Coastal Post Online
MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS
MONTHLY - FREE PRESS
(415)868-1600 -
(415)868-0502(fax) - P.O. Box 31, Bolinas, CA, 94924
September, 2004
Reporters Get Death Threats From
Police
In
early August, Iraqi police threatened to kill every journalist working in the
holy city of Najaf, where US forces were locked in a tense stand-off with
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.
After a series of veiled warnings to leave, two marked
police cars pulled up at dusk outside the Sea of Najaf hotel on the outskirts
of town, where Arab and Western journalists were staying.
Ten uniformed policemen walked into the hotel and
demanded that the al-Arabiya, Reuters and AP correspondents go with them.
Journalists told them they were not there, but the
policemen found and arrested Ahmed al-Salahih, the al-Arabiya correspondent,
who the day before had been given a special exemption from the earlier eviction
orders.
A uniformed lieutenant then told the assembled
journalists and hotel staff: "We are going to open fire on this hotel. I'm
going to smash it all, kill you all, and I'm going to put four snipers to
target anybody who goes out of the hotel. You have brought it upon
yourselves."
After pushing and shoving in the foyer, another
policeman pointed his gun towards a member of the staff, but was disarmed by an
Arab television journalist.
The police left, taking the al-Arabiya correspondent
with them, drove 300m and fired warning shots.
The attempt to drive journalists from Najaf came as US
marines-supported by the nascent Iraqi army-stepped up the pressure on Sadr,
whose forces remained in control of Najaf's old city and sacred shrine to Imam
Ali.
The Government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is
acutely sensitive to the maelstrom that would erupt if the shrine were to be
damaged, and the media crackdown may be an attempt to limit the negative
publicity should it be hit during any military operation.
After US marine commanders last week issued a hawkish
threat "to finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started," Mr.
Allawi moved swiftly to defuse alarm even among his own senior government
officials, reassuring Iraqis: "The holy shrine will remain safe from all
attacks that could possibly harm its sacredness."
Any military operation will be hampered by the fact
that Sadr's hundreds of fighters inside the old city and cemetery have grown by
about 2000, swelled by volunteers who marched through US lines at the weekend
to act as human shields. They paraded around the marble white-tiled courtyard
inside the golden-domed mosque, effectively turning it into a giant stadium for
rallies to the renegade Shia cleric.
All were unarmed but insisted they would pick up the
guns of any Mehdi fighters killed in renewed clashes.
In the streets outside the shrine, terrified Iraqis
hid inside their homes, with intermittent fire between the US tanks and Mehdi Army guerrillas, who have planted huge booby traps on almost every
street. Few ordinary Najafis will now stray beyond their doorsteps.
© : t r u t h o u t 2004