Shiite Cult Aimed to Kill Clerics in Iraqi City Quote:
The gunmen who battled Iraqi and American forces near Najaf on Sunday were members of a Shiite cult that planned to storm the city during a religious festival and kill the nation’s top Shiite clerics, Iraqi officials said today.
About 200 members of the group, which called itself “Soldiers From Heaven,” died in the fighting, which lasted until about 4 a.m. today. Iraqi officials said that 60 others were wounded and as many as 120 were captured.
Two American soldiers died in the fighting when their helicopter was shot down, and about 10 Iraqi soldiers and police officers were killed.
Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy governor of Najaf province, gave an interview to Iraqi television from the battlefield, saying he was standing next to the dead body of the group’s leader. Mr. Abtan said the dead man had claimed to be the Imam Mahdi — the missing spiritual leader whom many Shiites believe will return someday to restore justice.
“Beside me are a large number of prisoners, hundreds of them,” he said. “There are also hundreds dead.”
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This battle is interesting for several reasons:
- We clearly do not understand the complexity or scope of the sectarian violence in Iraq. Here was an example of Shiite vs Shiite conflict. The inital reports blamed Sunni insurgents.
- The struggle is moving beyond the actions of "death squads" and/or insurgent cells. There something like 500-600 fighters among the “Soldiers From Heaven” armed with antiaircraft rockets and long-range sniper rifles as well as automatic weapons.
- Aside from US air support and armor called in late in the fight, the "boots on the ground" were all Iraqis. The Iraqi police and army did the bulk of the fighting.
Given the complexity and the scope of the growing sectarian violence, this would appear to be a good time for the US to start withdrawing. Otherwise we are likely to find ourselves fighting against all sides in a conflict that we clearly do not understand.