There was no warning. The two vehicles, a standard Land Rover and a slate-grey four-wheel drive, had driven out of the British Army headquarters a few minutes earlier. Basra, at 8.30am yesterday, was quiet. The ferocious heat was keeping most of the city’s two million inhabitants indoors, despite the lack of power and water.
As the armed soldiers left the compound, a pick-up truck pulled out behind their small convoy. It followed the vehicles for a short distance then closed up. The men inside opened fire with Kalashnikovs. There followed, according to eyewitnesses, a short chase as all three vehicles engaged in a high-speed firefight. Then the British 4WD careered off the road and smashed into a wall. The pick-up drove off, leaving three British soldiers dead and another seriously injured.
The attack capped one of the worst weeks for the coalition in Iraq. On Tuesday a massive bomb destroyed much of Baghdad’s Canal Hotel, headquarters of the United Nations in Iraq. It killed 24 people, including the UN special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello. On Thursday, gunmen shot dead a US Marine in Hilla, about 95 kilometers south of Baghdad, bringing the total of Americans killed by hostile action to 64 since 1 May when George Bush declared the war in Iraq over.
Leaders in Britain and the US said they would stand firm. But doubts continued to grow over their strategy. Was the blast a sign that Iraq was, as a nation, rising up against the coalition forces? Is the situation spiralling out of control? Have the US and Britain won a war, only to lose a peace? Can the coalition strategy succeed?
The attacks in Basra and in Baghdad are under investigation. The bomb had consisted of up to 1 500lb of former Iraqi army shells, grenades and other ammunition packed around a core of high explosive. It had been driven, in an old Russian-built truck, to the newly erected security wall around the hotel and detonated directly below de Mello’s office.
De Mello, a suave Brazilian diplomat, wearing the slacks and open neck short-sleeved shirt that was his preferred dress in the oppressive summer heat, was in the middle of a meeting when, at 4.30pm, the explosion ripped through the building. He was discussing his favourite subject — human rights — with two other experts, Arthur C. Helton (54) an American immigration lawyer, and Gil Loescher, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
The office, with its blue UN flag in the corner and black wooden desk, littered with papers and briefing notes de Mello’s secretary laid out for him to read, took the full force of the blast. Moments after the shockwave hit the corner of the building, it collapsed.
De Mello and Loescher, who were probably sitting next to each other on a sofa where the diplomat preferred to do business, crashed through two floors and landed on the ground level, trapped under piles of rubble but alive.
Sgt. William von Zehle, a 52-year-old retired fire chief from Wilton, Connecticut, who was working at a nearby military compound, was one of the first on the scene. Climbing down into a hole where two men were trapped, von Zehle began trying to free them. He had no idea who de Mello was, just that he was alive, conscious and in great pain. The two men talked as von Zehle worked to free de Mello’s legs. He gave the UN envoy a morphine injection but three hours after the explosion he stopped talking. He was dead.
Loescher was freed 15 minutes later. Terribly injured, he has been taken to a hospital in Germany where he is gravely ill. Helton did not survive the blast.
There are few clues as to who was behind the attack and it will take the FBI investigators some time to reach conclusions. There are various suspects: diehard loyalists to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party regime, Iraqis rising up against the Americans, or radical Islamic militants, possibly even connected to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.
British, American and Middle Eastern intelligence sources have told The Observer that elements from each group might be involved. The style of the attack — involving a big bomb in a vehicle directed against a spectacular target — suggests Islamic militants acting in the style of al-Qaida. Bill Kerik, the Baghdad police chief, said that traces of flesh found in the wrecked cab of the truck indicated it may have been a suicide attack, reinforcing the suspicion of radical Islamic involvement.
There were two suicide attacks in the south of Iraq during the conflict earlier this year but such tactics were favoured more by the radical Islamic group Ansar ul Islam that was operating in northern Iraq until it was scattered in March by US special forces acting alongside local Kurdish fighters. There have been indications that militants from the group, many of whom have links to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups once based in Afghanistan, have been regrouping, particularly around the Iranian city of Yerevan.
Many fled into Iran after the attack on their bases and have since re-entered Iraq, according to US military sources in Kirkuk. Another suspect is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, who many believe was behind the bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad three weeks ago.
It is also possible that a hitherto unheard-of militant Muslim group, possibly composed of Iraqis although more likely to have been formed out of the hundreds of Islamic fanatics who have been making their way to Iraq with the express purpose of attacking Americans, was behind the attack.
Yet, though the method of the attacks suggests Islamic militants, the targeting of the UN suggests the involvement of Baathist diehards. The strategy of Saddam’s henchmen has been to render Iraq ungovernable. Attacking the soft target of the UN, responsible for massive feeding programmes and other humanitarian activities in the country, would, everyone knew, cause massive chaos. With the UN blamed by many Iraqis for over a decade of punishing sanctions, it would also be popular.
In the short term, the tactic has been successful. One UN spokesperson said at least half of its staff had left Iraq by this weekend. The Polish government has restricted its troops in Iraq to what are considered ‘safe’ areas. The World Bank has pulled its teams out.
Many intelligence officers suspect Baathist diehards directed the bombing but used willing militants as cannon fodder. ‘The Baathists have been paying destitute Iraqis, some from the former army, to do their dirty work. If they can get someone to do it for nothing, they will. A pragmatic alliance with Islamic militants is very possible,’ one intelligence officer said.
The highway heading north out of Baghdad leads past the Oil Ministry and the green half domes that commemorate the dead in the Iran-Iraq war and out into the poor Shia Muslim enclave of Sadr City. On a Friday afternoon, the street is a teeming throng of men, prayer mats tucked under their arms, returning home from the mosque.
Most of the men in Sadr — formerly Saddam — City, welcomed the invading forces. But many are also followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a fiery young cleric who is seeking to become the leader of the Shia opposition, and who has denounced the US-appointed governing council as a puppet body.
Two weeks ago, attempts by a US Blackhawk helicopter crew to take down an Islamic flag provoked a riot in the slums, during which a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the Americans. In the ensuing firefight an Iraqi was killed and several others injured. Now a sign on a statue at the gateway to the enclave reads: ‘American troops not welcome.’
In Sadr city the grievances are social and economic but expressed in religious and political terms.
‘When they came here the Americans promised us everything but they have delivered us nothing,’ said Abu Yasser (35) a former conscript in Saddam’s army. ‘We have jumped from one fire to another — the fire of Saddam to the fire of America.’
There are other dissenting voices. ‘We hated Saddam, but at least we had the power and the water, and at least we felt safe on the streets. Now everybody is afraid,’ said Mussa Hamid (41) a labourer. ‘Getting rid of Saddam was unbelievable, but now we have Bush and his lies instead. People here realise now they have not come here to help the Iraqi people. If they had, we would have electricity by now. They have just come for the oil.’
But, though the resentment is genuine, sentiments are complex.
Should the Americans leave Iraq? ‘No, No, No,’ Hamid said. ‘If they go now things will not be better. Everything will be falling apart.’
For many, the key question is time. ‘I will not fight them yet, but I know people that want to,’ said Hamed Hassan, another labourer, ‘They have done nothing for us. Before, when the Americans got shot we were sad, but now we don’t care.’
The problem for the occupying forces is that they cannot provide security and the basic utilities — and thus keep the support of many Iraqis — because of the continuing attacks. But to stop the attacks they need the support of the Iraqi people and basic security.
Those behind the campaign being waged in the country know this. The Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-dominated body that runs Iraq from a heavily fortified base in the centre of Baghdad, insists the violence against coalition forces is not orchestrated. But the events of the last week, from the attacks on oil and water pipelines to the bombing of the UN, suggests that all those waging the war are thinking the same thing: destroy the infrastructure and the means to deliver basic supplies and the population will eventually rise up out of sheer frustration.
So what happens next? The consensus appears to be that more troops and civilian specialists are needed to kickstart a recovery and break the cycle of violence. But no one can agree who should supply them and who should control them. The Americans want more nations to send larger contingents of troops to Iraq but appear unwilling to relinquish any military or political control in the country.
Many states, including France, have said they are willing to send troops but only as part of a UN-led force and only if, in return, they receive a stake in the political and economic administration of the country. The Pakistanis and the Turks, whose Muslim forces would add welcome credibility, are also placing conditions on any dispatch of troops. So are the Indians.
Large-scale international involvement would almost certainly require a new UN resolution. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew to America last week to talk to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, about the various options.
The Bush administration has given no sign that it is prepared to give up any of its authority in Iraq. This may or not be a bargaining position. Whatever the case, all sides know there needs to be a decision taken soon – or the bloodshed will continue. – Guardian Unlimited Â