Iraq rushes to guard its mosques

Hussein al-Jazairi and fellow partisans of hard-line Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement are in charge of security at the shrine. "This is all our responsibility. If we do not protect people, they will not come to Friday prayers, which is crucial in uniting us," says Mr. Jazairi, juggling two walkie-talkies and prayer beads.

Alleys were blocked with barrels and concrete barriers. At the gate, everyone was searched as a guard with an AK-47 watched. Dozens of men and veiled women trickled into the shrine's main prayer hall. The women sat behind the men under the clatter of ceiling fans. Sheikh Ali al-Saadi, a Sadrist, emerged from a side door. He was draped in a white shroud, which signifies a desire for martyrdom. He is flanked by members of Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Sadrists took over Sayyed Idriss after the first Samarra bombing in February 2006 to extend their influence and power in Karrada, an area traditionally controlled by rivals, the Hakims.

Sheikh Saadi's sermon was subdued but later in an interview he denied anyone from the Mahdi Army ever targeted a Sunni mosque in retaliation to attacks on Shiite shrines. He and his men blamed the US military and their "agents" for blowing up mosques, including the one in Samarra, to inflame sectarian passions and prolong their presence in Iraq.

"We have evidence, and the day will come for us to reveal it," says Saadi, adding that everyone is committed to Sadr's call for a pilgrimage to Samarra on July 5 to protest the shrine bombing. "We will carry olive branches and wear white shrouds."

The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars issued a statement Monday calling on Shiites not to respond to Sadr's call because flocking to Samarra, a predominantly Sunni town, would "stoke the flames of discord."

Many hard-line Sunnis have a different take on the war of mosques. They say it is all part of a "Persian plot" being executed by Iran's alleged agents within the government. "They want the rest of Iraq to join Karbala, Najaf, and Qom," says Sheikh Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, one of the association's leaders, in an interview last Thursday, naming Shiite holy cities in Iraq and Iran. "Attacks on mosques will increase because they have a strategy of eradicating all Sunni mosques in Iraq."

The association's website features a video of the destruction of the minaret, considered the tallest in Iraq, at the Sunni Fatah Pasha mosque in Baghdad. It was hit four days before the twin minarets in Samarra were blown up on June 13. Kubaisi also claims that the Mahdi Army has taken over at least 130 Sunni mosques in Iraq and has either shut them down or converted them to Shiite ones. The Sadrists flatly deny this charge.

Jabar, from Beirut, described the group's claims as "very dangerous and inflammatory…. This is how they rally Sunnis in the region to provide recruits and funding for the insurgency."

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