[News] Prensa Latina: Muslims Stand Together in Baghdad Uprising

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Muslims Stand Together in Baghdad Uprising

Washington, Apr 7 (Prensa Latina) In Baghdad neighborhoods, marked once by 
differences of faith and politics, the resistance to the US-led occupation 
forces has fostered a united effort by the Iraqis fighting against the 
foreign invaders, the Washington Post comments Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force reported 
steady military progress, but also that insurgents who used to hit and run 
were, for the first time, standing and fighting.

And the division between sunnis and shiites, on which the Bush 
administration counted on to pursue its occupation goals, it continues, has 
now faded and now the US-led troops are facing a united resistance front.

Such unity has been demonstrated recently, when residents of Adhamiya, a 
largely Sunni section of northern Baghdad, marched with followers of 
Moqtada Sadr, the militant Shiite cleric whose call for armed resistance 
was embraced by Sunnis.

 From Sunday to Tuesday night, clashes between occupiers and Iraqis have 
killed 30 US troops while the number of killed civilians rises to 80 and 
the wounded to over 250. Just in Fallujah 36 civilians were slaughtered 
Tuesday, doctors reported.

Home searches by the US military leaving people defiled and humiliated have 
bound up many Iraqis who oppose the US-imposed Governing Council, which is 
condemned as dominated by exiles such as Iraqi-American Ahmed Chalabi, the 
paper said .

The occupation overseer´s counting on the well-known tension between the 
revered Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the upstart Sadr as a check on 
Sadr´s influence have appeared to challenge another critical calculation of 
US commanders and officials, as it has been overtaken by a more immediate 
conflict -clashes between occupiers and militiamen fighting the foreign 
occupation.

Such a situation turns more complicate for the US, as Sunni and Shiite 
Iraqis, once rivals, agree they have put their differences aside to unite 
in their fight to oust the US occupying forces from Iraq.

"This is now Jihad (holy war) against the Americans regardless of whether 
we are Shiites or Sunnis. We will each fight in our neighborhoods without 
necessarily all joining (Sadr´s) militia," Bagdad merchant El Adami, stressed.

mh/ecq


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20040407/c62d7156/attachment.htm>