Official Lies over Najaf Battle Exposed

*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

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*NAJAF, Iraq, Jan 31 (IPS) - Iraqi government lies over the killing of
hundreds of Shias in an attack on Sunday stand exposed by independent
investigations carried out by IPS in Iraq.*

Conflicting reports had arisen earlier on how and why a huge battle
broke out around the small village Zarqa, located just a few kilometres
northeast of the Shia holy city Najaf, which is 90 km south of Baghdad.

One thing certain is that when the smoke cleared, more than 200 people
lay dead after more than half a day of fighting Sunday Jan. 28. A U.S.
helicopter was shot down, killing two soldiers. Twenty-five members of
the Iraqi security force were also killed.

"We were going to conduct the usual ceremonies that we conduct every
year when we were attacked by Iraqi soldiers," Jabbar al-Hatami, a
leader of the al-Hatami Shia Arab tribe told IPS.

"We thought it was one of the usual mistakes of the Iraqi army killing
civilians, so we advanced to explain to the soldiers that they killed
five of us for no reason. But we were surprised by more gunfire from the
soldiers."

The confrontation took place on the Shia holiday of Ashura which
commemorates Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the most
revered of Shia saints. Emotions run high at this time, and
self-flagellation in public is the norm.

Many southern Shia Arabs do not follow Iranian-born cleric Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. They believe the religious leadership should be kept in the
hands of Arab clerics. Al-Hatami and al-Khazaali are two major tribes
that do not follow Sistani.

Tribal members from both believe the attack was launched by the central
government of Baghdad to stifle growing Shia-Sunni unity in the area.

"Our convoy was close to the al-Hatami convoy on the way to Najaf when
we heard the massive shooting, and so we ran to help them because our
tribe and theirs are bound with a strong alliance," a 45-year-old man
who asked to be referred to as Ahmed told IPS.

Ahmed, a member of the al-Khazali tribe said "our two tribes have a
strong belief that Iranians are provoking sectarian war in Iraq which is
against the belief of all Muslims, and so we announced an alliance with
Sunni brothers against any sectarian violence in the country. That did
not make our Iranian dominated government happy."

The fighting took place on the Diwaniya-Najaf road and spread into
nearby date-palm plantations after pilgrims sought refuge there.

"American helicopters participated in the slaughter," Jassim Abbas, a
farmer from the area told IPS. "They were soon there to kill those
pilgrims without hesitation, but they were never there for helping
Iraqis in anything they need. We just watched them getting killed group
by group while trapped in those plantations."

Much of the killing was done by U.S. and British warplanes, eyewitnesses
said.

Local authorities including the office of Najaf Governor Asaad Abu
Khalil who is a member of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) had claimed before the killings that a group
of primarily foreign Sunni fighters with links to al-Qaeda had planned
to disrupt the Ashura festival by attacking Shia pilgrims and senior
ayatollahs in Najaf. The city is the principal seat of religious
learning for Shias in Iraq.

Officials claimed that Iraqi security forces had obtained intelligence
information from two detained men that had led the Iraqi Scorpion
commando squad to prepare for an attack. The intelligence claimed
obviously had little impact on how events unfolded.

Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani announced to reporters at 9 am
Sunday morning that Najaf was being attacked by al-Qaeda. Immediately
following this announcement the Ministry of National Security (MNS)
announced that the dead were members of the Shia splinter extremist
group Jund al-Sama (Army of Heaven) who were out to kill senior
ayatollahs in Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Iraq's national security advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaii said just 15 minutes
after the MNS announcement that hundreds of Arab fighters had been
killed, and that many had been arrested. Rubaii claimed there were
Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans.

But Governor Khalil's office backed away from its initial claims after
the dead turned out to be local Shia Iraqis. Iraqi security officials
continue to contradict their own statements. Most officials now say that
the dead were Shia extremists supported by foreign powers.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has a pattern of
announcing it is fighting terrorists, like its backers in Washington.
Many Iraqis in the south now accuse Baghdad of calling them terrorists
simply because they refuse to collaborate with the Iranian dominated
government.


(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our
specialist writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq
and has been covering the Middle East for several years.)