Baghdad curfew as Iraq seeks to stem violence

By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s government put Baghdad under
curfew on Friday in a bid to stop sectarian violence among
crowds from rival mosques on the Muslim day of prayer, setting
a critical test for its authority and its U.S.-trained forces.

After two days of reprisal attacks on minority Sunni
mosques following Wednesday’s suspected al Qaeda bombing of a
Shi’ite shrine, the United States and United Nations are
backing efforts to avert a slide toward all-out civil war that
could wreck U.S. hopes of withdrawing troops and inflame the
entire Middle East.

U.S. President George W. Bush called for calm and the U.N.
envoy invited all parties to talks on a way out of the gravest
crisis Iraq has faced since the U.S. invasion three years ago;
but top Sunni political leaders pulled out of negotiations on
forming a government from groups elected in a ballot in
December.

Shi’ite Iran maintained its fiery rhetoric against the U.S.
role in its neighbor; some suspect Tehran could try to divert
U.S. pressure on it by fueling trouble in Iraq, where
Washington hopes a friendly democracy would transform the
oil-rich region.

Senior Iraqi officials said leading clerics, including the
revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, were making strenuous
efforts to rein in Shi’ite militants — but one said privately
he feared even Sistani might be unable to control some gunmen,
as evidenced by the dozens of attacks on Sunni mosques so far.

U.S. forces, mistrusted on both sides and whose prospects
for departure Bush has staked on forging a stable, national
unity government, have adopted a low profile in the capital.

The largely untested Iraqi police and army will be in the
front line of Shi’ite-led government attempts to stop
previously expected protest marches on Friday over the
bloodless but symbolic bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque and
revenge attacks that officials reckon have killed more than 130
people.

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in two attacks on
Wednesday.

Residents reported fierce clashes in at least two areas in
and around Baghdad overnight, both in areas where sectarian
tensions are exacerbated by communities in close proximity.

LOYALTY TESTS

Friday will be a test of the loyalties of Shi’ite militias
nominally following the ruling Islamist parties, which have
called for order, and of the loyalties of U.S.-trained troops
and police, many of them drawn from those very militia groups.

Outspoken young Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul
Aziz al-Hakim of the powerful, pro-Iranian SCIRI party joined
calls for restraint. But their respective and rival militias,
the Mehdi Army and Badr movement, have been out on the streets.

Competition for influence among these Shi’ite factions
nominally united in the ruling Islamist Alliance may play a
role in how events develop, analysts say.

“No one should move,” one government source said of the
curfew, which was announced on state television. “Police will
detain anyone who goes out, even to go to prayers.”

Extending an overnight shutdown, it will last until 4 p.m.
(1300 GMT), after midday prayers, in Baghdad and surrounding
provinces where Sunnis and Shi’ites live side by side.

The 130,000 heavily armed Americans stand ready in the
background to keep order; some see them as the only real force
capable of stemming a full-scale assault by majority Shi’ites
on Sunni neighborhoods around the capital after years of
restraint in the face of Sunni rebel attacks that have killed
thousands since U.S. forces overthrew Sunni leader Saddam
Hussein in 2003.

“The issue hangs on the next few days. Either the gates of
hell open into a civil war or the Shi’ites will take more
power,” said Baghdad political science professor Hazim
al-Naimi.

“Only the U.S. military is preventing war in some areas.”

A senior official in the Shi’ite Alliance said: “The
question is how long will the Shi’ite public keep on heeding
Sistani and staying calm … Things could spin out of control
and then nothing will stop Shi’ite anger if attacks continue.”

Bush, keen for progress toward a troop withdrawal from Iraq
before congressional elections in eight months, said: “I
appreciate very much the leaders from all aspects of Iraqi
society that have stood up and urged for there to be calm.”

Among Thursday’s dead were 47 people, apparently both
Sunnis and Shi’ites, whom gunmen dragged from vehicles after a
demonstration to show cross-sectarian solidarity near Baghdad.

Many of the 27 million Iraqis stayed at home amid a
security clampdown on the first of three days of national
mourning.

“I stayed home,” Nasser Ahmed, a Sunni shopkeeper, said in
Baghdad. “I was expecting mass killings in the streets.”

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Faris al-Mehdawi,
Lin Noueihed, Michael Georgy, Waleed Ibrahim and Lutfi Abu Oun)