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February 18, 1999 was a sad day for the family and the Muslim world. Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed-Sadiq Al-Sadr (56 years), along with two of his sons, Mustafa (34 years) and his younger brother Mu'ammal, where murdered by saddam's regime in Iraq. Riots erupted as a result of the masses hearing the news. Demonstrations took place throughout the world's major cities. Another Al-Sadr joins the line of innocent greats, slaughtered for their stance against that which is wrong and cruel. The news was covered extensively by many newspapers and news groups, of which I have chosen two, one in English and one in Arabic (this is from the Al-Hayat paper, March 2, 1999 - it is a pdf file and you will need to download it first. For those using a Macintosh, just click on it. For those using Windows, right click on it and chose the download option. You will need an Adobe Acrobat reader to read this file. Should you not have one, you can download it from theAdobe Web Site here). |
| The late Grand Ayatollah anticipated an attack on him yet he persisted in leading the Friday prayers at the historical Masjid Al-Kufa, which is would fill to the brim, and people would spill out into the streets. The Mosque could accommodate 100 to 120 thousand people. He wore his funeral shroud when giving those sermons, preparing for death at any moment. His son Mustafa was married to the daughter of the also martyred Sayyid Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr. His widow has lost a father and husband at the hands of saddam. Is there any justice left anywhere? Why not voice your disgust directly at those responsible, by e mailing them. Click here to e mail the Iraqi delegation at the UN. |  |
Saddam's agents 'murdered cleric'
By Patrick Cockburn
At 7.30pm last Friday, Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the popular leader of the Shia Muslims of Iraq, got into his car to drive to his house, as he did every day, from his office on the outskirts of the holy city of Najaf near the Euphrates, southwest of Baghdad. With him were his two sons, Mustapha and Mu'ammal, who acted as his chief assistants, and a driver.
They never reached home. In the first detailed account of the assassination, The Independent has learnt that when the car entered a roundabout, it was hit by machine-gun fire from one or more positions. Within seconds, the gunmen lying in ambush riddled the car with bullets and the men inside were dead or dying. Relatives say Iraqi security forces immediately sealed off the area and would not allow even an ambulance through.
The assassination was almost certainly the work of agents working for the Iraqi government. Baghdad has always feared the religious leaders of the Iraqi Shia, who make up about 55 per cent of the population, but who for centuries have been denied political power. In the past year, two other prominent Shia clerics have been killed and others attacked by gunmen in and around Najaf.
The government insisted that Mr Sadr be buried immediately with a minimum of mourning. But this was not enough to prevent the most widespread popular disturbances in Iraq since the Shia uprising in 1991, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, which almost overthrew President Saddam Hussein.
The scale of the outbreaks has become clear only in the past few days as witnesses reach Jordan and Iran.
The outbreaks happened because Mr Sadr, who for six years presided over his community with the tacit approval of the government, had gradually acquired a mass following among Shia youth, townspeople and tribal leaders.
Respected for his piety, he had become open in holding the regime - as well as the US and its allies - responsible for the miseries of the Iraqi people.
When his death was announced by the official news agency, demonstrations and clashes erupted throughout southern Iraq, where Shia are in the majority. In Baghdad, worshippers at a mosque in Saddam City, a vast slum, poured into the street, shouting: "God is great". The security forces immediately shot dead two brothers. Iraqi sources in Iran say 13 people died elsewhere in the city.
Some of the trouble began even before Mr Sadr was killed. In Nassariya, a Euphrates river town, the local governor had arrested the ayatollah's representative, Sheikh Aos al-Khafaji, two days before the assassination, for criticising the government. A local delegation went to the governor to have him released. When the governor refused, they attacked the city's security headquarters while shopkeepers went on strike. The government sent in heavily armed Republican Guards and declared a curfew. After the assassination there were more clashes, with demonstrators shouting: "Death to Saddam".
The worst violence occurred at a Shia shrine 20 miles from Nassariya. This may have appeared especially threatening to the government, as the shrine is close to the marshlands of southern Iraq, the redoubt of anti-government guerrillas. The security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing at least five, including two 14-year-olds.
The death toll elsewhere is not known, but security forces are clearly under orders to fire at protesters immediately. Iraqis in exile in Iran say there were clashes in the Shia cities of Kut and al-Amarah on the Tigris, close to the Iranian border. They also report flashes of artillery fire near al-Basrah, the largest city of southern Iraq.
Iraqi security forces have also been arresting representatives of Ayatollah al-Sadr in Baghdad and in the Shia heartlands of the south. They have detained Akeel al-Mussawi and Sheikh Ahmed al-Shamki, who were part of his personal staff.
The last time Saddam conducted such a purge, in 1991, about a hundred Shia clerics disappeared without trace.
The well-planned purge suggests the assassination of Mr Sadr was only one element in a plan to break his movement. Laith Kubba, an Iraqi commentator living abroad, says: "After Desert Fox [the bombing of Iraq by the US and Britain] in December Saddam decided to eliminate all potential anti-government leaders in a pre-emptive strike to head off any uprising. Al-Sadr was the most visible of the Shia leaders."
This is possible, but two senior Shia ayatollahs, Mortadha al-Borujerdi and Mirza Ali al- Gharawi, were killed last summer. The latter was machine-gunned to death in his car with his stepson and driver in an attack similar to that which killed Ayatollah al-Sadr.
A deeper motive behind Saddam Hussein's decision to kill the Shia leader was probably Mr Sadr's increasingly hostile attitude to the regime and his growing political strength.
The ayatollah had built his strength over six years. He had a loyal corps of several thousand religious students. He appointed representatives in Shia areas. Tribal leaders (mostly Shia but some Sunni) came to him to have their authority confirmed. He appointed his own judges. His criticism of the government became more explicit.
Three weeks ago, the government's regional overlord asked him to tone down his criticism. He refused, though he must have guessed the likely consequences. In his last sermons, he seemed to foresee his fate, saying that when Iraqis heard of his death they should not cease their prayers.
SADDAM CITY, IRAQ, SUNDAY (Feb. 28, 1999)
By PHILIP SHERWELL
The children of Saddam City were playing soccer yesterday on the rubble-strewn wasteland in front of the main mosque. But only a week ago it was the scene of some of the bloodiest riots since Saddam Hussein came to power.
The Iraqi dictator's propaganda machine continues to pump out the party line that the country remains calm following the 20 February assassination of the country's leading Shiite cleric. But a very different account of the violent clashes that erupted in this predominantly Shiite neighborhood has emerged following the murder of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr.
Interviews in Saddam City suggest that what occurred in the aftermath of the murder amounted to a serious challenge to the Iraqi leader's authority and illustrated the visceral hostility ordinary Iraqis now feel towards his tyranny.
The disturbances began when crowds gathered in front of the mosque as word spread that the ayatollah had been seriously injured in a gun attack in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. An increasingly open critic of the Government, Ayatollah al-Sadr was the third ayatollah to be killed in less than a year in Najaf.
In a country where the hated mukhabarat secret police maintain an all-pervading reign of fear, expressing dissent can amount to a death sentence. For many in Saddam City last week it was just that.
Tension began to mount as worshippers arrived to pray for the ayatollah's recovery, unaware that he was already dead. Security forces quickly moved in, ordering the faithful to leave. When they refused, the troops opened fire.
By now, a mass demonstration had started as word spread that Ayatollah al-Sadr and his two sons had been shot dead. Protesters started to chant anti-Saddam slogans and hurled stones at the security forces.
According to a Baghdad resident with relatives in Saddam City, the authorities responded by calling in trucks with machineguns to fire on the crowd.
The casualty toll will never be known. Exiled opposition claims of 300 deaths appear exaggerated. Diplomats in Baghdad put the figure at 40 to 80. A government official privately told a foreign aid worker that 54 people had died.
Paramilitary police units conducted raids on the homes of suspected troublemakers last week. The Ministry of Information has run one chaperoned press trip to the suburb, when it was impossible to speak to officials privately. But some residents were brave enough to talk about the riots during an unescorted journey there last week.
A shopkeeper confided: ``It's quiet here at the moment. But last week there were problems, big problems.'' With his hands, he made the gesture of firing a machinegun. Asked to describe what happened, he glanced around nervously, put his hand to his mouth, then said: ``Please, you must understand, I cannot.''
In a Baghdad coffee shop, a young law student was more forthcoming. ``I have spoken to people from Saddam City. They saw what happened. There was a lot of shooting,'' he said. ``Those who protested knew what they faced. It is a sign of how desperate things are here that they were willing to do it.''
Most Iraqis live in deepening poverty, the result of eight years of sanctions imposed because of President Saddam Hussein's refusal to cooperate with the United Nations investigation into his arsenal of biological and chemical weapons.
In Saddam City, even the morsels of meat for sale in the souk are out of the price range of most. But a few kilometres away, the latest extravagant presidential complex is taking shape as President Saddam enjoys the spoils of the smuggling operation run by his playboy son Uday.
``Despite the government propaganda, most Iraqis are well aware that Saddam is to blame for their suffering,'' said an ambassador from a leading Muslim nation.
The Government believed it could control Ayatollah al-Sadr after approving his appointment in 1992. But he had fallen out of favor so seriously that he seemed to expect assassination and began talking about himself in the past tense in sermons. He had refused to approve the whitewash investigations into the deaths of two other clerics last year. He also refused to issue a religious edict condemning the leaders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
But most significantly he started to appoint his own Islamic representatives across the south and turned against the Government over its ban on Friday congregations at several key Shiite shrines. The ayatollah ordered followers to ignore the ban.
``Al-Sadr was no longer prepared to play ball,'' the ambassador said.
The speed of his burial fuelled suspicion that he was killed on the orders of the regime. Last week all the indications suggested Ayatollah al-Sadr was murdered by a team of assassins sent on the personal orders of President Saddam.
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