Trouble in Iraq -- Part III: Bombing at the Mosque

Thurday, February 23. From this morning's Times.

The Askariya Shrine was sacred to the Shiite Muslims of Iraq. A majority of Muslims in Iraq, the Shiites were restricted in their worship by the minority Sunni sect for much of the 20th century.

Shiite militia members flooded the streets of Baghdad, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Sunni mosques while Iraqi Army soldiers who had been called out to stop the violence stood helpless nearby. By the day's end, mobs had struck or destroyed 27 Sunni mosques in the capital, killing three imams and kidnapping a fourth, Interior Ministry officials said. In all, at least 15 people were killed in related violence across the country.

There are fears that this will flame into a civil war.

Iraq's major political and religious leaders issued urgent appeals for restraint, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called for a three-day mourning period in a televised address. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, released an unusually strong statement in which he said, "If the government's security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the believers will do it."

The Bush administration, through the ambassador to Iraq, warned just a few days ago that U.S. money would not go to support a sectarian government.

Most Iraqi leaders attributed the attack to terrorists bent on exploiting sectarian rifts, but some also blamed the United States for failing to prevent it. Even the leader of Iraq's main Shiite political alliance said he thought Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, bore some responsibility. The Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said Mr. Khalilzad's veiled threat on Monday to withdraw American support if Iraqis could not form a nonsectarian government helped provoke the bombing. "This declaration gave a green light for these groups to do their operation, so he is responsible for a part of that," Mr. Hakim said at a news conference.

It's looking more and more like a quagmire.

The Times article goes on to give a little background of the Askariya Shrine.

The shrine is one of four major Shiite shrines in Iraq, and the site has special meaning because 2 of the 12 imams revered by mainstream Shiites are buried there: Ali al-Hadi, who died in A.D. 868 and his son, the 11th imam, Hassan al-Askari. Also, according to legend, the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, known as the "Hidden Imam," was at the site of the shrine before he disappeared.

These figures resonate with Iraqi Shiites, whose traditions have long been shaped by violence with the rival Sunni sect. At an earlier time of rising tensions, the 10th imam was forced from his home in Medina by the powerful Sunni caliph in Baghdad and was sent to live in Samarra, where he could be kept under closer supervision. Both he and his son were believed to have been poisoned by the caliphate.

Fearing such persecution, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who was just a child when he became the 12th imam, was hidden away in a cave, where he held forth through intermediaries for about 70 years. Then he is said to have gone into what Shiites call occultation, a kind of suspended state from which it is believed he will return before the Judgment Day to bring justice during a time of chaos.

Well, if it's a time of chaos he's waiting for. . .