Samarra is the new Fallujah. Resistance from Sunni Arabs over the last year has been fierce and the US 1st infantry division are bogged down in a bloody guerrilla war which is destroying the city. A seven mile long, five foot tall earthen wall built around Samarra by soldiers has failed to pacify the insurgency, despite three military check-points positioned along the dirt wall, where residents must show identification and submit to searches. Distrust runs deep and Major Curtis Strange said, “It's apocalyptic out there.”

Following the destruction of the al-Askari shrine, Shia militia are now assisting the US and Iraqi troops with reprisal attacks on the Sunni’s. No group claimed responsibility for bombing the Golden Mosque, but four men, three disguised in black and one in military uniform, entered the building and detonated explosives which destroyed the dome. The Western media immediately implicated extremist groups linked to ‘al Qaeda’ but Sunni’s claim it was the work of “a foreign hand aiming to create differences among Iraqis.”

It worked, and Iraq is on the brink of a civil war, with an escalation in sectarian violence which could lead to the break-up of the country and export greater instability across the wider Middle East. This all coincided with a surprise visit to Baghdad by UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, who was urging politicians to speed up the formation of a new coalition government. This tenuous democratic process is even more fragile now, as Sunni’s have withdrawn from negotiations in protest over the revenge killings.

Atwar Bahjat

American soldiers have been seizing telephones with build-in cameras from Samarra citizens to prevent news from being distributed on the internet and four journalists, including Atwar Bahjat of al-Arbiya, were kidnapped and shot by gunmen on their way to the city to report on the situation. The holy places are sacred to Muslims from all different sects and the idea that they would blow up a shrine containing tombs of revered imams, believed to be the successors of the Prophet Muhammad, is inconceivable.  

This act of desperation and desecration serves the interest of the warmongers who wish to ignite conflict and expand the ‘war on terror’ further a field, specifically into Iran and Syria, but Tony Blair said we must not listen to “conspiracy theories” only stand up for liberty everywhere. He said: “The struggle in Iraq today is the same struggle the world over - it's democracy versus extremism and terrorism.” These timely events also coincide with another tour of the Middle East by Condoleezza Rice, to promote PNAC policy.