Crowd Control
US troops in the factionally divided northern Iraqi city of Mosul fired into a crowd at a political rally, killing 10 and wounding around a hundred. Apparently, a pro-US Iraqi was making a speech and the crowd turned ugly. The US claims it was fired upon by “gunmen”, witnesses say troops acted peremptorily to prevent a stoning of the pro-US guy. Who knew occupation could be this tough?
They said a controversial Iraqi opposition leader, Mishaan Al-Jabouri, started speaking to the crowd and hailing the arrival of American forces in Mosul. “They began throwing stones,” said Fateh Tata Abed, a 32-year-old man shot in the chest and upper arm. “And the American forces started shooting at us.”
Mr Jaburi had said that co-operation with the Americans was necessary. This angered the crowd and, in circumstances still unexplained, the troops fired. An American military spokesman said that the troops were fired on before they returned fire.
US forces tried for the first time yesterday to prevent the media from covering a third day of anti-US protests by Iraqis outside the hotel housing a US operations base in central Baghdad. Some 200-300 Iraqis gathered outside the Palestine Hotel to express their rage at what they said was the US failure to restore order after the fall of Saddam’s regime.
Brandishing a huge banner that read “Bush=Saddam,” the demonstrators gathered in front of the Palestine Hotel to criticise US President George W. Bush for failing to fulfill his promise of a better Iraq. “United States, you will regret it if you don’t keep this promise,” they chanted. “We will sacrifice our souls and our blood for Iraq!” Baghdad was known as a bastion of state-organized anti-Americanism during Saddam’s 24-year rule but Sunday’s was tinged more with disappointment than ideological fervor. One protester said the demonstration was meant “to tell the Americans that they’re the ones who put Saddam in power and now they’re going to try to force on us other rulers we don’t want.”
Visibly angered US military officials sought to distance the media from the protest, moving reporters and cameras about 30 metres from the barbed-wired entrance to the hotel. “We want you to pull back to the back of the hotel because they (the Iraqis) are only performing because the media are here,” said a marine colonel who wore the name tag Zarcone but would not give his first name or title.
Exasperated US military officials tried to hamper the media from covering new demonstrations in Baghdad while some 20 000 people in the Shiite Muslim bastion of Nasiriyah railed against a US-staged meeting on Iraq’s future … Meanwhile, demonstrators marched to the centre of the predominantly Shi’ite southern city of Nasiriyah, chanting “Yes to freedom… Yes to Islam… No to America, No to Saddam.” … “We want the American and British forces to go. They have freed us from Saddam and their job is finished,” said Ihsan Mohammad, an official with the regional federation of engineers. “If they intend to occupy us, we will oppose that. We ask them to leave us free to decide our future and not to impose people on us.”
nicely put together, mike. horrible horrible story. strangely, i only saw a brief mention of it in the guardian main iraq story of the day. i couldn’t believe that the first link is the nytimes!
I am still trying to understand how conservatives claim there is no “quagmire” when after only a couple of weeks it’s already got the same kind of factionalism and civil unrest that took years to develop in Vietnam.