Zarqawi threatens US forces in Iraq, criticizes Shiite leader (Sistani)

DUBAI (AFP) - Jordanian Mussab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of a network in Iraq believed responsible for several attacks there, threatened US-led forces in a recording broadcast on an Islamist website.

In the message said to have originated from inside Iraq, Zarqawi claimed that his "heroic Mujahedin have killed more than 200 soldiers from the coalition of the crusaders."

Taking credit for several attacks, Zarqawi said "the most recent and not the last was against the Israeli Mossad in the Jabal Lubnan hotel."

A strong car bomb explosion in front of that hotel on March 17 killed seven people and wounded a dozen people.

"We have torn up their bodies in several places: at the UN in Baghdad, coalition forces in Kerbala, the Italians in Nasirijah, American forces on the al-Khalidiya bridge, US intelligence agents at the Hotel Chahine and the presidential palace in Baghdad, the CIA at the Hotel Rachid, Polish forces at Hilla," he said.

...

He also had sharp words for the spiritual head of Iraq's Shiite majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has appealed for calm and urged dialog amid recent clashes between Shiite militias and coalition troops, calling him the "imam of atheism".

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040406/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_zarqawi&cid=1514&ncid=1480

Its a power struggle, they want to split off his followers or drag them into the civil war

and i think he won't be able to resist: the atmosphere is far, far more explosive than we hear about here (you could argue that that's why the fallujians(??) were driven to mutilate those mercenaries: they had to pull something off that could make it through to all those americans staring at their daily show). After all, the U.S. propped up Sunni-run Iraq for years in order to ward off an Islamic revolution among the Shi'a.

He is not satisfied with the Constitution or the proposed framework for elections. He is done talking to Americans. His public statement to this effect unleashed Al Sadr. In radical Islamic politics, there are the political leaders and then there are the expendable militants. There is the imam and there is the soldier. The CPA and the temporary government dissed him and now its payback time. Sistani is very much in the driver's seat now.

But somehow it does not seem possible that Sistani will be able to control al-Sadr if al-Sadr manages to do some real damage to the US troops during this uprising.

Sadr is a marked man. He's doing Sistani's work for him and destroying himself and his organization's leadership in the process. Additionally he's setting up a bloodbath martyrdom which damage the American plan and interests decisively for decades no matter what the tactical outcome is.

I've been thinking along the lines that al-Sadr will be able to do some real damage to US troops and put up real resistance due to the sheer numbers of his followers.

But you are right, sooner or later he is going to be taken out of the picture. And hopefully you are right again that the remainder of his followers fall in line with Sistani.

I hope the CPA/Centcom would pull back from this useless confrontation.

Indiana G. posted this link on another thread:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/iraq-a05.shtml

<In the clearest indication that the situation will not be brought easily under control, the main Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, issued a statement late yesterday that, while appealing for calm, condemned the US-led coalition and declared that the actions of Sadr’s militiamen were “legitimate.”>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-05-analysis-usat_x.htm

The US cannot back down because it would be a clear signal to the Iraqi's that we are weak which means all hope of control is gone.

The whole article is interesting but there is this one item

In another ominous development, militants in Fallujah announced Monday that they were sending supporters to bolster al-Sadr, an unusual meshing of Sunni and Shiite extremists.

"Both sides are playing against the middle, and the middle is you," says Amatzia Baram, an Israeli who studies the Shiites at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. He warns that the situation could become more violent on April 12, when millions of Shiites celebrate the second most important day on their religious calendar . . . Baram suggests that coalition forces do not move against al-Sadr until after that day.

If true, it appears that the union of Sunni and Shiite is closer than previously thought.

...is much wider than portrayed by Bremer. These people aren't just thugs or agents of Iran.

We are weak. But we will have to give up control and the
illusion of control when we do that. And that will be political
death for Shrub and his minions. But he's dead anyway, he is still
in denial about it, but it's over. The question now is how many
other people are going to get killed.

Keep an eye on the Kurds.

Think al-Sistani and Sadr are working in tandem?

:shrug:

Al Sadr has interpreted Sistanis recents statements as a green light. Sistani predicted that the CPA had six months to give him a government last May. The council has basically been telling him to go fish. He said Friday he was through talking to Americans.

He can play the role that he is above it all because that is his role. But when you are a political leader of his stature and you say you are through talking after someone tells you take or leave it, I think it's natural to expect violence. Al Sadr is expendable.