USA Foreign PolicyIraq's Samarra, site of Shiite shrines, could hold key to 'unity or chaos' csmonitor icon
06/25/20140
Washington — As US officials mull ways of preventing Iraq from descending into another bloody sectarian conflict – one that this time could spell the end of the state of Iraq – a key source of anxiety is the majority-Sunni city of Samarra, home to two of Shiite Islam’s most revered shrines.
Less than a decade ago, militants with what was then Al Qaeda in Iraq penetrated the security cordon protecting Samarra’s al-Askari Mosque with its famed golden dome and tombs of some of Shiite Islam’s holiest figures. The bombs of February 2006 destroyed the golden dome – and incited months of sectarian violence that plunged Iraq into more than two years of civil conflict.
Now with Sunni insurgents led by forces of the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) having taken control of parts of Samarra, and with ISIS leaders declaring their intent to destroy the city’s Shiite shrines, US officials are focusing on Samarra as a kind of sea wall holding back a potential tsunami of sectarian bloodletting.
Recommended: Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
“Everyone understands that Samarra is an important line,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday while on a visit to Baghdad. “Historically, an assault on Samarra created enormous problems in Iraq,” he added, noting that President Obama and his security team are closely watching events in the key trigger point.
The lighting of Iraq’s sectarian fuse in Samarra, which lies about 80 miles north of Baghdad, “is something that we all do not want to see happen again,” Mr. Kerry said.
On Tuesday, news from Iraq was dominated by conflicting reports on the fate of the major oil refinery in Baiji in northern Iraq. Early reports claimed that after more than a week of fighting at the refinery, Sunni insurgents had taken control of the facility. But by the end of the day Iraqi officials insisted that the refinery, which supplies the country with much of its domestic fuel needs, remained under Iraqi control.
The loss of the Baiji refinery to militants would be a severe blow, but it would not pose the same kind of mortal threat to a unified Iraq that destruction of the Samarra shrines would.
US officials traveling with Kerry say there is “no question” that ISIS, which has swept through much of northern and western Iraq in recent weeks with the assistance of anti-government Sunni insurgents, has both the “aspirations” and the “capabilities” to destroy the Shiite shrines of Samarra and other Iraqi cities.
Iraq’s holy Shiite sites were protected even under the regime of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab dictator ruling over a majority-Shiite country. But the extremist ISIS militants follow a severe and austere form of Sunni Islam that rejects the Shiites’ attention to adornment and reverence for shrines dedicated to holy figures.
With the ISIS militants virtually erasing Iraq’s border with Syria, the fighting in Iraq is already threatening to evolve into a regional conflict. Underscoring that point were the Syrian jets that for the second day in a row Tuesday bombed sites in western Iraq.
But any attacks on the Samarra shrines would almost certainly prompt deeper intervention in Iraq by Shiite Iran, which according to some reports has already sent personnel to help protect the holy Shiite sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. And Iran’s intervention could prompt nearby Sunni powers, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, to jump into the Iraq conflict on the side of the country’s Sunni tribes, some regional experts say.
As Kerry suggested by his pointed words in Baghdad, US officials are keenly aware that conditions in Iraq today are uncomfortably similar to those that were in place when Al Qaeda in Iraq struck in Samarra.
In February 2006 the Iraqi government was at a delicate moment in the process of putting together a government representing the country’s major sectarian communities. Today Iraq is also in the process of forming a new government, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under pressure to throw off his old sectarian ways and draw in the Sunnis he has marginalized – or face a disintegrating country.
Shortly after the Samarra bombings of 2006, an alarmed President George W. Bush warned that the violence risked plunging Iraq into civil war, and he declared to Iraqis that “the choice is chaos or unity.” Two years of sectarian fighting followed.
Eight years later President Obama employed similar words as he announced plans last week to send 300 military advisers back to Iraq.
Either Iraq’s leaders “rise above their differences and come together” to “govern with an inclusive agenda,” he said, or the region will once again be confronted with “an Iraq in chaos.”
Recommended: Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
What'd we miss? Tell us what angles to cover next
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
06/25/20140
Washington — As US officials mull ways of preventing Iraq from descending into another bloody sectarian conflict – one that this time could spell the end of the state of Iraq – a key source of anxiety is the majority-Sunni city of Samarra, home to two of Shiite Islam’s most revered shrines.
Less than a decade ago, militants with what was then Al Qaeda in Iraq penetrated the security cordon protecting Samarra’s al-Askari Mosque with its famed golden dome and tombs of some of Shiite Islam’s holiest figures. The bombs of February 2006 destroyed the golden dome – and incited months of sectarian violence that plunged Iraq into more than two years of civil conflict.
Now with Sunni insurgents led by forces of the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) having taken control of parts of Samarra, and with ISIS leaders declaring their intent to destroy the city’s Shiite shrines, US officials are focusing on Samarra as a kind of sea wall holding back a potential tsunami of sectarian bloodletting.
Recommended: Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
“Everyone understands that Samarra is an important line,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday while on a visit to Baghdad. “Historically, an assault on Samarra created enormous problems in Iraq,” he added, noting that President Obama and his security team are closely watching events in the key trigger point.
The lighting of Iraq’s sectarian fuse in Samarra, which lies about 80 miles north of Baghdad, “is something that we all do not want to see happen again,” Mr. Kerry said.
On Tuesday, news from Iraq was dominated by conflicting reports on the fate of the major oil refinery in Baiji in northern Iraq. Early reports claimed that after more than a week of fighting at the refinery, Sunni insurgents had taken control of the facility. But by the end of the day Iraqi officials insisted that the refinery, which supplies the country with much of its domestic fuel needs, remained under Iraqi control.
The loss of the Baiji refinery to militants would be a severe blow, but it would not pose the same kind of mortal threat to a unified Iraq that destruction of the Samarra shrines would.
US officials traveling with Kerry say there is “no question” that ISIS, which has swept through much of northern and western Iraq in recent weeks with the assistance of anti-government Sunni insurgents, has both the “aspirations” and the “capabilities” to destroy the Shiite shrines of Samarra and other Iraqi cities.
Iraq’s holy Shiite sites were protected even under the regime of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab dictator ruling over a majority-Shiite country. But the extremist ISIS militants follow a severe and austere form of Sunni Islam that rejects the Shiites’ attention to adornment and reverence for shrines dedicated to holy figures.
With the ISIS militants virtually erasing Iraq’s border with Syria, the fighting in Iraq is already threatening to evolve into a regional conflict. Underscoring that point were the Syrian jets that for the second day in a row Tuesday bombed sites in western Iraq.
But any attacks on the Samarra shrines would almost certainly prompt deeper intervention in Iraq by Shiite Iran, which according to some reports has already sent personnel to help protect the holy Shiite sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. And Iran’s intervention could prompt nearby Sunni powers, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, to jump into the Iraq conflict on the side of the country’s Sunni tribes, some regional experts say.
As Kerry suggested by his pointed words in Baghdad, US officials are keenly aware that conditions in Iraq today are uncomfortably similar to those that were in place when Al Qaeda in Iraq struck in Samarra.
In February 2006 the Iraqi government was at a delicate moment in the process of putting together a government representing the country’s major sectarian communities. Today Iraq is also in the process of forming a new government, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under pressure to throw off his old sectarian ways and draw in the Sunnis he has marginalized – or face a disintegrating country.
Shortly after the Samarra bombings of 2006, an alarmed President George W. Bush warned that the violence risked plunging Iraq into civil war, and he declared to Iraqis that “the choice is chaos or unity.” Two years of sectarian fighting followed.
Eight years later President Obama employed similar words as he announced plans last week to send 300 military advisers back to Iraq.
Either Iraq’s leaders “rise above their differences and come together” to “govern with an inclusive agenda,” he said, or the region will once again be confronted with “an Iraq in chaos.”
Recommended: Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
What'd we miss? Tell us what angles to cover next
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Today at 6:00 am by Rocky
» A representative wonders about the fate of 57 trillion dinars in the budget
Today at 5:59 am by Rocky
» A new group of targets of restaurants and foreign agencies was arrested in Baghdad
Today at 5:58 am by Rocky
» Including transfers and attracting investors.. The Supreme Judiciary determines the advantages of re
Today at 5:56 am by Rocky
» International Finance Corporation.. An agreement to qualify youth in Iraq and Lebanon
Today at 5:55 am by Rocky
» Oil reveals new government directives related to 4 sectors
Today at 5:53 am by Rocky
» The Council of Ministers takes a series of economic decisions
Today at 5:52 am by Rocky
» Did the 2024 budget schedules do justice to the Kurdistan Region?
Today at 5:50 am by Rocky
» Parliament's finances determine the amount of disbursement during 2024
Today at 5:49 am by Rocky
» “You will lose confidence in them.” A deputy criticizes a “dangerous phenomenon” committed by member
Today at 5:48 am by Rocky
» Sudanese Advisor: Iraq's external debt has fallen to 9 billion dollars
Today at 5:47 am by Rocky
» Erbil markets 300 food trucks to the rest of the governorates daily
Today at 5:46 am by Rocky
» The Prime Minister inaugurates the second specialized workshop to support the private industrial con
Today at 5:45 am by Rocky
» The Prime Minister sponsors the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Iraqi Trade Bank and
Today at 5:43 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Voting on the budget supports the government’s work
Today at 5:42 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Iraq is the cornerstone of stability in the region and the world
Today at 5:40 am by Rocky
» The Commission is looking into developing electronic voting devices
Today at 5:39 am by Rocky
» Baghdad urges steps towards combating corruption
Today at 5:38 am by Rocky
» This year: launching the electronic housing card
Today at 5:37 am by Rocky
» The Cities Authority promises reasonable prices for residential units
Today at 5:36 am by Rocky
» Imminent disasters must unite us before it is too late
Today at 5:35 am by Rocky
» Iraq is taking steps to combat corruption
Today at 5:34 am by Rocky
» The remaining $9 billion of Iraq's external debt
Today at 5:33 am by Rocky
» Today.. the launch of the activities of the Petersburg International Economic Forum
Today at 5:31 am by Rocky
» The results of “OPEC Plus” are positive, and Iraq pledges to comply
Today at 5:30 am by Rocky
» The Minister of Commerce calls on citizens to receive food basket items from agents
Today at 5:29 am by Rocky
» What if other banks follow suit?
Today at 5:28 am by Rocky
» Experts: We are getting close to “zeroing” gas burning
Today at 5:27 am by Rocky
» Recovery of an Iraqi official accused of intentional damage to public funds
Today at 5:25 am by Rocky
» The Iraqi Trade Bank issues the first batch of Kurdistan Region employees within the “My Account” pr
Today at 5:23 am by Rocky
» Iraqi Workers' Communist Party: The oil workers' class unit thwarts a new theft!
Today at 5:22 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: The 2024 budget schedules include positives that contribute to the path of economic refor
Today at 5:21 am by Rocky
» An opportunity for Iraqi doctors to leave hospitals and work inside airplanes
Today at 5:18 am by Rocky
» The fever of attacking “foreign institutions” spreads to Diwaniyah.. One person was injured in an at
Today at 5:16 am by Rocky
» During the current year.. Iraqis are on a date with the launch of the “electronic housing card”
Today at 5:15 am by Rocky
» The exchange rates of the dollar against the dinar in Iraq today
Today at 5:13 am by Rocky
» After approving the budget schedules... Parliamentary Finance resolves the controversy over the empl
Today at 5:12 am by Rocky
» A source reveals Saudi mediation between Iraq and Kuwait to end disputes
Today at 5:11 am by Rocky
» In preparation for the 2025 elections, the Commission forms a committee to develop electronic voting
Today at 5:10 am by Rocky
» Displaced people fall victim to politics... Immigration complains about the lack of cooperation betw
Today at 5:07 am by Rocky
» Today, the Ministry of Commerce is preparing a new meal from the food basket
Today at 5:06 am by Rocky
» Integrity Investigation Court: Iraq combats money laundering and its procedures control the position
Today at 5:05 am by Rocky
» The Commission is preparing early for the 2025 elections...a specialized committee to modernize resu
Today at 5:03 am by Rocky
» How much is Iraq’s foreign debt worth? The Sudanese advisor answers
Today at 5:02 am by Rocky
» An Arab newspaper talks about the budget in numbers: This is the value of revenues and its deficit
Today at 5:01 am by Rocky
» Parliament sends the budget schedules to the Ministry of Justice... for this reason
Today at 5:00 am by Rocky
» utube 6/4/24 Summary / Status Iraqi Dinar ReValue IQD VND Exchange Rates
Yesterday at 9:24 am by Rocky
» utube 6/3/24 MM&C IQD Update-Iraq Dinar-Accelerate- Digital-Financial-Banking Reforms-Best Budget
Yesterday at 9:14 am by Rocky
» utube 6/4/24 MM&C IQD Update-Iraq Dinar-2024 Budget Passed-Gazzette-Timing-197 Companies Cease Dol
Yesterday at 9:13 am by Rocky
» The Central Bank explains the “fiscal control” mechanism contained in the budget
Yesterday at 7:42 am by Rocky
» The path to development...Iraq's economic gateway and its point of stability
Yesterday at 7:40 am by Rocky
» Announcing the establishment of the Iraqi-French Business Council on the sidelines of the Iraqi-Fren
Yesterday at 7:36 am by Rocky
» The coordination framework reveals the latest developments in the election of a new Speaker of the H
Yesterday at 7:34 am by Rocky
» In a “quick” session... Parliament votes on the 2024 budget, and controversy accompanies three parag
Yesterday at 7:32 am by Rocky
» Minister of Construction regarding encroachment on service projects: How can a citizen destroy his p
Yesterday at 7:30 am by Rocky
» Thousands of workers are dissatisfied after being laid off from work due to investment in agricultur
Yesterday at 7:29 am by Rocky
» A different vision for the budget schedules presented by an economic coalition
Yesterday at 6:13 am by Rocky
» Where is the danger in budget tables? An economist breaks it down
Yesterday at 6:12 am by Rocky
» A parliamentary movement for justice for 20,000 employees in state institutions
Yesterday at 6:09 am by Rocky
» Between Al-Halbousi and the leaders... new disputes undermine progress in Baghdad
Yesterday at 6:08 am by Rocky
» An economist confirms the possibility of Iraq entering the field of investment in oil derivatives
Yesterday at 6:07 am by Rocky
» A parliamentary question about the fate of 57 trillion dinars in the 2023 budget
Yesterday at 6:06 am by Rocky
» High central bank sales in the currency auction
Yesterday at 6:04 am by Rocky
» Al-Halbousi's party is conditioning the change of Al-Mashhadani on political dialogues
Yesterday at 6:01 am by Rocky
» Involved in wasting more than 6 billion dinars.. Iraq recovers a health official from Belarus
Yesterday at 6:00 am by Rocky
» Finance Committee after voting on the budget tables: There is financial abundance for the governorat
Yesterday at 5:59 am by Rocky
» Detailing the “secrets” of the budget...the increase in the value of salaries for 5 ministries, and
Yesterday at 5:58 am by Rocky
» Bitcoin exceeds $70,000
Yesterday at 5:57 am by Rocky
» 3 gains behind extending the oil production reduction agreement until the end of 2025
Yesterday at 5:55 am by Rocky
» Parliament Finance clarifies... What is the fate of contract employees in the 2024 budget?
Yesterday at 5:54 am by Rocky
» The Retirement Authority announces the disbursement of end-of-service benefits to more than 6,000 pe
Yesterday at 5:53 am by Rocky
» Iraq exports more than 7 million barrels of crude oil and its derivatives to America in a month
Yesterday at 5:53 am by Rocky
» Approving 36 service projects and referring them for implementation in an Iraqi governorate
Yesterday at 5:52 am by Rocky
» Nearly 80 trillion dinars disappear from the 2022 and 2023 budget.. Deputy: “No one knows where it w
Yesterday at 5:51 am by Rocky
» Kuwait: Three countries, including Iraq, pledged to fully adhere to the OPEC+ agreement
Yesterday at 5:50 am by Rocky
» What is the truth about there being a parliamentary tendency to challenge the budget schedules?
Yesterday at 5:49 am by Rocky
» By land: An Iraqi aid convoy launches to relieve the people of Gaza
Yesterday at 5:48 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: Voting on the budget supports the government’s work
Yesterday at 5:46 am by Rocky
» Arbitrage
Yesterday at 5:44 am by Rocky
» More than 12 million bank accounts to date
Yesterday at 5:42 am by Rocky
» Marketing of a new kind
Yesterday at 5:41 am by Rocky
» Government initiatives to support the economy and increase development rates
Yesterday at 5:40 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Finance clarifies the details of the 2024 budget after voting on it
Yesterday at 5:38 am by Rocky
» A deconstructive look at the budget tables: 5 ministries and a body whose salaries increased... and
Yesterday at 5:37 am by Rocky
» What is the truth about the existence of a parliamentary tendency to challenge the budget schedules?
Yesterday at 5:36 am by Rocky
» The Election Commission approves the distribution of seats in the Kurdistan Regional Parliament (doc
Yesterday at 5:35 am by Rocky
» Kurdistan is “optimistic”... What does the “speed” in approving the budget schedules indicate?
Yesterday at 5:34 am by Rocky
» For the second day in a row...the dollar continues to rise in the local market
Yesterday at 5:33 am by Rocky
» The Central Bank of Iraq stops 200 companies from dealing in dollars
Yesterday at 5:32 am by Rocky
» The most prominent of which is the amount of funds. Planning determines the criteria for accepting a
Yesterday at 5:30 am by Rocky
» With new searches, Labor announces the arrest of more than 40,000 people who exceeded their benefits
Yesterday at 5:29 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani congratulates the approval of the budget and reiterates the progress of implementing the g
Yesterday at 5:28 am by Rocky
» Petroleum Products: Liquid gas for automobiles is a high purity and environmentally friendly fuel
Yesterday at 5:26 am by Rocky
» Media and Communications: Iraq is committed to achieving the highest standards of cybersecurity
Yesterday at 5:24 am by Rocky
» The Minister of Immigration participates in a high-level regional meeting to strengthen the fight ag
Yesterday at 5:23 am by Rocky
» The Minister of Communications announces the imminent trial launch of the electronic signature proje
Yesterday at 5:22 am by Rocky
» UNDP representative from Baghdad: We are committed to keeping pace with anti-corruption efforts
Yesterday at 5:21 am by Rocky
» Agriculture announces a reduction in the diversion of smuggled products to local markets
Yesterday at 5:20 am by Rocky
» After approving the 2024 budget schedules... good news for employees, retirees, and students
Yesterday at 5:19 am by Rocky