Fears of Sunni backlash escalate as execution of Saddam's henchmen looms

Published on Sunday 7 January 2007 00:54

IRAQ is prepared to go ahead with the execution of two of Saddam Hussein's henchmen - possibly as early as today - despite growing alarm that the outraged Sunni minority will take revenge on what it sees as "victors' justice".

International fears are growing that the execution of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former head of the intelligence service, and Awad al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, for crimes against humanity, could further deepen the bitter division between Iraqi's Sunni and Shi'ite communities and finally tip the country into civil war.

All the arraigned leaders of the former regime are Sunnis, except former foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, who is a Christian.

The United Nations, the European Union under its German presidency, and a number of Arab governments have come out against the executions. But the Iraqi government insisted that not even the president of the country had the power to interfere with the due process of the law when it came to crimes against humanity.

One possibility is that the two Saddam henchmen will be hung at dawn today at the end of the week-long Eid holiday.

Yesterday, President Nouri al-Maliki was engaged in fighting the fire triggered by last weekend's execution of the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In a speech to mark the 85th anniversary of the formation of the Iraqi army, he said: "The execution of the tyrant was not a political decision, as the enemies of the Iraqi people say. The verdict was implemented after a fair and transparent trial, which the dictator never deserved."

He also accused other governments, without naming them, of meddling in Iraqi affairs with their criticism of Saddam's hanging.

One critic has been Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who condemned the conduct of Saddam's execution and its timing at the start of a Muslim religious festival, saying the hanging made the deposed leader "a martyr".

Saddam's death has certainly done nothing to quell rising levels of violence throughout the country.

A state of emergency imposed by the government officially runs out today, but is likely to be extended for a further 30 days because of the mounting sectarian killings.

Iraq's own official figures reveal that some 12,000 Iraqi civilians were killed last year, with a dramatic rise in the last three months. The UN believes the true figure is double this one.

The recriminations over Saddam's execution rumble on. The mobile phone video of Shi'ite Iraqi officials taunting the former leader on the gallows has confirmed in the minds of Sunnis that the Shia radicals headed by the extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose name was shouted at Saddam in his dying moments, have imposed their grip on the Iraqi state.

The episode is already proving to be the catalyst for a Sunni backlash, in the same way as the Sunni bombing of one of the Shi'ite holiest shrines, the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra last February, is seen as the seminal moment for the start of the vicious backlash by Shi'ites against Sunnis that shows no sign of abating.

Although Maliki yesterday announced a "neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood" assault on Baghdad's militant strongholds by Iraqi forces backed by coalition troops, in reality he appears powerless.

He blames disharmony within the ruling coalition, adding that after decades of rule by Sunnis, they had not accepted the Shi'ite majority role. "They don't want to accept this fact," he said. "Iraq isn't governed only by the Shi'ites. Power is shared."

However, despite much talk of running a self-styled "national unity government" he himself has done little to promote national reconciliation. He has shown little stomach for getting to grips with the escalating violence since he took over last May.

The US has identified the Mehdi Army, Sadr's militia, as the greatest threat to security in Iraq. The British too have identified "rogue Mehdi Army" elements in Iraqi police units in Basra, and two weeks ago blew up the headquarters of Basra's Major Crimes Unit and freed tortured prisoners.

Yet the Mehdi Army is too powerful for Maliki to be able to meet US demands for him to disband it. Not only is its political wing part of the Shi'ite coalition that keeps him in office, but the Sadr-ists are the nearest thing to a mass movement in Iraq. They, in return, accuse him of weakness in bowing to American pressure to reach out to the Sunnis. In December, they announced that they were boycotting the Iraqi government in protest at Maliki's decision to meet President Bush in Jordan.

While Maliki struggles to control his fellow Shi'ites, the Sunnis also blame him for the escalating violence against them.

Last week, the Muslim Clerics' Association, an umbrella grouping of religious leaders of Iraqi Sunnis, announced that militias linked to an unnamed political group were planning attacks on their community, and that "some officials in the current government are well aware of this criminal plan". It threatened that Sunnis would "respond in an appropriate way".

But this is more than a war of words. The fracture runs right through Iraqi society. A Balkans-style ethnic cleansing is in full flow as families are terrorised into moving into less dangerous neighbourhoods.

In Baghdad, sectarian attacks and threats have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes, and many districts that used to have mixed populations are now either Sunni or Shi'ite.

In large areas of the capital, where the police are Shi'ite, Sunnis are arrested for no reason. Many disappear and are tortured and killed. Dozens of bodies turn up every day, the victims of death squad kidnappers.

Many schools failed to open last September, and professionals, especially professors, physicians, politicians and journalists, are victims of sectarian killings to the extent that thousands are fleeing the country, or trying to.

The war-torn city of Fallujah, which was reduced to rubble by an American onslaught in November 2004, is now receiving thousands of Sunnis fleeing the lethal Shi'ite gangs in Baghdad, even though it is hardly a safe haven as rival Sunni gangs are slugging it out for control. These developments are potentially disastrous for the future of a single Iraq.

Fallujah is ruled by Islamic law imposed by al-Qaeda, and personal and commercial links with Baghdad are being reduced to the minimum. Already there is talk of renaming the local hospital the Saddam the Martyr General Hospital.

Now with the arrival of "Shi'ite justice" for Saddam and his leading acolytes the Sunnis have even more grounds for seeking retribution.