Thursday, December 28, 2006

Killing Sadr Aide Can Have Ugly Consequences

"Al Sadr officials said US forces stormed Al Amiri's home at dawn and killed him in front of his wife and children. They said Al Amiri was a lawyer who headed a charity for orphans and the poor. ."

Hundreds are slaughtered in Iraq on a daily basis but this senseless death in Najaf, a city of about a million, has explosive potential. This guy was a senior aide to Moqtada al-Sadr, the leading Shiite cleric who's the real power in southern Iraq. He commands a potent military force that for the most part hasn't fought the occupiers. At least not yet.

As usual the american military is trying to lie it's way around this.
"U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver categorically denied accusations by the Sadrist official that U.S. forces were involved, saying: "We did not conduct any operations in Najaf."
Garver is the sack of shit who tried to lie about the slaughter of innocents near Baghdad on December 8. That mission was a glorious american air strike on crowded apartments.

However, plenty of news reports say the raid was a joint effort of americans and Iraqis and it was an american who killed him:
"In a statement, the U.S. military said Iraqi and American forces were trying to detain Al-Amiri, and only shot him when he pointed an assault rifle at an Iraqi soldier."

Finding out that the US military is involved in gratuitous murder isn't news, nor is it shocking that they lie to our faces about it. Taken separately these incidents are bad enough but when looked at together it's a policy of provocation. Like the rush to hang Saddam (or one of his doubles), killing Sadr's lawyer is meant to incite hatred, to maintain the level of fear and instigate the violence that justifies the occupation.
Under the occupation Najaf province was relatively peaceful but the american military may just get their wish.

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