29Dec03-Robin Pomeroy-'Don't Call Me Osama,' Iraqi Imams Tell U.S. Troops
Mon December 29, 2003 08:30 AM ET
By Robin Pomeroy
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's Sunni Muslim imams have a message for U.S. troops -- don't call us Osama.
As the U.S. curries support with Iraq's religious leaders, some soldiers are undermining the battle to win Muslim hearts and minds by accusing local clerics of links to al Qaeda, imams in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland said on Monday.
"Some of the coalition forces describe us as an Osama Bin Laden group because of the beard," said Abaas Zedaan, an official at the Committee of Religious Advocation, the official body which represents the clergy in the region of Tikrit.
"Osama doesn't represent all Muslims. He did something wrong and put Muslims in trouble all over the world. He doesn't work according to Islamic law."
As U.S. soldiers handed a fleet of cars to imams in Tikrit on Monday as a goodwill gesture, some of the clerics took the chance to complain about their treatment.
"Coalition forces say we are an Osama Bin Laden group, why are we not considered a friend?" one asked Major Derek Jordan through an army interpreter, saying he had been verbally abused by soldiers at a roadblock.
Friends is exactly what the U.S. Army hopes the imams will become.
In the Tikrit region, where there is still loyalty to the former regime and open hostility to the occupation, the army has begun a program to reach out to imams in the hope that they will preach cooperation with the coalition and not resistance.
While most clerics in Iraq condemn violence against foreign troops, many have criticized the occupation, and some more radical imams have urged a jihad against U.S.-led forces.
As part of the outreach effort, the 4th Infantry bought 24 cars to hand out to imams in the three provinces under its control in the "Sunni triangle" area of northern Iraq.
Jordan handed over keys for eight used silver Peugeot 406s to imams picked by the head of the religious committee, saying they would help the clerics get out to mosques in more remote villages and spread the word of cooperation.
"We offer these cars as a sign of good faith in the religious engagement process," Jordan told the imams as they waited in a dusty parking lot outside a U.S. base south of Tikrit. "We expect good things from all religious leaders."
On the issue of soldiers accusing the imams of links to bin Laden, Jordan said: "That's the first time I've heard that." He would instruct soldiers not to say it, he added.
"It's one of those insensitive items," he said. "We have to communicate that that is improper behavior."
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