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Nonplussed

This market has been hit several times before. So I cannot understand why they don’t cordon it off and make it a walking-only market. It wouldn’t stop terrorists using belt bombs, but you couldn’t get a truckful of explosives there any more. And while getting supplies into the shops and delis might be harder, it could still be done with dollies. I’d put the incoming goods through an inspection regime. Unemployment is high in Iraq. It would be worth spending some money on local Shiites as guards and inspectors.

Source: Informed Comment

AP’s Sameer Yacoub describes the aftermath of yesterday’s market bombing. Known toll is now given as 132 dead, 305 wounded, but bodies are still buried under rubble and many critically injured people are in overcrowded hospitals. Propane vendor Adnan Lafta makes the same observation I did: “There was no police or American presence in this market yesterday.” Juan Cole is similarly nonplussed:

Source: Today in Iraq

I do not know why the professor Juan Cole of informed comment should be nonplussed. That is as he points out a Shiite area. That market has as he points out been bombed before. The pattern is so clear that I am nonplussed that I have to explain it. Which bombing shall we start with?

• Shall we start with the The Al-Ula Market Bombing or.
• Perhaps you would prefer the June 10th, 2006, bombing about which markfromireland wrote:

  “Al-Sadriya’s a vegetable market the area it’s in is mixed but mostly Shi’ite.

• Shall we discuss the Jameelah market bombing?
• Or shall we talk about the Thursday, November 23, 2006 series of bombings.
• Will we ignore Baghdad completely and talk about Kufa?

Shall we talk about November 23rd 2006 you and I? No I do not want to talk about that day of blood it has already been said:

The bombing attack on Sadr city

This was a very well coordinated and sophisticated series of attacks. A massive amount of explosives were needed. In the region of ½ metric tonne per bombing.

The toll from these coordinated bombing attacks on Sadr city is still rising. It’s fairly clear how the attacks were carried out. There were four consecutive car bombs plus two others and the bombings were coordinated with a mortar barrage:

1. A car bomb at al-Modhaffar square - that’s one of them main entrances to Sadr City.
2. A car bombing of al-Habiba.
3. A car bombing of Jameela.
4. A car bombing of al-Jodar.
5. Coordinated mortar fire - coordinated with the bombings.
6. A fifth bomb that nobody seems to know much about.
7. The sixth bomber was intercepted while en route.

The markets that were attacked would have been Al-Sadrayn Square, Al-Hay market, and (I think) the “55.” I can’t work out why that last one would have been so busy today.

Source previous site: “Carried Out With American Blessing” - Nasser al-Sa’edi

Shall we talk about peace you and I? Or shall we talk about how every time the American invaders decide they want to crack down on mlitiias, or have a surge, or whatever the latest American word is, that huge parts of Baghdad, Sunni and Shia alike are left prey to the bombers or to the death squads?

“There was no police or American presence in this market yesterday.”

Shall we talk about how whenever the American invaders say they want to “crack down on miitiias” they mean that they want to “crack down” on any sand nigger who is uppity enough to want the American invaders out of Iraq? Why is it that there has never been a “crack down” on SCIRI?

Of course there was no police presence. There never is. Or an army one.  The people who protect the markets are the militias in the neighbourhoods. You would call them “vigilantes.” So would I but I would mean something different than you would mean. If you do not want your mother, your father, your wife, your daughters, your sons, yourself, or your neighbours blown to bits then you need to be vigilant. A vigilante standing near to a market in Baghdad is someone who takes it upon himself to search the goods as they come into the market.

Who are these “vigilantes?”

It depends on the neighbourhood, if you are in a Sunni neighbourhood, then it is a Sunni militia, in Sadr city and in the poor areas it is the Jaish Al Mahdi or one of their offshoots. My neighbourhood is mixed the “vigilantes” there are a mixture of Sunni and Shia, Arab and Kurd, we even have some few Christians left. When the death squads come we fight. When the Americans come, many fight. Why do they fight? They fight because behind the Americans come the death squads. Always, behind the American predator come the Iraqi jackals.  

If you are in a SCIRI controlled neighbourhood you are out of luck. You are out of luck because in the areas controlled by the militia in uniform that is loyal to the American invader backed green zone government partys to try to search a van as it comes to your street or your shop  bringing food and perhaps death is invite screaming death.  Your family will grieve over your body, the body that has the marks of electric drills on it. The body that has had acid poured on it. Death will have come as a mercy to you. You will have begged for death.

And while getting supplies into the shops and delis might be harder, it could still be done with dollies. I’d put the incoming goods through an inspection regime. Unemployment is high in Iraq. It would be worth spending some money on local Shiites as guards and inspectors.

There was an inspection routine. Until the ones who did the inspecting were told to stop lest the Americans do to Al Sadriya and to all of Sadr city what they did to Haifa Street. Who do you think it is who checked the goods coming into and out of that market you stinking pig? It was militia. Who do you think it was who risked their life every day searching for bombs? Shall I give you hint before we start to talk about peace? Here is your hint:

It was not the police.

It was not the police who still have no bomb detection equipment and that despite because despite because the few honest police like Major General Jihad Taher al-Luaibi who commands the bomb disposal squad and who are not aligned with any one political party who genuinely wish to protect and serve the Iraqi people all of us are always passed over by the Green Zone government. Go you and look at the date. They still have no bomb detection equipment. Often they go unpaid too. There are “other priorities.”

Al-Sadriya market serves many people not just those who live close to it. The area it is in is mostly Shia and its people are mostly Kurdish. Kurdish Shia, did you not know? Did you think all Kurds were Sunni? Did you think all Kurds were Peshmerga who want to destroy Iraq that they may break free and  cleanse their region of people who have lived there as long as they have? It is not so easy as that. Baghdad has about one million Kurds. God protect them most are loyal to Iraq. God protect them that there are not enough of them for there to be a Kurdish quarter. They live in what you would call enclaves. I have many Kuridsh neighbours, when I go to Sadr city I often hear Kurdish. Why then would people who are not Kurds or Shia come from all over to buy food in an enclave that has been bombed so often?

Many reasons, but the most important is that it is more dangerous and more expensive to try to get your ration card changed from your old address than it is to risk your life to go shopping in the area from which you have been driven out.

Are you foolish enough to believe that that is a coincidence that that market is bombed so often? And that it is only bombed whenever there is a “crackdown.” Try living in my country sometime, you who have never lived here. You who when you appear on Al Jazeera speak in English. Do you speak my langauge so badly that you must do that? What do you know of my country or of my people? What do you know of the country or of the people that your government and its soldiers are busy trying to drown in their own boiling blood? What do you know of the city to which my family moved as a child and in which I have grown up?  You do not either know or care enough that is plain.  Not enough. You know just enough to be able to blame your country’s victims and sound as though you should be listened to by those who know no better.

Dog.

Mohammed Ibn Laith

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We will try to post when we can. There is no electricity anywhere in Baghdad.

Laith,

Mohammed Ibn Laith,

Saba Ali Ihsaan.

Indexed under: Baghdad, Jaish al-Mahdi, Mahdi, Mahdi Army, Militia, SIIC (Formerly SCIRI)