Hundreds of thousands...demonstrated against Washington’s presence.
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Shia clergy denounce US troop presence
A cleric at one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines in the Iraqi city Karbala denounced the presence of US troops in the country during Friday prayers, saying it amounted to imperialism by “unbelievers.”
“We reject this foreign occupation, which is a new imperialism. We don’t want it anymore,” Sheikh Kaazem Al-Abahadi Al-Nasari told thousands of Muslim faithful at the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, revered by the Shias and the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.
An Iraqi Shia woman takes her child to the Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala, some 100 km south of Baghdad for preparations ahead of the anniversary of Imam Hussein's death next week
“We don’t need the Americans. They’re here to control our oil. They’re unbelievers, but as for us, we have the power of faith,” he said.
Friday prayers resumed at this sacred site last week for the first time since May 2002 after being banned by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, fearful of Shia opposition to his rule.
Iraq’s 25- million strong community is 60 percent Shia and were violently repressed and politically not represented under Hussein.
The Shias are flexing their collective muscle for the first time in decades.
Sheikh Nasri denounced “those politicians who are coming back to Iraq supported by the Americans and British, who given the opportunity would only obey American orders.”
His speech may have been a veiled jab at Ahmad Chalabi, who bills himself as a secular Shia, and reportedly a Pentagon favorite for leading Iraq. Chalabi, who left Iraq in 1958 and returned in recent months, said Friday he had no plans for running the country.
Sheikh Nasri also called on Shias to back the Hawza, the Shia religious school in another holy city Najaf, which has witnessed violence in recent days over who will lead the religious community.
Spirits were also high in the Shia shantytown in Baghdad were the Al-Hikma mosque held the first Friday prayers since 1999 riots sparked by the assassination of a prominent cleric Mohammad Sadeq Sadr.
Some 50,000 people jammed the streets of Al-Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City, patrolled by Kalashnikov-wielding guards.
Hundreds of thousands poured out of mosques and demonstrated against Washington’s presence. The sermons around the city offered the first clear reaction among Muslim clergy to the three-week war and US occupation.
At the Al-Hikma mosque Sheikh Mohammad Fartusi said the Shia would not accept a brand of democracy “that allows Iraqis to say what they want but gives them no say in their destiny.”
“This form of government would be worse than Saddam Hussein,” he said. He also urged the faithful to follow the Hawza in Najaf.
If they initially offered a cautious hand, Iraqis are becoming increasingly critical of the US failure to restore order and basic services such as water and electricity.
The head of the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), which has a major following in Iraq, has called for a “political regime guaranteeing liberty, independence and justice for all Iraqis under the reign of Islam.”
Lebanon’s top Shia cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah urged Iraqis on Friday to open their eyes to the US occupation and to rebuild Iraq without Washington or London’s supervision.
“We call on the oppressed good people of Iraq…to prevent the birth of a new dictator from inside and abroad and to open their eyes to the methods of the occupier,” said Fadlallah in his sermon.
“We trust you…to come together without American or British oversight to build a new Iraq that respects the people and gives them their rights,” he said.
The United States has appointed retired army general Jay Garner to lead an interim administration in Iraq.
Fadlallah warned that Washington would use the chaos in Iraq to show that Iraqis could not govern themselves.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Christians marked Good Friday with prayers for resurrection of peace and normality. But many Christians expressed concern that the collapse of Hussein’s government and the advent of democracy in a Muslim majority nation could spell an end to the relative religious freedom they enjoyed under the secular Baath Party.
Some fear a backlash from those who considered them allies of Hussein.
Christians account for about 400,000, most of them Chaldeans, an old Catholic sect that originated in Iraq. But there are other sects, including Protestants. --- Al Jazeera and agencies |
