shi'ate must grabe it and grabe it firmly,it is only the chance they have!!!!

[sayfulaah-almasluul]

they have been under server and humiliation from saddam,but saddam was just fulfiling and presicely following the steps of his loved teacher, who is he? do not be so suprise he is waliid binu mu'aawiye they did sufered under wallid and now under sadamthey are sufering the scars of his totures they are bleeding and crying from his dictatriol punishment it is time for them to tight their grib on ruling iraq and even spreading that ruling to rest of arab world where their brother are geting totures, they must not lose this golden oppoturnity.

[Thinkerman]

I dont no about that saxiibo but hey check out the article below

 

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Religion and politics converge in march of a million Iraqi Shias

By Phil Reeves and Andrew Buncombe in Karbala

21 April 2003

 

 

All day, they kept on coming. Flocks of hunched old women plodding along the dual carriageway in their stockinged feet, black chadors flapping wildly in the hot and dusty wind. Packs of gaunt and fiery-eyed young men striding under a canopy of green and black flags, bouncing to the rhythm of their own noisy chants. Saintly old men in white robes, limping bare-footed on the hot asphalt, resting from time to time to lean on their wooden staffs. Some marched along beating their chests; some carried babes in arms.

 

Sixty miles of dead-flat landscape separates Baghdad from Karbala. Yesterday the highway between them – a road not unlike the M4, but littered with wrecked Iraqi fighting vehicles – became an unbroken flow of people. They were walking south, a crowd of pilgrims so dense that they shut down half the carriageway to cars for miles on end.

 

A vast army of Iraqi Shia Muslims – and a few from neighbouring Iran, too – was on the move, pouring out of the towns and villages towards one of their holiest cities in a traditional annual march that was banned under Saddam Hussein. From Baghdad, the journey takes two days. But some of those who live further afield said they had been walking for five.

 

This was, first and foremost, a ritual, an act of self-sacrifice to mark the 40th day of mourning for the death of the prophet's grandson, Hussein, 1,323 years ago. This red letter day in the Shia calendar falls on Wednesday.

 

But it is an event that also has considerable political significance. Though this was primarily a religious event, the mass march – which will continue today – is a de facto show of strength by Iraq's Shia majority, ruthlessly suppressed under Saddam Hussein, and now eager to lay down their marker in the political vacuum of the chaotic and dangerous post-Saddam days. In Karbala the pilgrims find a city that is operating under the rule of the Shia elders, in what could be a blueprint for other cities across Iraq.

 

It could equally prove to be the start of an overwhelming problem for Washington and London as they try to establish an inclusive government among the Iraqi population, of which 60 per cent is Shia.

 

Since the war ended, the Shias have been quietly taking control of running Shia- dominated towns. This was another tacit reminder to the US that their community – whose aspirations bear little resemblance to Washington's hopes for the brave new world – must be taken into account.

 

There was little sign of gratitude from the walkers towards the Americans for sending in the occupation forces which overthrew the regime that oppressed them, banning the march and killing thousands of Shias over the years.

 

As the tide of people trudged down the southbound lane of Routes 8 and 9, an armoured snake of American army trucks and lorries carrying fuel, cranes and – intriguingly – motorboats, passed them by, heading north to the capital. No one waved. No one cheered. Less than two weeks after the "liberation" of the Shias, the American soldiers attracted only wary, curious stares.

 

So, too, did the uneasy handful of soldiers from the so-called Free Iraqi Forces who were guarding the road near Karbala. These are the men of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile businessman wanted for fraud in Jordan, whom the Pentagon's hawks have been pushing as a possible new leader.

 

The post-Saddam confusion could hardly have been better illustrated: within a few miles the territory is controlled by the US military, with patrols by the exiles who form the little-loved Mr Chalabi's militia, and a city which is, in effect, run by the Shias.

 

The sun was barely up yesterday before Radhia Hassan Alwan, a tiny, shrivelled woman of 73, set off from her village to join the pilgrimage. So small and haggard is she that it was hard to imagine that she could manage even a mile of the great walk. Yet she had covered 20 miles, and professed to feeling perfectly well.

 

This was an historic moment for her. She said she had always made the annual pilgrimage but for the past three decades it was in secret, sneaking across the fields to avoid the regime's snoops and henchmen. She said she had been caught on several occasions by intelligence agents, who would beat and harass her. "I felt totally alone," she recalled, watching people stream down the road towards her. "Now I am very, very happy."

 

There were lots of stories like that yesterday. Ali Abdul Hussein al-Abzawi, a 30-year-old labourer, said he had walked 150 miles to get to Karbala over five days. He, too, claimed to have covertly made the pilgrimage for years – in his case, since 1994. "I used to creep through the fields. In the past we would be shot at, but now we are free."

 

At lunchtime in the central plaza of Karbala, a mass of people were recovering from the walk by browsing through the pavement stalls or sleeping under the colonnades – now selling previously banned books and pictures of respected Shia clerics. There were photos of the powerful Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani of Najaf, the widely respected scholar Professor Mohammed al-Wa'ali, and Ayatollah Mohammad Bakr al-Hakim, the pro-Iranian leader whose 30,000-strong militia is already running some border towns.

 

The city is now firmly in the control of the Shia elders. Last week a 10-man council was elected to help oversee the running of Karbala but it seemed clear that orders came down from the mosque.

 

The head imam in the city, Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Kerbali, chose his words carefully as he explained that people had been obeying the orders of their imams and the religious students. "You can see the co- operation we have had," he said. "The students have a good relationship with the people and they obey the orders of the students. The co-operation you can see in the streets of the city reflects that."

 

Plastered on the entrance of Karbala's two great gold-domed shrines – tombs of the Imam Hussein and his half-brother Abbas, seen as martyrs by Shias – were demands for the notoriously divided Muslims of Iraq to unite, a repeated theme on the streets. Placards carried by a few among the marching masses were equally explicit. "Yes, yes, to Islam. No, no to occupation," said one.

 

But the men in the cafés of Karbala are still smouldering over the American failure to support the Shia uprising of 1991. As they supped their tea, they went through the motions of expressing appreciation towards the Americans and British for toppling Saddam.

 

But the real emotion was reserved for George Bush, whose motives for invading Iraq are seen here as a starkly self-interested quest for oil. "We reject the occupation completely, said Riad al-Musawi, a 40-year-old baker. "They have promised to leave the country, but if they don't we will fight them with knives and stones. More even than the Palestinians."

21 April 2003 10:21

 

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[Thinkerman]

Here is another article i came across whilst surfing the net.

 

'Islam is back,' cleric says

 

By LIZ SLY

Chicago Tribune

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq — At Baghdad's al-Kindi Hospital, the Islamic revolution that some Iraqis fear and others crave is in full swing.

 

The administrator's office, formerly occupied by a Baath Party appointee, has become the sanctuary of Sheik Abbas Zubaidi, a young cleric with a pronounced limp acquired during torture sessions in the jails of the ousted regime.

 

Hanging on the wall in place of the obligatory picture of Saddam Hussein is a photograph of the snowy bearded Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Shiite ayatollah assassinated in 1999. He is the inspiration to a new generation of Islamic radicals.

 

Young men with pistols stuffed in their belts hover in attendance as the sheik dispenses medicine, food and cash to a steady stream of needy people. Stacked in the corner are two Kalashnikovs and a prayer rug.

 

Zubaidi never misses any of the five daily prayer sessions stipulated in the Koran, and when the Islamic republic he dreams of is established, neither will anyone else in Iraq, he says.

 

"The new government will be ruled in the name of God in heaven, whose light shines into all walks of life," said Zubaidi, who says he derives his authority from the powerful Hawza el Miya seminary in Najaf, the holy Shiite city in southern Iraq.

 

"You can tell America: Islam is back."

 

This wasn't what the Bush administration intended when it set out to topple Saddam's regime and transform Iraq into a "beacon of democracy" for the region.

 

But already, less than three weeks since Marines occupied the heart of Baghdad, a different vision of Iraq's future has begun to take shape. It is a future in which Iraq would be ruled by Shiite clerics who take their orders from the ayatollahs in Najaf. It is an Iraq where women would be forced to wear the black, head-to-toe garment known as the abeya and where music, dancing and alcohol are forbidden.

 

It is an Iraq that would look a lot like neighboring Iran.

 

Bush administration officials have accused Iran of interfering in Iraq's affairs to promote its brand of Islamic radicalism. As exiled Iraqi clerics return from Iran, some likely are carrying with them influences, instructions and, perhaps, money and arms from their former hosts.

 

The dynamics driving Iraq's nascent Islamic revolution are rooted just as much, however, in the hopes of Iraq's long-oppressed Shiite community.

 

Newly released from the harsh restrictions imposed during 35 years of secularist Baath Party rule, Iraqi Shiites are embracing vigorously their newfound religious freedom, and many say they dream of establishing their own Islamic republic in Iraq. Shiites represent about 65 percent of the population in Iraq, and if the elections promised by President Bush eventually are held, their votes will carry enormous weight.

 

In the cities of the Shiite-dominated south, clerics have created a de facto Islamic mini-state, moving into vacated government offices and forming committees to address critical issues such as the restoration of electricity, water and social services.

 

In the Shiite slum of Baghdad once known as Saddam City but renamed after the slain Sadr, the mosques are dispensing health care, medicine and justice. Armed volunteers answerable to local clergy enforce order, detaining thieves and patrolling the streets.

 

The movement appears to have the broad support among residents.

 

"Of course we want an Islamic government. Shiites are in the majority in Iraq, so we should have the right to choose," said Haidar Shaqr, 22, a local barber living in Sadr City. He says he would support the introduction of Sharia, Islamic law. That would include the veiling of women and severe punishments for adultery and theft.

 

"These are Islamic laws, and they will become the civilian law. They are the laws of the sky and the heaven," he said. "Now, it's just a Shiite thing, but with Saddam gone, the sheiks are insisting that these laws should be for everybody in Iraq."

 

But not all Shiites are happy with what they see. Hameed Hussein al Araji, the chief surgeon at al-Kindi and a Shiite, says he is deeply alarmed and fears his hospital is just the starting point for a creeping Islamic revolution. Al-Kindi is in an area that includes Christians and other minorities and is one of several Baghdad hospitals occupied by armed mullahs.

 

Zubaidi and his gunmen moved into the hospital April 10, the day after Saddam's regime collapsed, saying they had come to protect the building from looting. At first, Araji said, the doctors welcomed them, but Zubaidi and his men quickly hinted at ulterior motives.

 

"I have told him, 'I don't like guns in the hospital. We have women here and children,' " he said. "But it seems that he has his own agenda. His stated purpose was to protect the hospital, but we think he has a political reason for doing that. He is trying to win the hearts of the people. He gives out drugs, crutches and money."

 

The hospitals are virtually the only functioning institutions in Iraq, and that endows them with political weight. Before the revolution in Iran, the Shiite clergy there won the support of ordinary Iranians by providing social services in impoverished areas neglected by the state, and in Lebanon, the fundamentalist Shiite Hezbollah movement rose in Shiite areas by doing the same.

 

The speed with which the clerics moved to control the hospitals after the collapse of Hussein's regime leads Araji to suspect their actions were planned in advance.

 

"Some of the Shia leaders are neutral and try to keep religion and politics separate, but some are well-organized and are trying to create an Islamic government," he said.

 

"I hope America won't stand by and allow them to direct the hospital as a nucleus for the coming of a religious government, because this is not the desire of all Iraqis," he added.

 

Some American officials say they won't stand by.

 

Jay Garner, the retired general appointed to administer the country, said last week that the United States would not tolerate an Islamic republic in Iraq.

 

But as the U.S. begins to establish an administration for postwar Iraq, the Shiite clerics are filling a critical gap.

 

Not all of them see their role as permanent.

 

"We don't have any aim to be in the new government," said Sheik Abdel Mehdi al Salami, the senior cleric in charge of the southern city of Karbala. "We want to see a government that represents all the people of Iraq. The Shiites of Iraq are the biggest percentage of people and the government should respect the religious traditions of the Shiites, but at the same time it should give an equal amount of respect to the traditions and religions of other groups."

 

There are deep divisions within the Shiite clergy, and Zubaidi aligns himself with a radical branch. If Iraqis of different religions or opinions don't like the idea of an Islamic republic, they will have to get used to it, he said.

 

"Just as Iraqis grew accustomed to listening to music, so they will grow accustomed to listening to religion in their lives," Zubaidi said.

 

Araji counsels patience. A degree of political turmoil is inevitable in a country that has suddenly had freedom thrust upon it, he says.

 

"We hope these things are temporary," he said. "We paid with our blood for our freedom, and the Americans, they paid with their blood too. Can we believe Americans shed blood only to see an Iraqi government just like the one in Iran? I don't think so."

 

Last changed: April 26. 2003 9:02PM