http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/ne...03-124215.html

Iraqi City of Peace Moving Toward Chaos
By BY HAMZA HENDAWI
The Associated Press




KARBALA, Iraq - Abdel-Aziz al-Nasrawi was nervous. He sat on the edge of his
chair and spoke in whispers. Occasionally, he stole a look at the American
officers and their translators seated across the room to see if they were
eavesdropping.

A 53-year-old lawyer who became deputy governor of this holy Shiite Muslim
city last month, al-Nasrawi has a lot on his mind these days.

"The problems are immense," the silver-haired al-Nasrawi said with a hint of
desperation.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Karbala has been viewed as an island of
peace and stability in a country wracked by violence and social turmoil. But
there are signs the peace in this city of 500,000 could soon unravel.

U.S. military commanders, al-Nasrawi confided, are not flexible enough and
misinterpret simple acts of piety as religious extremism. The authority of
the city's 1,400-strong police force is constantly challenged by Karbala's
people, many of whom are armed.

Beyond those problems, he said, a rift between two rival Shiite Muslim
groups has deepened, filling the city with tension that could turn into
violence. Drugs and pornography are spreading, he complained, and the
economy hasn't recovered from the war.

Last week, U.S. forces in Karbala, 62 miles south of Baghdad, were attacked
for the first time since they captured the city in April. There were no
casualties and local U.S. military commander Marine Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez
dismissed it as an "isolated incident."

But the symbolic significance of the incident cannot be overlooked.

Young men said the only reason they haven't attacked American forces is the
lack of a fatwa, or edict, for holy war issued by a top Shiite cleric.

"The circumstances are not right to call for jihad," said Sheik Abdel-Mahdi
Abdel-Ameer, the Karbala representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini
al-Sistani, a reclusive cleric based in the holy city of Najaf who leads one
of the two rival Shiite groups. "At present, we are using peaceful means to
demand a constitution and a representative government. But it will be a
different story if those demands are not met."

Leaders of the rival al-Sadr group - followers of a senior cleric
assassinated in 1999 by Saddam Hussein - are more extreme. They say the
Americans corrupt local young people by handing out pornography and
entertain prostitutes.

Their leader in Karbala, sheik Khaled al-Kazimi, told a visitor of the
demands he brought three times to a local U.S. commander. He boasted of "our
people" who monitor U.S. bases in the area to see whether "immoral things"
take place.

"I told him (the commander) to withdraw his forces to a point 15 kilometers
(9 miles) out of Karbala and leave us in charge of security here. I said I
will personally take the blame if things go wrong," he said. Three other
clerics and a relative listened attentively.

"These Americans are technologically advanced, but they are not clever," he
said.

Al-Kazimi could not recall the name of the commander he met. Lopez said it
was not him and laughed when told of the demand.

Al-Nasrawi said problems in Karbala are compounded because the Americans
don't appreciate the city's special cultural and religious nature. That
misunderstanding led to the Americans' disbanding a volunteer, 500-strong
police force set up by the clerics the previous month.

The volunteers, who prevented the kind of widespread looting that plagued
Baghdad in April and May, showed religious zeal in policing the city,
admonishing women who did not adhere to Islam's strict dress code in public
and raiding places where they suspected pornographic material or drugs were
being sold.

"They think it's Hollywood, but it isn't," al-Nasrawi said. "This is a holy
city and must be treated as such."

Lopez, a Chicago native, disputes the claim that his more than 11,000 men
are insensitive, saying his troops don't go within 200 yards of the city's
shrines. "We are not cultural experts, but we have experts who are educating
us."

Pilgrims crowd Karbala's shrines, praying, offering supplications to their
revered saints or reading from the Quran. Outside, merchants sell worry
beads, books, scarves embroidered with religious phrases or pictures of
clerics.

Rocks from Karbala are sold for faithful to rest their foreheads on during
prayer. Families of poor pilgrims, unable to afford a hotel, squat for days
on straw mats spread on sidewalks, eating food brought from home.

Such harmonious scenes of piety, however, conceal the dangerous rift between
the two Shiite factions. The rivalry, centered on delicate theological
issues and the control of shrines, is played out in most of Iraq's
Shiite-dominated areas.

But Karbala's religious stature gives the dispute more significance.

A deal between the two sides to take turns leading Friday prayers in Imam
al-Hussein mosque, the city's holiest shrine, collapsed earlier this month
when al-Sadr said only its imams had the right to lead the prayers.

Rival supporters came to blows July 4 inside the shrine and the al-Sadr
group later warned worshippers in fliers plastered on the mosque's main gate
that God would not accept the prayers if they were made under an imam from
al-Sistani.

"No one should have a monopoly over the Friday prayers," counters
Abdel-Ameer, of al-Sistani. "God asks all Muslims to perform it."



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