The stampede tragedy in Baghdad on Wednesday that killed more than 800 Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims risks stoking ethnic conflict in a country dangerously rife with sectarian tension.
Relations between Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups, thrust into the spotlight during the tortuous negotiations over a draft Constitution, are often a worry when acts of violence target Shi’ite, Sunni or Kurdish communities.
But the unprecedented numbers killed in Wednesday’s horrific tragedy, mostly Shi’ite pilgrims converging on the capital for a religious celebration, has left some wondering if the event could tip communal frictions over the edge.
”Even if it wasn’t directly caused by Sunni insurgents, the perception will be that it was,” said Joost Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group, an organisation working to prevent and resolve conflicts.
”In the current environment, people will see things in a sectarian light … and it may well lead to further expansion of growing sectarian animosities.”
Speculation abounded in Baghdad that Sunni insurgent groups were responsible for sparking the stampede on a bridge near a Shi’ite mosque with rumours of a suicide bomber in the midst of the crowds.
The tragedy followed a mortar attack on pilgrims gathered at the shrine that killed seven people.
”What happened was that one terrorist spread a rumour, which led to the stampede,” Shiite Interior Minister Bayan Baker Solagh told state-run Iraqia television.
”It was Saddamists and Zarqawists who spread rumours on the bridge and that is why people panicked,” agreed Shi’ite counterpart and National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.
He was referring to loyalists of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda front man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian extremist who is Iraq’s most wanted man.
An armed Sunni group linked to al-Qaeda has claimed a mortar attack close to a Shi’ite shrine in Baghdad that was followed by a stampede that killed 816 people, according to an internet statement.
”The mujahedin of the Jaiech Al-Taifa al-Mansoura [Army of the Victorious Community] fired mortars and Katyusha rockets at the bastion of the infidels and apostates … to punish the genocides committed against Sunnis,” it said.
It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the statement.
The group has in the past claimed several attacks against United States forces, Iraqi police and Iraqi Shi’ites.
Conspiracy theories
In Baghdad’s hospitals where hundreds of Shi’ites were taken for treatment, conspiracy theories abounded as victims wondered why authorities had allowed such a large crowd to build up on the Al-Aaimmah bridge.
As reports emerged about failed suicide attempts and plots to poison the Shi’ite faithful with contaminated food and water, Baghdad’s rumour-mill went into overdrive, with ministers adding fuel to the flames.
”I hold my colleagues in the ministries of interior and defence responsible for what happened today,” Minister of Health Abdul Mutalib Mohammed Ali told reporters, calling for the ministers’ resignations.
Minister of Defence Saadun al-Dulaimi sought to play down the fears of ethnic conflict, saying: ”What happened today has nothing to do with sectarian sensitivities.”
But the worry for many Iraqis is that the country’s politics are now conducted along strict sectarian lines. Institutions are dominated by certain ethnic or religious groups, and politicians vie to outmanoeuvre each other on that basis.
The fallout from a draft Constitution imposed by a Shi’ite-dominated government over the heads of the Sunni former elite has yet to be measured, but anti-government protests have already appeared in Sunni regions.
Charter provisions such as prosecuting former members of Saddam’s Ba’ath party and splitting the country into federally autonomous zones have alienated Sunnis, who feel their national role is being marginalised.
With Iraq’s political future in the balance, animosities are coming to a head — on Tuesday a prominent Sunni leader even charged that Shi’ite-dominated government security forces were massacring Sunnis around the country.
At stake is control of a strategically vital country containing the world’s second-largest oil reserves. Even Iran weighed in to accuse ”suspicious hands” of conspiring to incite violence.
”So far, we’ve had no level-headed politicians, only ones out for personal sectarian gain,” said Hiltermann, adding that only the moderating influence of top Shi’ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has prevented Shi’ite acts of recrimination so far.
Sistani remained customarily quiet on the tragedy by late Wednesday, but for Hiltermann the possibility of Iraq descending into sectarian conflict now rests on a knife-edge.
”If either [Sistani’s] resolve erodes or his calls are no longer heeded … it may well be the situation will get worse,” Hiltermann said. — AFP
