Iraq's simmering south

Monday the Monitor begins a three-part series that examines initial US efforts to transfer power at the grass-roots to Iraqis. US commanders, virtually alone in overseeing vast regions of Iraq, have pushed for at least superficial local empowerment as vital to stability. They have often forged ahead of civilian occupation authorities in Baghdad, resisting top-down mandates in favor of pragmatic problem solving from below. Yet so far steps toward Iraqi self-defense and self-rule remain fitful and tentative, hampered by mutual misunderstanding, resentment, and mistrust.

The series is based on scores of interviews conducted in July and August in three distinct regions: the Shiite-dominated south; the ethnically mixed crossroads of northern Iraq; and the Sunni strongholds of central Iraq. In each, the Monitor focuses on different problems: In the south, searching for common ground between conservative Shiite factions, Iraqi civil authorities, and US-led military forces. In the north, forging a new Iraqi defense force out of Iraq's broken, demoralized Army, and laying the building blocks for representative government. In central Iraq, sorting out the influential groups from the old regime - as well as establishing effective police and court systems.

KARBALA, IRAQ - Night was falling swiftly over the golden domes of this Shiite holy city when US soldiers manning the main police station received an urgent call: A robbery and stabbing had stirred trouble outside the Imam Hussein Mosque, and the newly trained Iraqi police needed backup.

The Americans knew the mosque area was off-limits to their troops - so did the thieves, arms merchants, and drug dealers who frequented the surrounding marketplace. Still, the situation sounded dire, so they dispatched a dozen US military police in four Humvees.

As the American MPs neared the mosque, which was thronged with evening worshipers, some Iraqis began shouting at them to leave. Rumors spread that the soldiers would violate the holy shrine. A hostile crowd of hundreds began pelting the Americans with rocks and bricks, denting the Humvees and smashing their windshields. Meanwhile, the 70 Iraqi police fled the scene on foot.

Surrounded in their vehicles, the MPs attempted to back down the street. They were still inching backwards, the soldiers say, when two Iraqis from the crowd opened fire and hit one MP, Staff Sgt. Carlos Lopez, in his right middle finger. Sergeant Lopez managed to shoot back with his pistol, killing the gunman. Firing into the air with a machine gun to keep the crowd at bay, the soldiers finally turned the Humvees and withdrew. At least one other Iraqi was wounded in the fray.

"It could have been a real bloodbath," says Capt. Leo Merck of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company, which responded to the call in late July. Days of violent anti-US protests followed. Men slashing themselves with swords and wearing black suicide bomber vests marched through Karbala, long considered one of the most peaceful cities in postwar Iraq.

The Karbala incident is one of many that demonstrate the fragility of the US-led occupation in Iraq. Five months after the fall of Baghdad, American and other foreign troops, along with the fledgling Iraqi security forces and local leadership they installed, are struggling to restore order in the swirling power void left by Saddam Hussein's collapsed dictatorship.

Indeed, the relative quiet of the south, dominated by Shiite Muslims who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population, belies stubborn challenges for coalition forces trying to promote self-governance. Here, powerful yet rivalrous Shiite clerics are divided whether to support the coalition and the interim Iraqi authorities it has installed. The clerics, some linked to Shiite Iran, have tense relations with the Sunni sects of Iraq, a division that further complicates the road to self-rule. A recent spate of assassinations and attempted killings of Shiite leaders has intensified frustration here and prompted calls for revenge.

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