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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Blaming it on the Mahdi

Unbelievably, the Iraqi government is evacuating Karbala in the middle of the giant Shia pilgrimage, and in the process blamed the Mahdi Army.
More than 1 million pilgrims were ordered to leave the Shiite holy city of Karbala on Tuesday and police imposed a curfew after two days of violence — including raging gunbattles between rival militias — claimed at least 35 lives during a religious festival....

Security officials told The Associated Press that Mahdi Army gunmen, loyalists of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, attacked guards around the two Karbala shrines that were under the protection of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Frankly, I don't know what happened, but this smells like a huge PR move by the SCIRI/Badr corps in conjunction with the Iraqi government to tar the Mahdi among the Shia faithful.

Have they ever "evacuated" even much smaller religious events after attacks?

2 Comments:

  • Amazing isn't it? Soon SCIRI will be banning marches on Karbala...just like Saddam.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:36 PM  

  • Well, the beauty is blaming it on the Mahdi.

    These events are traditionally far better for the street level MAhdi than the upperclass SIIC, so shutting it down and blaming Mahdi is a win/win.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:04 PM  

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