Iraq: Tens of Thousands in the Streets to Demand US Leave
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- Date: 10 Apr 2007 20:48:06 GMT
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Iraq: Tens of Thousands in the Streets to Demand US Leave
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Yahoo - Apr 9, 2007 16:19 ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070409/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Shiites call for U.S. to leave Iraq
By LAUREN FRAYER
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - Tens of thousands of Shiites ? a sea of women in black abayas and
men waving Iraqi flags ? rallied Monday to demand that U.S. forces leave
their country. Some ripped apart American flags and tromped across a Stars
and Stripes rug.
The protesters marched about three miles between the holy cities of Kufa and
Najaf to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. In the capital,
streets were silent and empty under a hastily imposed 24-hour driving ban.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered up the march as a show of
strength not only to Washington but to
Iraq's establishment Shiite ayatollahs as well.
Al-Sadr, who disappointed followers hoping he might appear after months in
seclusion, has pounded his anti-American theme in a series of written
statements. The most recent came on Sunday, when he called on his Mahdi Army
militia to redouble efforts to expel American forces and for the police and
army to join the struggle against "your archenemy."
The fiery cleric owes much of his large following to the high esteem in
which Shiites hold his father, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was
assassinated in 1999 by suspected agents of
Saddam Hussein. Al-Sadr dropped from view before the start of the latest
Baghdad security operation on Feb. 14. U.S. officials say he is holed up in
Iran. His followers insist he's returned to Najaf.
Fearing suicide attacks, car bombings or other mayhem in the capital, Iraq's
generals ordered all vehicles off the streets for 24 hours starting at 5
a.m. Monday, normally a work day. The capital was eerily quiet, shops were
shuttered and locked and reports of sectarian violence fell to near zero.
Police and morgue officials reported finding just seven bodies dumped in the
capital, only the second time the number of sectarian assassination and
torture victims had dipped that low in the course of the Baghdad security
operation. A total of 25 people were killed or found dead in the country
Monday, according to police and morgue reports.
A double line of police cordoned the marchers' route from Kufa to Najaf,
sister cities on the west bank of the Euphrates River. The holy places, 100
miles south of Baghdad, are a prime destination for Shiite pilgrims.
Among the snapping flags and giant banners, leaflets fluttered to earth,
exhorting the marchers in chants of "Yes, Yes to Iraq" and "Yes, Yes to
Muqtada. Occupiers should leave Iraq."
Salah al-Obaydi, a senior official in al-Sadr's Najaf organization, called
the rally a "call for liberation. We're hoping that by next year's
anniversary, we will be an independent and liberated Iraq with full
sovereignty."
And the head of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, Nassar al-Rubaie, blasted the
U.S. presence as an affront to "the dignity of the Iraqi people. After four
years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and
wounded."
A key Washington official saw it differently.
"Iraq, four years on, is now a place where people can freely gather and
express their opinions," Gordon Johndroe, the National Security Council
spokesman, said aboard Air Force One. "And while we have much more progress
ahead of us ? the United States, the coalition and Iraqis have much more to
do ? this is a country that has come a long way from the tyranny of Saddam
Hussein."
Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman and aide to Gen. David
Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, praised the peaceful demonstration and
said Iraqis "could not have done this four years ago."
Iraqi soldiers in uniform joined the crowd of marchers which stretch for at
least three miles and was led by a dozen turbaned clerics, a Sunni Muslim
among them. Many marchers, especially youngsters, danced as they moved
through the streets, littered with balloons.
Brig. Abdul Kerim al-Mayahi, the Najaf police chief, said there were as many
as 600,000 in the march, although other estimates were significantly lower.
He said 30 lawmakers made the hike and there was no American troop presence
except surveillance from helicopters hovering above.
Monday's demonstration marks four years since U.S. Marines and the Army's
3rd Infantry Division swept into the Iraqi capital 20 days into the American
invasion.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari noted that "mistakes were made" after Saddam
was ousted, pointing to decisions made by the first U.S. governor of Iraq,
L. Paul Bremer.
"The main mistake was a vacuum left in the fields of security and politics,
and the second mistake was how liberating forces became occupation forces,"
Zebari told Al-Arabiyah television.
Cars were banned from Najaf for 24 hours starting from 8 p.m. Sunday, and
buses idled at all city entry points to transport arriving demonstrators or
other visitors.
While al-Sadr had ordered his militia to disarm and stay off the streets
during the Baghdad crackdown, he has notched up his anti-American rhetoric
in three brief but hostile statements demanding the departure of U.S.
troops.
"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers,
because they are your archenemy," he wrote, apparently referring to three
days of clashes between his Mahdi Army militiamen and U.S.-backed Iraqi
troops in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.
A U.S. soldier was killed there Sunday, according to Col. Michael Garrett,
with the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division. He spoke to reporters in
Diwaniyah as American troops continued operations.
On Monday night, police officials in Diwaniyah said the toll since the start
of the operation Friday was 14 dead and 47 wounded, both figures including
civilians and members of the Mahdi Army. The numbers could not be
independently confirmed.
*
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