- FALLUJAH - A stepped
up military offensive that targets mosques, religious leaders and Islamic
customs is leading many Iraqis to believe that the US-led invasion really
was a "holy war."
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- Photographs are being circulated of black crosses painted
on mosque walls and on copies of the Quran, and of soldiers dumping their
waste inside mosques. New stories appear frequently of raids on mosques
and brutal treatment of Islamic clerics, leading many Iraqis to ask if
the invasion and occupation was a war against Islam.
-
- Many Iraqis now recall remarks by US President George
W. Bush shortly after the events of Sep. 11, 2001 when he told reporters
that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while."
-
- "Bush's tongue 'slipped' more than once when he
spoke of 'fascist Islamists' and used other similar expressions that touched
the very nerve of Muslims around the world," Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubayssi
of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), a leading Sunni group, told
IPS in Baghdad. "We wish they were just mere slips, but what is going
on repeatedly makes one think of crusades over and over."
-
- Occupation forces claim that mosque raids are being conducted
because holy places are being used by resistance fighters.
-
- A leaflet distributed in Fallujah by US forces late November
said mosques were being used by "insurgents" to conduct attacks
against "Multinational Forces," and that this would lead to "taking
proper procedures against those mosques."
-
- The statement referred to daily sniper attacks against
occupation forces in Fallujah in which many US soldiers have been killed.
-
- Local people refute these claims made by coalition forces.
-
- "Fighters never used mosques for attacking Americans
because they realize the consequences and reactions from the military,"
a member of the local municipality council of Fallujah told IPS on condition
of anonymity. "Nonetheless, US soldiers always targeted our mosques
and their minarets."
-
- During Operation Phantom Fury of November 2004, scores
of mosques in Fallujah were damaged or destroyed completely. Fallujah is
known as the city of mosques because it has so many.
-
- Many of these are Sunni mosques. AMS leaders are now
enemy number one for US occupation forces as well as the Shi'ite-dominated
government.
-
- Through continuous arrests of its members and the raids
against mosques all over the Sunni areas of the country, including their
headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad, the AMS has often expressed
feelings of persecution.
-
- On the other hand, the occupation forces have been supportive
of clerics who took part in the political structure that the US coalition
created in Iraq. These include Shi'ite clerics and political leaders like
current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of the Dawa Party. Maliki has called
AMS leader Dr. Harith al-Dhari a "terrorist leader" and a murderer.
-
- Many Sunnis who are more secular also feel persecuted
by the occupation.
-
- "I am not a follower of al-Dhari or any other leader,"
Prof. Malik al-Rawi of the National Institute for Scientific Research of
Baghdad told IPS. "In fact most Sunnis do not literally follow any
leader for religious reasons. Yet after we found Americans targeting our
religious symbols, we had to stand together around the man who did not
sell us to the occupation."
-
- Dr. Rawi, avowedly a secular Sunni, told IPS that the
number of Iraqis who believe the occupation is waging a "religious
war" increased dramatically after the 2004 attacks on Fallujah.
-
- "Those sieges, along with all the events that followed
in Samarra, al-Qa'im, Haditha and now Siniya have led people to think of
the crusades," he added. "Americans do hate us for some reason
and we do not find any reason but religion."
-
- It is not just Sunni Iraqis who claim that their mosques
are not respected by occupation forces. The mostly Shi'ite city of Najaf
was exposed to massive US military assaults during August 2004. Many attacks
came dangerously close to the sacred Imam Ali shrine, damaging its outer
walls.
-
- Other US raids on Shi'ite mosques in Baghdad have infuriated
Iraq's Shi'ite population.
-
- Some Iraqi analysts say the perceived religious conflict
seems to have expanded as the occupation has progressed.
-
- "The world must be aware that this US administration
is pushing the situation to the black hole of a new religious conflict
by giving the green light to their soldiers to attack mosques and arrest
clerics whenever they feel like it," Kassim Jabbar, an Iraqi political
analyst from Baghdad University told IPS.
-
- "Even people with the highest education standards
are wondering why US leaders have not restricted attacks upon religious
symbols in our country."
-
- 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.
-
- (Inter Press Service)
-
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