Sectarian struggle among Tribes at Suwayra

"Mahdi Army militiamen appear to have killed a tennis coach and two of his players. They accused the tennis players of wearing shorts and showing off their legs.

This item from Reuters is important: "Suwayra - Police said they found on Friday near Suwayra, south of Baghdad, the body of a member of the Mahdi Army militia which had bullet wounds and showed signs of torture." It turns out that the supposed tribal feud "over land" near Suwayra is actually a political struggle, with one of the sub-tribes having joined the Mahdi Army and acting aggressively in the region.

I have the following account from someone there who has been following this:

' The [sectarian conflict near Suwayra] faded out in November of last year.

It suddenly errupted three days ago. There were actually three days of violence in that area. The first day was an attack on Obaid by members of the Ghuran tribe who were members of the Mahdi army (at least they carried Mhdi army id's). 14 people were killed.

The second saw an attack from Suwaira security forces (although the area administratively belongs to Baghdad).

The third day saw a massive assault by Iraqi and US army accompanied by helicopter gunships and fighter planes. The assault lasted for 10 hours . . .

It is absolutely fascinating for me to see that piece of information being propagated on Iraqi news channels, newspapers and websites as a land dispute. It was originally based on a "police source".

It is now almost certain that the US army was misled into taking action against one of the two parties yesterday.

The whole thing was a 'sectarian' assault that failed miserably the first time. It failed again this time . . .

In yesterday’s ‘American’ raid only one man was killed – young Marwan (!!) 6 were injured and about a dozen detained (exact number unconfirmed).

Today, all tribes in the area (Sunni and Shiite) were in uproar against the Ghurraan. Their 3 acts were seen as treacherous. The Ghurraan shaikh, Saad A. A. al-Bassi sent word to Obaid that he was enlisting support from his tribe to disown the sub-clan that was responsible (known as Rattaan). A few hours ago I received word (unconfirmed) that Saad was arrested by the Iraqi National Guard!

Juan Cole

Someone needs to put a bullet in that fat fuck