*Three Shiite young men were killed by US troops in Samarra' according to az-Zaman. The local Shiite clergy called for calm in their Friday Prayers' sermons. There are various narratives about what happened. Some say the youths were engaging in celebratory gunfire for a wedding and that US troops mistakenly returned fire; another narrative had them in a vehicle that refused to stop at a checkpoint. Samarra', 60 miles from Baghdad on the Tigris, is a sacred shrine city for Shiites. The last two visible Imams are buried there, and it was the place from which the hidden twelfth Imam was said to have disappeared. The US military should attempt at almost all costs to avoid having such incidents in a sacred shrine city. News of this will go all around the Shiite South. This time it will probably pass, but an accumulation of such incidents in such places could be deadly for the US presence in the country.



*The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq only has 1,000 men in the South and they are "playing by all the rules" and have posed no threat to the Marines, according to Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which has about 41,000 Marines in Iraq and Kuwait. (AP). Other Defense Department figures, such as Donald Rumsfeld, have complained about Iran sending saboteurs into Iraq and have warned Tehran of the consequences. SCIRI is under suspicion by US military commanders of being under Iranian influence. This charge is probably overly simplistic anyway, and it is interesting that the Marines seem to take a different view of SCIRI than does the US Army. The peacefulness of SCIRI men in the south contrasts with the killing of 9 US troops last week by Sunni Arab loyalists to the Saddam regime in the north. Robert Burns of AP quoted Conway as saying of the Shiites: "I think they're happy we're here." Some have told him they fear that when the American forces leave, ''our freedoms will leave with you.'' Note, though, that there was one major confrontation between SCIRI forces and the Marines, in the eastern city of Baquba, where SCIRI had occupied the mayor's office. Marines warned them to leave and finally expelled them, killing one and capturing 45. 19 SCIRI men are said still to be in custody. (Some info came from az-Zaman and al-Hayat).



*Agence France Presse reports that as of yesterday, Iraqi government ministry buildings are *still* being looted by organized gangs of thieves, and that employees have to go home early in the afternoon because that is when the thieves come in to start work! If government ministries are still in this state, imagine what it is like out on the streets in ordinary neighborhoods. The US has to get this security problem under control. Another wire report said that US troops are now patrolling throughout the city. But Iraqis have all along complained that those patrols are ineffective because you cannot see the crime from those armored vehicles.



*Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, now head of the "Expediency Council," warned the US that it should not grow overconfident because of its easy military victories over the Taliban and Saddam. He said that the Afghan and Iraqi peoples would never allow their sacred soil to be trod by the forces of occupation, and that the history of British imperialism in the two countries would demonstrate what happens to foreign occupiers there. Rafsanjani was responsible for moderating many of the excesses of the Khomeini era and is actually fairly pragmatic. But he is the Donald Rumsfeld of Iran and never knows when to keep his mouth shut.

*Tony Blair, in southern Iraq, warned Syria and Iran against interfering in Iraq or supporting terrorism there. There were demonstrations Thursday by Shiite clergymen who claimed that the Americans had imprisoned some of their colleagues, and had "plundered Najaf" (the Shiite holy city). The hundreds of demonstrators passed out pamphlets from the "military wing" of the "al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah" or religious center at Najaf, which threatened US troops with suicide bombings if they did not cease making these arrests of Shiite clerics. Blair was told by a British envoy in Basra that Iran was trying to put in place an apparatus that would allow it to exercise influence in Iraq. Paul Bremer, the head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction in Iraq, warned that Iran was attempting to replicate the formula it had used in southern Lebanon, of sending in agents, gaining popularity by providing social services, and then arming a local force (i.e. the Hizbullah in Lebanon).



I have to say that these alarums about Iran appear to me to be overblown. The major force among the Iraqi Shiites appears to be the Sadr Movement, and its leader Muqtada al-Sadr has criticized Iranian leadership of Shiism. Its militias appear to be quite homegrown. The only obvious Iranian influence is via the Badr Brigades of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI has been for the past year an ally of the Pentagon in overthrowing Saddam, and the US has promoted it! So it seems rather hypocritical to now worry about it being an agent of Iranian influence. Although the Badr Brigades were trained by Iran, they are Iraqis and loyal to the Iraqi leader Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. Al-Hakim bucked the Iranian hardliners to join with the Americans, so he isn't just a puppet of Tehran. In short, most Shiite militancy in Iraq is from Iraqi Shiites and has been unleashed by the US, intentionally or not. I am suspicious of this new drumbeat against Iran now. If the US and Britain think that Iraqi Shiites can be wholly insulated from Iranian influences, they are really kidding themselves.





*For my recent interview on Iraq and contemporary Middle Eastern affairs on Chuck Mertz's show WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, see

http://www.thisishell.net/archives.html. Click on the link that says:

"Listen online to that day's complete broadcast by clicking here." To explore this interesting site, click on "Home" at the top of the archives page. I thought it was a great, probing and informed interview, and hope I did the questions at least some justice.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards have stopped training Hizbullah fighters, according to Asharq al-Awsat. Correspondent Ali Nourizadeh suggests that this is a clear signal that Iran is taking the Bush administration's warnings seriously. The source admitted that the Iranians had trained about 100 Hizbullah fighters in the techniques of aerial suicide bombing, but have now sent the current class of 30 home. They also had been sending equipment to south Lebanon, which was assembled by the Revolutionary Guards stationed there. The Guards are now moving heavy weaponry out of the area and withdrawing, the article says.

*It is wrong to attempt to force women to veil and to force men to wear long beards and "Islamic" dress in Iraqi public places and universities, according to Shaikh Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri of al-Nasiriya in Iraq. He gave an interview to az-Zaman. He dismissed the Islamist fashion police as mere ignoramuses, of a sort that exist in all times and places. He said that Iraq is in desperate need of investment in water, electricity and services. He said these facilities are daily being sabotaged by Baath agents. He urged the Coalition nations to honor their promises and to turn over Iraq to a constitutional government as soon as possible. He also expressed his hope that the Arab nations would send aid swiftly so as to improve the situation. With regard to the situation in Nasiriya, he said that a muncipal council had been formed and that the university had been reopened. Al-Nasiri has been holding talks with leaders of political parties in the city, including the Communists, and Pachachi's National Accord, as well as others.

*One GI was killed Monday and another was wounded when armed men fired on their convoy near the town of Hadithah, which is about 120 miles north of Baghdad. One report I saw suggested that the locals taunted the US troops, saying "bye bye." There is a lot of anti-American feeling in the Sunni Arab belt, which had benefitted from Saddam's rule, and which has increasingly turned to radical Islam.



*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a fatwa, printed in az-Zaman, forbidding Shiites from conducting reprisal killings of former Baath party members. He also forbade anyone from buying or selling stolen Iraqi antiquities. Sistani represents quietist, traditionalist Shiism in Iraq, which is apparently less popular than used to be thought, with radicalism of a Khomeinist sort more widespread. Many Iraqi Shiites already see Sistani as having collaborated with the Baath, so this sort of ruling may infuriate them against him all the more.



*Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has complained again about the US plan to disarm his Badr Brigade militias. He points out that the Americans have not established order in Iraq, and that such community militias are necessary until they do. He said he hopes the Badr Brigades will eventually be incorporated into the Iraqi army.



*Nizar Trabelsi met with Osama Bin Laden five times and was specifically offered by him a suicide mission against an American base in Belgium, according to the Belgian Le Soir. The former professional soccer (football) player from Tunisia, is on trial with over 20 others in Brussels for his part in a plot to do a suicide bombing mission at the Kleine Brogel military base in Belgium. According to Agence France Presse, presiding judge Claire de Gryse told the court that Trabelsi had testified that "The attack was due to happen between midday and one o'clock and target the canteen of the base." Trabelsi underwent military training in Afghanistan at an al-Qaeda base. He then fought for the Taliban in Eastern Afghanistan, but had problems with the other Arab fighters. He says he met Osama Bin Ladin 5 times in Qandahar, and that he "considered him like a father. Deeply affected by seeing video cassette montages of atrocities against Muslims, he proposed himself for a suicide mission, but insisted that it not be against civilian targets. The next day, he says, Bin Laden gave him th green light. "He proposed a number of targets to me then, including an American base in Belgium," Tabelsi reported in the course of his interrogation. He was to have two accomplices, a Saudi and a Yemeni, who have not yet been identified. Trabelsi was arrested with bomb making materials in his apartment. He will be cross examined again Tuesday morning (today).

*A huge march was staged yesterday in Casablanca, with tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of participants. Morocco's Jewish community was among the marchers. But the rally, led by PM Driss Jettou, excluded members of Morocco's largest Islamist party, Justice and Development. Apparently this was in part for fear that the Islamists would be attacked by angry crowds, as happened a few days ago at a smaller event. But it also seems likely that the mainstream Moroccan government is using the march for anti-Islamist politics.



*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf in Iraq plans to visit Iran, according to Asharq al-Awsat. The official reason for the visit, Sistani's first to his native Iran in over 40 years, is to allow him to visit holy shrines in Qom and Mashhad. But Ali Nourizadeh says that the real reason is to allow Sistani to escape the behind the scenes "war" going on in Najaf among three factions: followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, followers of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and followers of the al-Da`wa Party. Sistani is opposed to clerics entering secular politics, though he does want Islamic law to be the law of the Land. This stand puts him at odds with Muqtada in the short and medium term, and with al-Hakim in the long term, and he is in an awkward position.



The same newspaper says the US has made a number of arrests in the case of the murder of Majid al-Khoie on April 9, and is looking into the possibility of Iranian Revolutionary Guard involvement. It reports a power struggle in London among the surviving relatives of Majid al-Khoei for control of the Khoie Foundation. His younger brother, Abd al-Sahib, appears to have emerged as the leader of the Foundation.



*Notable Shiite clergyman Bahr al-Ulum has called for the addition of seven independents to the leadership council that Jay Garner set up before he was succeeded by Paul Bremer. The current seven represent political parties or groupings, including the two major Kurdish leaders but also expatriate politicians such as Ahmad Chalabi, Iyad Allawi and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Bahr al-Ulum says the independents could provide an important corrective in the choosing of delegates to the prospective July Iraqi congress that will select a transitional government. -az-Zaman

*The US has been pressing the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq to disarm its Badr Brigade fighters, according to Charlotte Edwardes of the Daily Telegraph. In a tense meeting this weekend, the deputy head of SCIRI, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, told the US military leadership that he would not disarm the Badr Brigade and that anyway the Americans should be leaving soon. Gen. David McKiernan told SCIRI that if it did not disarm voluntarily it would be disarmed by force. His deputy, Gen. John Abizaid, accused the Badr Brigade of operating under the influence of Iran. The US is holding 35 Badr Brigade soldiers, most captured at the eastern town of Baquba, where they have traded fire with US marines. The US determination to disarm the militias is praiseworthy. But it should be remembered that in some areas the US isn't supplying security, which the militias are, and if they are disarmed then McKiernan is responsible for seeing that function replaced. And, disarming some of them, especially in places like East Baghdad, is not going to be easy and could provoke popular unrest.



*Speaking of unrest, there were two big demonstrations in Najaf on Saturday. One was against the continued presence of former Baathist officials in the city's administration. The other was staged by teachers in the city's seminaries, demanding back pay from the city's ministry of education. It is wonderful to see Iraqis in Najaf engaging in politics and holding free demonstrations. But everyone should remember how symbolically important the city is; if demonstrations get big there, and are put down with violence, it would have repercussions far and wide. My advice to the Americans is to remove the Baathists from the administration and to find a way to pay the teachers.



*Jawad al-Khalisi, a major Shiite cleric until recently in exile in the UK, returned to Kazimiya, a Shiite suburb of Iraq, to the acclaim of thousands. His family is associated with a seminary there, which had been closed by Saddam at the beginning of the '80s and recently reopened.