Baghdad: three lives under duress
In different neighborhoods, a shopkeeper, a Christian, and an imam try to carry on amid daily dangers.
from the May 22, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Khadimiya's shrine
Imam Osama Altimimi, an elegant man with a short dark beard, white turban, and layered black and gray robes, speaks softly and smiles frequently. But he becomes adamant when he talks about the juxtaposition in Khadimiya, his ancient Baghdad district, of a Shiite shrine and US forces.
"You must understand that we cannot have the occupying forces patrolling near one of our holiest places," says Mr. Altimimi, gesturing towards the gold-domed Imam Khadim shrine down the street. "Since the old times the people have protected this holy city, and the people will protect it now."
The "people" in this case are young men associated with the mercurial cleric and anti-US political power broker Moqtada al-Sadr. Large posters of Mr. Sadr decorate the office of Altimimi, who is deputy manager of the Sadrist movement's operations in Khadimiya and imam of Friday prayers at the movement's small mosque.
Altimimi says those young men are not members of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of Sadr loyalists. Other Iraqis, and the American military that keeps a base of operations just a few blocks from Altimimi's office, insist that Mahdi militia forces do indeed take part in the shrine's security.
But after some nasty clashes with Mahdi forces in Khadimiya last month – including a raid of Altimimi's offices – the Americans have settled into an uneasy coexistence with them here out of a larger interest in keeping the looming Imam Khadim shrine safe.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, gave a hint recently as to why. In response to the US surge, he said, Al Qaeda and affiliated Sunni insurgent groups had shifted to hitting high-casualty and highly symbolic targets.
So far, he said, "none of this has triggered a reignition of the violence" and the rampage of "death squads that was a feature of the last year." But Mr. Crocker added, "I could not predict what it might mean" if "the really big one" slipped through and hit "one of these hugely symbolic targets." Among his examples he included the Imam Khadim shrine.
As a result, Sadr loyalists keep close watch over the site while American patrols keep a certain distance, nevertheless keeping an eye on comings and goings and pressing residents for intelligence.
In principle, they are to adhere to a measure passed earlier this year by parliament – where Sadrists make up the largest single bloc – calling on the US to keep its troops outside a one-kilometer radius of the shrine.
The measure is seen as largely symbolic, but it left US military commanders grumbling all the same, unhappy with the door opening even a crack to limits on their operations.
Still, the accommodation with the Mahdi presence in Khadimiya – even as the US continues to strike Mahdi-associated sites in the Baghdad district and Sadr base of Sadr City – demonstrates how a common goal can make for strange bedfellows.
At the Sadr offices, Altimimi insists there is no tacit cooperation with the Americans concerning the shrine. "There is cooperation between the people and the Iraqi Army," he says, "but not with the occupation troops. Our religion says we mustn't cooperate with the occupiers."
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