By DHinMI
Back in February, the American press was all atwitter that Osama bin Laden was supposedly recruiting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to launch attacks on Grand Forks or Flagstaff or Darrien. What they almost all completely missed was that the message reportedly interecepted from Zarqawi to bin Laden was really Zarqawi's proposal to try to start a war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiites. Well, a little while ago Zarqawi, after claiming credit for a horrific series of bombings in Baghdad, declared war:
A suicide bomber killed 114 people in a crowd of Shi'ite laborers in the bloodiest of a wave of attacks in Baghdad, and a statement attributed to Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared war on Shi'ites.
A total of more than 150 people were killed in Wednesday's violence and the suicide bombing was the second deadliest single attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the start soon afterwards of an insurgency by Sunni Arabs.
Fears of civil war have grown in the run-up to an October 15 referendum on a disputed new constitution for Iraq that is backed by the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government. Sunni politicians oppose the charter.
Zarqawi said his declaration of war on Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims was in response to the offensive mounted by U.S. and Iraqi forces against insurgents in the town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, according to an Internet audio tape...
"Al Qaeda Organization in Iraq ... has declared war against Shi'ites in all of Iraq," said the voice on the audio tape, sounding like that on previous recordings attributed to Zarqawi. No immediate verification was available.
"As for the government, servants of the crusaders headed by (Iraqi Prime Minister) Ibrahim Jaafari, they have declared a war on Sunnis in Tal Afar. You have begun and started the attacks and you won't see mercy from us," the voice said...
U.S. officials said Zarqawi's apparent declaration of war against Shi'ites later in the day could reflect a disagreement between the Jordanian-born militant and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, had criticized previous attacks on Shi'ites in rhetoric viewed as strategic guidance for Zarqawi, the officials said.
"Clearly they don't agree on everything. While they have some common goals, Zarqawi has his own agenda," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be identified.
I doubt this reflects a serious breech between Zarqawi and bin
Laden. Bin Laden is a bitter foe of the Iranian regime, and as a
Wahabbi, he has no love for the Shiites. How this plays out with
regards to the constitutional vote, I don't know. There has been a
growing tactical alliance between the poor Shiites who are followers of
al Sadr, and the main political and religious leaders of the Sunni
community, all of whom believe the proposed constitution, which would
likely put all the oil wealth in the hands of the Kurds in the north
and the Shiites in the south, would impoverish the mostly Sunni central
part of the country, but which is also al Sadr's power base. This will
certainly put pressures on the the Shiites opposed to the constitution
to break from their tactical alliance with the Sunni and call for the
approval of the constitution.
Whatever the case, this is further evidence that Iraq is degenerating further into intersectarian strife and chaos. And Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari is still in the American Heartland, nowhere near the country that was never in his control and is spiraling further away from his grasp.
No comments at all? Well, thanks, DHinMI. I was looking for some follow-up on this development which seems to have been swallowed by Katrina and Roberts.
Posted by: kainah | September 15, 2005 at 20:35