BAGHDAD, 16 August 2003 — More than 10,000 Shiite Muslims gathered in a poor suburb of Baghdad for special weekly prayers to denounce a perceived US Army assault on their faith, as American convoys twice came under attack west of the capital yesterday.
“They were not just attacking a flag, they were attacking all of Islam,” Sheikh Abdul Hadi Al-Daraji told his congregation. Daraji rejected a US apology for the incident in which an Iraqi was killed on Wednesday in clashes sparked when US troops in a helicopter removed a religious flag from a tower in the predominantly Shiite suburb of Sadr City.
Daraji warned: “We will not be responsible for what will happen to the Americans if they enter Sadr City again.” The US Army had on Thursday apologized to Shiite clerics over the clash.
In Sunni territory west of Baghdad, where attacks on US troops are a daily occurrence, US Army convoys came under attack twice yesterday morning and several soldiers were apparently wounded, witnesses said. The US Army did not confirm either incident.
In Basra, a Shiite cleric yesterday deplored anti-British riots in Iraq’s main southern city, blaming the unrest on security services of Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime. “We do not support demonstrations, be they peaceful or otherwise, because this is not the time for such protests,” Sheikh Sadbah Al-Saidi told a gathering of faithful. “The former regime’s security services that have infiltrated the population are trying to provoke a clash with the British forces, and what happened this week was the result of manipulation by insidious hands,” he said.
At the UN, the Security Council adopted a resolution on Thursday welcoming the establishment of the US-formed interim authority in Iraq, but stopped short of formally endorsing it. Resolution 1500 “welcomes” the establishment of the “broadly representative” Governing Council of Iraq, set up last month, as an important first step toward the formation of a legitimate independent government. The wording was changed from an original US draft, which had proposed that UN council members “endorse” it. Syria, the council’s only Arab member, abstained in the 14-0 vote.
