BAGHDAD MUSLIM CLERIC HATE!
Shiite Cleric Calls Maliki Visit to U.S. a Betrayal
The premier's failure to condemn American policy helped neither Iraq nor Lebanon, the sheik says.
By Jeffrey
Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
July 29, 2006
BAGHDAD — In a sermon rich with
bloody imagery and religious struggle, an influential Shiite Muslim cleric
Friday condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's trip to Washington this
week as a betrayal of Islam and a humiliation to his people at the hands of U.S.
and Israeli aggressors.
Sheik Aws Khafaji intertwined the bloodshed in Iraq and Lebanon, calling it a
design by Christians and Jews to defeat the Muslim world. He criticized Maliki's
speech before the U.S. Congress and asked: "What forced you to eat with the
occupiers? Is that your reward? You know more than anybody else that the car
bombings, terrorism, explosions and bloodletting in Iraq are under the
protection of Zionist-American plans."
The sermon during Friday prayers
in Baghdad came as U.S. and Iraqi forces planned a wider crackdown to stop the
unrelenting sectarian violence that has pushed this nation into an undeclared
civil war. Khafaji's comments also added another sensitive dynamic to Iraqi
politics — the sheik is a confidant of Muqtada Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric
whose movement controls a well-armed militia and 30 seats in parliament.
Sadr and his followers often use overheated rhetoric to attack Iraq's leaders,
but Khafaji's sermon was a pointed attempt to link the recent bloodshed in
Lebanon with the violence that has beset this country since the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003. The sheik said that Maliki had sold his soul by traveling to
Washington to meet with President Bush and gain applause from Congress.
"Islam is aloof from you," Khafaji said, referring to Maliki.
Shortly after Khafaji and other clerics finished their sermons, the sounds of
violence reverberated across Iraq. A bomb exploded outside the Sunni Ali Adheem
mosque and youth center located in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in
Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding nine others.
In the Tikrit region, five gunmen in two cars opened fire on a house, killing
two men believed to have been employed at a nearby U.S. base.
In a separate incident, the U.S. military said a Marine was killed Thursday
during fighting in Al Anbar province in western Iraq. U.S. officials also
reported that American and Iraqi forces killed 33 militants this week in a
daylong firefight in Musayyib. A news release said the battle began after
militants attacked a police station. The U.S. called in an Abrams tank and an
Apache helicopter, which fired on a fuel truck suspected of carrying explosives.
Maliki's government has been unable to stop the killing that has paralyzed
businesses and turned neighborhoods into blocks of fear. During his Washington
trip, the prime minister announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces would soon crack
down on death squads and insurgents in Baghdad. The number of American troops in
the city is expected to increase from 9,000 to more than 13,000. U.S. officials
announced this week that 3,500 troops scheduled to be rotated home would stay
another four months in Iraq.
On Friday, one of the country's leading Shiite figures, Abdelaziz Hakim, told
followers in the holy city of Najaf that he opposed an increase in U.S. forces.
"We must activate the project of popular committees to secure the
neighborhoods," said Hakim, whose Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
is one of the biggest factions in the country's coalition government. "The
security file should be handed over to the Iraqi forces and no one should
interfere with it. The interference in the work of Iraqi security forces
prevents them from catching terrorists."
A Sunni Arab cleric in Fallouja, Tariq Hamd, said that "sectarian intolerance
will no doubt lead to the breakup of society and make it unable to face the
enemy of God…. All the sectarian actions have been the creation of the Zionists"
and the Iranians.
Maliki is under increasing domestic and international pressure. He rankled the
Bush administration by criticizing "Israeli aggression" in Lebanon. But to his
hard-line critics at home, the prime minister has drifted under the spell of
U.S. interests and has not been vocal enough about U.S. and Israeli actions in
the region.
Khafaji said Maliki's Washington visit helped neither the Iraqis nor the
Lebanese. He said the prime minister "rewarded" the Americans and the Israelis
by not condemning U.S. policy in the region. And, he said, Maliki betrayed the
Iraqi people by agreeing to allow more U.S. troops into Baghdad.
"Allah, history and the Muslims will never forget this," Khafaji said. "You are
responsible in front of God."
He added that "each drop of blood" spilled in Iraq was "done according to
American plans."