such as in the movies Not Without My Daughter or 300). In late April, reports that Arab countries had demanded that Iran remove the name "Persian Gulf" from medals and brochures for the Islamic Solidarity Games to be held in Tehran in October sparked a particularly strong reaction all over town. "Screw them," yelled a friend of mine, a man educated in the West, completely Westernized, and hardly a supporter of the government. "Let the Arabs stay home—who gives a damn?" His indignant outbursts on the matter continued for days.

Near its end Vali-asr climbs steeply, into the foothills of the snowcapped Alborz Mountains. Here lies the home of the Islamic Revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's family compound, Jamaran. Mrs. Sadoughi's brother, former president Mohammad Khatami, has an office here, in a villa granted to him by the Khomeinis, who are now almost all reformists. Khatami relishes his new role as an éminence grise of Iranian politics, and on the day I visited him in his stately offices, he was besieged in various drawing rooms by politicians, mullahs, women in chadors and journalists, all vying for a few minutes of his time. In private, he appeared relieved that he had abandoned his campaign for the presidency. I told him that there had been disappointment in many quarters when he endorsed another reformist candidate, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. "It is better to be a kingmaker than king," he joked to me in English.

It was a platitude, but I realized he was right. The Supreme Leader is, naturally, the supreme kingmaker in Iran, but there are others, including Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, and Parliament Speaker Larijani. With myriad power centers and constituencies to keep satisfied (much as in the United States), running for or even being president requires compromises that a behind-the-scenes politician need not make. Khatami's decision to forgo an arduous campaign makes sense given the stakes this time around for whoever wins: the possibility of forging a détente with America after 30 years of open hostility. Some U.S. officials may have hoped that Khatami would be their partner in renewing ties, but he did the Obama administration a favor by choosing not to be king. Iran needs a president who can convince not just North Tehran but South, not just Tehranis but Yazdis, that the "change" the Supreme Leader promised is in their best interests. Khatami knows he can be more influential in this process, posht-e-pardeh, or "behind the curtain." In a land of mysteries, it is, not surprisingly, a favorite expression.

Majd is the author of The Ayatollah Begs To Differ.

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