* Lt Gen (r) Hamid Javed off to London again, Tariq Aziz still there
* Talks with MMA being considered if dialogue with PPP fails
By Rana Qaisar
ISLAMABAD: Following a deadlock in the Musharraf-Benazir talks and Nawaz Sharif’s decision to land in Islamabad on September 10, the government made a last-ditch effort on Friday by activating two different diplomatic channels to “clinch” a deal with Benazir and “stop” Nawaz from returning to Pakistan.
Sources told Daily Times that contacts were established with the British and Saudi governments after the president consulted and briefed the PML leaders on the “proposals” being discussed with Benazir, and Nawaz’s decision to return. Inside sources said that after Benazir declined to postpone the joint meeting of her party’s central working committee and federal council beyond August 31, it was decided to involve a “common friend” through diplomatic channels to act as guarantor and broker a “deal” between the president and the PPP chairwoman.
The “common friend” is the British government and a meeting between a senior British official and Benazir took place before the latter chaired her party meeting. The CEC meeting is expected to continue late into the night. PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rehman confirmed to Daily Times from London that a meeting had indeed taken place between British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Benazir. “It was a meeting, not a call on,” Rehman insisted, adding that the “forthcoming election(s)” were discussed.
It may be mentioned here that the former British high commissioner to Islamabad, Mark Lyall Grant, was earlier involved in contacts between the Pakistan government and the two former premiers. Grant is presently political director at the British Foreign Office and is said to be in touch with NSC Secretary Tariq Aziz who is still in London and in constant touch with Rehman Malik, who is the interlocutor from Benazir’s side. It is learnt that President Musharraf’s Chief of Staff Lt Gen (r) Hamid Javed will arrive in London today (Saturday) with a “message” for Benazir before the announcement of the decisions to be taken at the PPP meeting. He may be accompanied by ISI DG Lt Gen Ashfaq Kayani, but this could not be confirmed.
However, sources said the government was keeping all its options open to get the president re-elected even if a “deal” with Benazir could not be finalised. A meeting chaired by President Musharraf and attended by Chaudhry Shujaat discussed all “possibilities and options”.
Among the possibilities and options available to the government a dialogue with the MMA, particularly with Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was top priority in case Benazir did not show any flexibility on the issues of Article 58(2-b) and the president’s uniform.
"No understanding has been arrived at," she told a news conference in London of her negotiations with Musharraf that would see him quit as army chief and Bhutto return to become prime minister.
"I will be going back to Pakistan very soon, on Sep14"
Friday, August 31, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
If George Washington had children they would not be pulling rickshaws
GEORGE Washington had no children. However, George and Martha Washington raised two children from her first marriage. By all accounts, George Washington was a very loving father to his stepchildren. Whatever has happened to America’s first First Family and how they may have evolved are matters of conjecture.
But one thing is certain: George Washington’s heirs would not be starving or pulling rickshaws in Kolkata’s hot and humid bylanes to eke out a living as the heirs of Tipu Sultan were recently seen doing.
The link between George Washington and Tipu Sultan is too palpable to be ignored. George Washington became a hero of the American Revolution by defeating Britain’s Lord Cornwallis at the battle of Yorktown on Oct 19, 1781.
In contrast, Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, was treacherously defeated in 1799 by the same British general who was forced to abjectly surrender before George Washington. There’s a difference here, however. While the American hero enjoyed the unflinching support of his fellow revolutionaries, Tipu Sultan was completely betrayed by the Marathas and by the ruler of Hyderabad, who both joined the assault by Cornwallis on the Fort of Srirangapatnam.
To a lot of historians Tipu represents one of the finest spirits among Indian warriors who gave the East India Company a run for their money. As a matter of record, such was his total sway over the region that he ruled and his defiance of British authority that the East India Company’s shares dropped by almost 60 per cent during the protracted Mysore campaign.
Prasanta Paul is among the few journalists who have tracked the tragedy that subsequently visited Tipu’s family. He says he was shocked by the plight of the great grand descendants of Tipu Sultan, who were as recently as two years ago lugging rickshaws in the mean streets of Kolkata.
For example, Anwar 38, is just another faceless rickshaw-puller, among the thousand others lugging their three or two-wheeled vehicles in Kolkata and its neighbourhood.
“Yet the thin, lanky Anwar is not really a nobody; he is one of the sixth generation descendants of Tipu Sultan, the great freedom fighter from South India who laid down his life in a bloody fight against the British, in the battle of Srirangapatnam, in 1799,” says Paul.
As luck and irony would have it, Anwar and his brothers have been pulling rickshaws on the very road named after one of their ancestors, Prince Ghulam Mohammad Anwar Shah, one of Tipu Sultan’s 12 sons!
Never mind if Anwar or the members of his family pine for what is not, as their brush with history is a distant memory now, a tale almost forgotten. It was from their grandmother that they came to know about the historical connection, or rather, about the link with Srirangapatnam and, subsequently, Prince Anwar Shah.
“We are ashamed to speak of our past; that we are descendants of the great man makes us shrink further, because it won’t help to restore our fortune or mitigate our poverty,” says Anwar Shah, as his eyes search for a passenger in the scorching, humid day.
Says Paul about his assignment: “The sad reality is that talking to the correspondent here about their plight is less important than earning his daily wages, to fend for himself and the family.”
In La Martiniere College, where I went to school in Lucknow, of the four “houses” within which the boys were split into competing teams, the green one is named after Lord Cornwallis. The red one, to which I belonged, is called Hodson House, named after Captain Hodson of the colonial army.
Yes, the same Capt Hodson who captured the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar after the vanquished ruler had escaped from the Red Fort to seek shelter at Humayun’s tomb near what is today known as Mizuamuddin East. Hodson had also captured the grandsons of the Mughal ruler who were blinded and executed by him at the Khuni Darwaza, an old sandstone relic that today overlooks the Indian Express building in Delhi.
Recently, completely out of the blue, I was brought face to face with a Muslim family from the southern city of Hyderabad. They were introduced as the surviving heirs of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Arijeet Gupta, an independent filmmaker, stumbled onto this family, safely secluded from the public eye, by accident. “The Living Moghuls” is the first-ever film on the Hyderabad-based family of 80-year-old Begum Laila Umahani, the 4th generation, of the family of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the “Last Great Moghul” and his first wife Ashraf Mahal.
This remarkable family-history reveals the story of four lost generations of descendants after Bahadur Shah Zafar’s exile following the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, also known as India’s first struggle for freedom. This brought to an end 332 years of Mughal rule of India, started by the great adventurer and romantic hero Babur in 1526.
The film shows the Umahani family living in a crowded part of Hyderabad in a dilapidated flat. Meeting them during the premier, I discovered that one of the sons has now become a kind of a chef, advising the Sheraton Hotel on whatever recipes he can remember from oral tradition. So the scion of the great Mughal dynasty turns into a khansama.
As an ardent follower of Laddan Mian’s philosophy, I would have accepted the turn of events in the lives of the children of Tipu Sultan and Bahadur Shah Zafar with good grace. Laddan Mian the late taluqedar of Mustafabad had declared once, after he had given away his assets at throwaway prices, and some even free to a few chosen friends: Jab Sultanat-i-Roma na rahi to meri kya haqeeqat. (When the mighty Roman Empire could vanish without trace, who am I a mere mortal to command these vast assets to my care?”
Mir Taqi Mir had observed this phenomenon thus: Jis sar ko ghuroor aaj hai yaan tajwari ka, kal uspe yaheen shor hai, phir noha gari ka. But there is a rub.
How come the children of those former rulers of India who fought the British colonialists with valour are out on the streets, leading a difficult life that is the lot of a majority of Indians, but those who served the British with servitude and obsequiousness are sitting as members of parliament?
Whether it is the late Rajmata of Gwalior or the late Nawab of Rampur and several others. They were all elected to the Lok Sabha, the house of the people, by a popular verdict. Fine. But to allow them to carry their titles in a republican state? And with the titles that would not have been theirs had they not betrayed people like Tipu Sultan and Bahadur Shah Zafar.
This kind of liberty usurped by many a prince who was loyal to the “Company Bahadur” looks even more absurd and undeserving, since the same feudal values that gave them the power remain at the heart of their prowess even today. This is where it all looks like such a sham. While a lot many of these houses of valour have gone along with the Jana Sangh, for such was the appeal for the rightwing Hindu party, the fact that they claim to be the crux of democracy, the very substance of nationalism, can only make you laugh if not angry.
The late Madhavrao Scindia, the Maharaja of Gwalior, was probably a good, even outstanding parliamentarian. He was first elected as a candidate for the rightwing Hindu Jana Sangh in 1972. Fine. He later switched his loyalty to the more progressive Congress Party. Fine. At least there was this progress.
I am not sure what kind of ideological commitment the self-professed pro-poor Congress party looks for among its candidates, but the former rulers are very much part of the scheme, just as is the case with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In fact, there may be no difference between the two main political parties where their attitude to the scions of the princely states is concerned. No wonder that the young Jyotiraditya, the son of the late Madhavrao Scindia, says he was approached by the BJP to be their candidate in the election that he won from his late father’s seat in Gwalior last year as Congress candidate.
Speaking about his father, after his tragic death in an air crash, Jyotriaditya Scindia said: “My family has a long tradition of serving people. Entering politics was just a means of furthering that goal. He strived throughout his life to get maximum benefits for the people in his constituency. I don’t think that he had entered politics with the aim of becoming the prime minister. He did his best in his own capacity to serve the nation. His work and the appreciation that he received for it was the driving force for him.”
Was there any attempt by the BJP to woo him in its fold just after his father’s death?
“Yes, there was an offer by the BJP to join the party. But as far as I am concerned it was never an issue.”
Had George Washington not routed Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, the British governor-general would never have been sent to India on a punishment posting. And who knows the history of our subcontinent might have been different.
But one thing is certain: George Washington’s heirs would not be starving or pulling rickshaws in Kolkata’s hot and humid bylanes to eke out a living as the heirs of Tipu Sultan were recently seen doing.
The link between George Washington and Tipu Sultan is too palpable to be ignored. George Washington became a hero of the American Revolution by defeating Britain’s Lord Cornwallis at the battle of Yorktown on Oct 19, 1781.
In contrast, Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, was treacherously defeated in 1799 by the same British general who was forced to abjectly surrender before George Washington. There’s a difference here, however. While the American hero enjoyed the unflinching support of his fellow revolutionaries, Tipu Sultan was completely betrayed by the Marathas and by the ruler of Hyderabad, who both joined the assault by Cornwallis on the Fort of Srirangapatnam.
To a lot of historians Tipu represents one of the finest spirits among Indian warriors who gave the East India Company a run for their money. As a matter of record, such was his total sway over the region that he ruled and his defiance of British authority that the East India Company’s shares dropped by almost 60 per cent during the protracted Mysore campaign.
Prasanta Paul is among the few journalists who have tracked the tragedy that subsequently visited Tipu’s family. He says he was shocked by the plight of the great grand descendants of Tipu Sultan, who were as recently as two years ago lugging rickshaws in the mean streets of Kolkata.
For example, Anwar 38, is just another faceless rickshaw-puller, among the thousand others lugging their three or two-wheeled vehicles in Kolkata and its neighbourhood.
“Yet the thin, lanky Anwar is not really a nobody; he is one of the sixth generation descendants of Tipu Sultan, the great freedom fighter from South India who laid down his life in a bloody fight against the British, in the battle of Srirangapatnam, in 1799,” says Paul.
As luck and irony would have it, Anwar and his brothers have been pulling rickshaws on the very road named after one of their ancestors, Prince Ghulam Mohammad Anwar Shah, one of Tipu Sultan’s 12 sons!
Never mind if Anwar or the members of his family pine for what is not, as their brush with history is a distant memory now, a tale almost forgotten. It was from their grandmother that they came to know about the historical connection, or rather, about the link with Srirangapatnam and, subsequently, Prince Anwar Shah.
“We are ashamed to speak of our past; that we are descendants of the great man makes us shrink further, because it won’t help to restore our fortune or mitigate our poverty,” says Anwar Shah, as his eyes search for a passenger in the scorching, humid day.
Says Paul about his assignment: “The sad reality is that talking to the correspondent here about their plight is less important than earning his daily wages, to fend for himself and the family.”
In La Martiniere College, where I went to school in Lucknow, of the four “houses” within which the boys were split into competing teams, the green one is named after Lord Cornwallis. The red one, to which I belonged, is called Hodson House, named after Captain Hodson of the colonial army.
Yes, the same Capt Hodson who captured the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar after the vanquished ruler had escaped from the Red Fort to seek shelter at Humayun’s tomb near what is today known as Mizuamuddin East. Hodson had also captured the grandsons of the Mughal ruler who were blinded and executed by him at the Khuni Darwaza, an old sandstone relic that today overlooks the Indian Express building in Delhi.
Recently, completely out of the blue, I was brought face to face with a Muslim family from the southern city of Hyderabad. They were introduced as the surviving heirs of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Arijeet Gupta, an independent filmmaker, stumbled onto this family, safely secluded from the public eye, by accident. “The Living Moghuls” is the first-ever film on the Hyderabad-based family of 80-year-old Begum Laila Umahani, the 4th generation, of the family of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the “Last Great Moghul” and his first wife Ashraf Mahal.
This remarkable family-history reveals the story of four lost generations of descendants after Bahadur Shah Zafar’s exile following the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, also known as India’s first struggle for freedom. This brought to an end 332 years of Mughal rule of India, started by the great adventurer and romantic hero Babur in 1526.
The film shows the Umahani family living in a crowded part of Hyderabad in a dilapidated flat. Meeting them during the premier, I discovered that one of the sons has now become a kind of a chef, advising the Sheraton Hotel on whatever recipes he can remember from oral tradition. So the scion of the great Mughal dynasty turns into a khansama.
As an ardent follower of Laddan Mian’s philosophy, I would have accepted the turn of events in the lives of the children of Tipu Sultan and Bahadur Shah Zafar with good grace. Laddan Mian the late taluqedar of Mustafabad had declared once, after he had given away his assets at throwaway prices, and some even free to a few chosen friends: Jab Sultanat-i-Roma na rahi to meri kya haqeeqat. (When the mighty Roman Empire could vanish without trace, who am I a mere mortal to command these vast assets to my care?”
Mir Taqi Mir had observed this phenomenon thus: Jis sar ko ghuroor aaj hai yaan tajwari ka, kal uspe yaheen shor hai, phir noha gari ka. But there is a rub.
How come the children of those former rulers of India who fought the British colonialists with valour are out on the streets, leading a difficult life that is the lot of a majority of Indians, but those who served the British with servitude and obsequiousness are sitting as members of parliament?
Whether it is the late Rajmata of Gwalior or the late Nawab of Rampur and several others. They were all elected to the Lok Sabha, the house of the people, by a popular verdict. Fine. But to allow them to carry their titles in a republican state? And with the titles that would not have been theirs had they not betrayed people like Tipu Sultan and Bahadur Shah Zafar.
This kind of liberty usurped by many a prince who was loyal to the “Company Bahadur” looks even more absurd and undeserving, since the same feudal values that gave them the power remain at the heart of their prowess even today. This is where it all looks like such a sham. While a lot many of these houses of valour have gone along with the Jana Sangh, for such was the appeal for the rightwing Hindu party, the fact that they claim to be the crux of democracy, the very substance of nationalism, can only make you laugh if not angry.
The late Madhavrao Scindia, the Maharaja of Gwalior, was probably a good, even outstanding parliamentarian. He was first elected as a candidate for the rightwing Hindu Jana Sangh in 1972. Fine. He later switched his loyalty to the more progressive Congress Party. Fine. At least there was this progress.
I am not sure what kind of ideological commitment the self-professed pro-poor Congress party looks for among its candidates, but the former rulers are very much part of the scheme, just as is the case with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In fact, there may be no difference between the two main political parties where their attitude to the scions of the princely states is concerned. No wonder that the young Jyotiraditya, the son of the late Madhavrao Scindia, says he was approached by the BJP to be their candidate in the election that he won from his late father’s seat in Gwalior last year as Congress candidate.
Speaking about his father, after his tragic death in an air crash, Jyotriaditya Scindia said: “My family has a long tradition of serving people. Entering politics was just a means of furthering that goal. He strived throughout his life to get maximum benefits for the people in his constituency. I don’t think that he had entered politics with the aim of becoming the prime minister. He did his best in his own capacity to serve the nation. His work and the appreciation that he received for it was the driving force for him.”
Was there any attempt by the BJP to woo him in its fold just after his father’s death?
“Yes, there was an offer by the BJP to join the party. But as far as I am concerned it was never an issue.”
Had George Washington not routed Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, the British governor-general would never have been sent to India on a punishment posting. And who knows the history of our subcontinent might have been different.
The great British Betrayal equivalent to British looting in Basra-Iraq
By Farida Asrar
Do the victors respect the fundamental rights of the vanquished? Not always
WHEN Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal king, fell from grace, the British did not care for any of his rights. His properties, worth no less than £280,000, along with his jewels, were confiscated. After a sham trial, he was sent to Rangoon as a prisoner along with his family and was allowed for their support 16 Shillings a day. Historian Edward Thompson, in his book The Making of the Indian Princess, mentions that Bahadur Shah Zafar’s “trial was a piece of politics, not of justice”; and unpublished letters of Viceroy John Lawrence which Thompson has read and has access to, clearly gave instructions regarding the trial that “The king should be found guilty (and the) show, was a waste of time”.
Two of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s sons were summarily executed outside Humayun’s tomb by Major Hudson. Another son who escaped, Firozeshah, was last heard of about in 1864, living as a beggar by the wayside near Makkah. Fakhruddin, the heir apparent, was shot through the knees and left for dead by a British officer. He eventually recovered and lived as a crippled faqir in Delhi. Bahadur Shah himself died in exile in 1862 and was buried in Rangoon and not at the shrine of Khwaja Bakhtiar Khaki near Delhi, which he initially reserved for his burial.
Bahadur Shah Zafar’s crown, which was in the shape of a cap and studded with finest jewels, is currently in Windsor Castle. It was on display at the Indian Heritage Exhibition (April 21 to August 22, 1982) lent by Queen Elizabeth. The crown (which is gold set with the finest diamonds, pearls, rubies and small emeralds) was purchased by Queen Victoria for £500 from Capt Tytler, who had purchased it in an auction of confiscated property. Capt Tytler was the officer in charge of Bahadur Shah’s palace complex. The general practice adopted by the British at that time was to hand the ‘Prizes of War’ to a ‘Prize-Agent’, who would subsequently auction them with the proceeds being divided among the army according to their ranks. It is said that the amount recovered from this auction was ‘half to three quarters of a million pounds sterling’. Harriet Tytler, wife of Capt Tytler, wrote in her memoirs that they were told to sell the crown to Queen Victoria for an absurd amount of 500 pounds sterling, with Capt Tytler being promised a good appointment in India if he accepted the offer. The day after the crown was sold, they received an offer from Oxford Museum of £1000 for just the shell of the crown, without a single jewel. Capt Tytler had also sent two of Bahadur Shah’s throne chairs for the Queen’s approval along with the crown. When he did not hear anything about the chairs for awhile, he contacted Sir Charles Wood, the secretary of state to India, and was told that her Majesty was under the impression that the chairs were also included in the 500 pounds sterling.
The famous crystal block and marble platform, which adorned ‘Diwane Khas’ in his palace, were also forwarded to Calcutta to be sent to England. A beautiful Quran manuscript of the early 19th century that belonged to Bahadur Shah, measuring 5.1cm by 3.8cm and placed in an ivory box with silver mounts is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This Quran is said to have been taken away by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe from under the pillow of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar from his ‘Khas Mahal’ in Delhi Fort following the siege of 1857.
When Muslims ruled India, its wealth never left the subcontinent. These rulers built grand Islamic architectures like the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Kutub Minar. Such sites are still luring in millions of dollars every year from tourists who come especially to India, to catch a glimpse of such grand Islamic architecture. During the British period, the ‘Drain of Wealth’ was diverted to England. M.J. Akbar writes, “In 1757 Robert Clive noting with wonder that Murshidabad was as rich as London, pointed out that India could pay off the British debt many times over.” Lord Birkenhead said in a speech at Oxford, “India is our prize possession, we in England have to live on it, the Indians may live in it”.
The Indian subcontinent was known as a treasure trove of bullion, gold, jewelry, artifacts, manuscripts, arms and armour, paintings, ivory and precious stones. Many artifacts are now found in museums and private collections in England. Muslim emperors of the Indian subcontinent had a perpetual fondness for precious gems, stones and jewelry. It is recorded that Shah Jahan had such a vast collection, that it would take an expert 14 years to examine and value it.
The famed Kohinoor diamond made its first appearance in the Indian subcontinent when it was presented to the first Mughal ruler, Babar, by his son Humayun. It was as big as a hen’s egg. Babar had mentioned that the “value of the Kohinoor at that time was so much, that it could provide food to the whole world for two and half days”. It was confiscated by the British at the conclusion of the Sikh war. John Lord, in his book The Maharajas, writes that the exiled maharaja of Punjab, Dhuleep Singh called “Queen Victoria a thief, but not to her face”. Lord Dalhousie had promised that the diamond would find its “final and fitting resting place in the crown of Britain”. The Kohinoor was then cut into three pieces, one each for the crown of the Queen and King of England, while the third was kept on display at the Tower of London.
Tipoo Sultan, the King of Mysore, offered a formidable challenge to the British against all odds. In July 2006, Mr Sivdhanu Pillai, Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace, India while speaking to reporters at ‘Darya Daulat’ (the summer palace of Tipoo Sultan) said, “Tipoo Sultan was the first person to invent rocket technology. 250mm long rockets filled with 2kg gun powder with a range of 1.5-2kn, was the first rocket used in a war and this was made by Tipoo Sultan and his men. I visited the Woolwich Artillery Museum in London where a spent rocket and pieces of other weapons used by the King are on display. We must tell the world that the birth of the rocket took place in Seringapatam. This is depicted in a painting in the London museum in which horses are seen tumbling when hit by the rockets.”
Tipoo’s national motif was the tiger. What was considered by most as the ‘world’s best known mechanical toy’ was created for Tipoo Sultan. This toy depicts a tiger and a British general. When the handle is turned, the man screams and the tiger roars. It is based on an actual event, as Company General Sir Hector Manroe’s son was killed by a tiger. Tipoo’s ivory furniture currently resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A few years ago at in an Islamic Arts and Antiques auction in London, I came across a 4cm diametre agate archer’s thumb ring. It had a provence that stated, A note written by Hannah Baillie (nee Greenwill) wife of the Hon. William Douglas Hall Baillie, member of the Legislative Council of New Zealand reads as follows “This thumb ring was your Gt. grandfather’s share of the loot taken after the 3rd (and last) siege of Seringapatam [sic] in 1799 when the great fortress was taken and Tipoo Sahib [sic] himself slain whilst fighting desperately together with 8,000 men”.
Tipoo Sultan’s golden throne was separated into several pieces. The Tiger’s head from the throne (which was made of gold with eyes and teeth of crystal) along with the ‘huma’ bird from the chattri (canopy) are now at Windsor castle. One of the finials, gold set with diamonds and emeralds made in Mysore belonged to the 2nd Lady Clive. Countess of Powis, who was an inveterate hunter of Tipoo relics.
Robert Clive started his career as a clerk in the East India Company. It was reported that Clive extorted, a fortune of £230,000 and an additional annual income of 30,000 pounds from the Jaghirs of Mir Jaffer. When he returned to London, he had in his possession several hundred thousand in pounds, Dutch bills and Company bills, and nearly £30,000 in diamonds. The resident of Patna, Sir Thomas Rumbold, returned with £200,000. When the British played the game of replacing Nawabs in Bengal to the highest bidder, an estimated total of Rs.2,000,000 was paid out in the form of gifts by various aspirants. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a ‘turban jewel’ set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls that was presented by Mir Jaffer to Admiral Charles Watson who, along with Robert Clive, had appointed him ‘Nawab of Bengal’. Gifts and bribes for undue favours and war booty played a large part in the ‘drain of wealth’.
In 1856, the British annexed Oudh, exiling Wajid Ali Shah to Calcutta. An absolutely captivating ornament, which the Nawab of Oudh wore in his turban, is also at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Satyajit Ray’s 1977 film ‘Shatranj ke khiladi’ (Chess players) is based on this theme of clever British maneuvers. Similar policies of ‘self-interest’ was also visible in another part of the world, when in 1918, British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour commented that he did not care under what system Iraq was ruled as long as the British got the oil.
chk here..
It hurts to know that they were such big looter..
Do the victors respect the fundamental rights of the vanquished? Not always
WHEN Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal king, fell from grace, the British did not care for any of his rights. His properties, worth no less than £280,000, along with his jewels, were confiscated. After a sham trial, he was sent to Rangoon as a prisoner along with his family and was allowed for their support 16 Shillings a day. Historian Edward Thompson, in his book The Making of the Indian Princess, mentions that Bahadur Shah Zafar’s “trial was a piece of politics, not of justice”; and unpublished letters of Viceroy John Lawrence which Thompson has read and has access to, clearly gave instructions regarding the trial that “The king should be found guilty (and the) show, was a waste of time”.
Two of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s sons were summarily executed outside Humayun’s tomb by Major Hudson. Another son who escaped, Firozeshah, was last heard of about in 1864, living as a beggar by the wayside near Makkah. Fakhruddin, the heir apparent, was shot through the knees and left for dead by a British officer. He eventually recovered and lived as a crippled faqir in Delhi. Bahadur Shah himself died in exile in 1862 and was buried in Rangoon and not at the shrine of Khwaja Bakhtiar Khaki near Delhi, which he initially reserved for his burial.
Bahadur Shah Zafar’s crown, which was in the shape of a cap and studded with finest jewels, is currently in Windsor Castle. It was on display at the Indian Heritage Exhibition (April 21 to August 22, 1982) lent by Queen Elizabeth. The crown (which is gold set with the finest diamonds, pearls, rubies and small emeralds) was purchased by Queen Victoria for £500 from Capt Tytler, who had purchased it in an auction of confiscated property. Capt Tytler was the officer in charge of Bahadur Shah’s palace complex. The general practice adopted by the British at that time was to hand the ‘Prizes of War’ to a ‘Prize-Agent’, who would subsequently auction them with the proceeds being divided among the army according to their ranks. It is said that the amount recovered from this auction was ‘half to three quarters of a million pounds sterling’. Harriet Tytler, wife of Capt Tytler, wrote in her memoirs that they were told to sell the crown to Queen Victoria for an absurd amount of 500 pounds sterling, with Capt Tytler being promised a good appointment in India if he accepted the offer. The day after the crown was sold, they received an offer from Oxford Museum of £1000 for just the shell of the crown, without a single jewel. Capt Tytler had also sent two of Bahadur Shah’s throne chairs for the Queen’s approval along with the crown. When he did not hear anything about the chairs for awhile, he contacted Sir Charles Wood, the secretary of state to India, and was told that her Majesty was under the impression that the chairs were also included in the 500 pounds sterling.
The famous crystal block and marble platform, which adorned ‘Diwane Khas’ in his palace, were also forwarded to Calcutta to be sent to England. A beautiful Quran manuscript of the early 19th century that belonged to Bahadur Shah, measuring 5.1cm by 3.8cm and placed in an ivory box with silver mounts is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This Quran is said to have been taken away by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe from under the pillow of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar from his ‘Khas Mahal’ in Delhi Fort following the siege of 1857.
When Muslims ruled India, its wealth never left the subcontinent. These rulers built grand Islamic architectures like the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Kutub Minar. Such sites are still luring in millions of dollars every year from tourists who come especially to India, to catch a glimpse of such grand Islamic architecture. During the British period, the ‘Drain of Wealth’ was diverted to England. M.J. Akbar writes, “In 1757 Robert Clive noting with wonder that Murshidabad was as rich as London, pointed out that India could pay off the British debt many times over.” Lord Birkenhead said in a speech at Oxford, “India is our prize possession, we in England have to live on it, the Indians may live in it”.
The Indian subcontinent was known as a treasure trove of bullion, gold, jewelry, artifacts, manuscripts, arms and armour, paintings, ivory and precious stones. Many artifacts are now found in museums and private collections in England. Muslim emperors of the Indian subcontinent had a perpetual fondness for precious gems, stones and jewelry. It is recorded that Shah Jahan had such a vast collection, that it would take an expert 14 years to examine and value it.
The famed Kohinoor diamond made its first appearance in the Indian subcontinent when it was presented to the first Mughal ruler, Babar, by his son Humayun. It was as big as a hen’s egg. Babar had mentioned that the “value of the Kohinoor at that time was so much, that it could provide food to the whole world for two and half days”. It was confiscated by the British at the conclusion of the Sikh war. John Lord, in his book The Maharajas, writes that the exiled maharaja of Punjab, Dhuleep Singh called “Queen Victoria a thief, but not to her face”. Lord Dalhousie had promised that the diamond would find its “final and fitting resting place in the crown of Britain”. The Kohinoor was then cut into three pieces, one each for the crown of the Queen and King of England, while the third was kept on display at the Tower of London.
Tipoo Sultan, the King of Mysore, offered a formidable challenge to the British against all odds. In July 2006, Mr Sivdhanu Pillai, Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace, India while speaking to reporters at ‘Darya Daulat’ (the summer palace of Tipoo Sultan) said, “Tipoo Sultan was the first person to invent rocket technology. 250mm long rockets filled with 2kg gun powder with a range of 1.5-2kn, was the first rocket used in a war and this was made by Tipoo Sultan and his men. I visited the Woolwich Artillery Museum in London where a spent rocket and pieces of other weapons used by the King are on display. We must tell the world that the birth of the rocket took place in Seringapatam. This is depicted in a painting in the London museum in which horses are seen tumbling when hit by the rockets.”
Tipoo’s national motif was the tiger. What was considered by most as the ‘world’s best known mechanical toy’ was created for Tipoo Sultan. This toy depicts a tiger and a British general. When the handle is turned, the man screams and the tiger roars. It is based on an actual event, as Company General Sir Hector Manroe’s son was killed by a tiger. Tipoo’s ivory furniture currently resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A few years ago at in an Islamic Arts and Antiques auction in London, I came across a 4cm diametre agate archer’s thumb ring. It had a provence that stated, A note written by Hannah Baillie (nee Greenwill) wife of the Hon. William Douglas Hall Baillie, member of the Legislative Council of New Zealand reads as follows “This thumb ring was your Gt. grandfather’s share of the loot taken after the 3rd (and last) siege of Seringapatam [sic] in 1799 when the great fortress was taken and Tipoo Sahib [sic] himself slain whilst fighting desperately together with 8,000 men”.
Tipoo Sultan’s golden throne was separated into several pieces. The Tiger’s head from the throne (which was made of gold with eyes and teeth of crystal) along with the ‘huma’ bird from the chattri (canopy) are now at Windsor castle. One of the finials, gold set with diamonds and emeralds made in Mysore belonged to the 2nd Lady Clive. Countess of Powis, who was an inveterate hunter of Tipoo relics.
Robert Clive started his career as a clerk in the East India Company. It was reported that Clive extorted, a fortune of £230,000 and an additional annual income of 30,000 pounds from the Jaghirs of Mir Jaffer. When he returned to London, he had in his possession several hundred thousand in pounds, Dutch bills and Company bills, and nearly £30,000 in diamonds. The resident of Patna, Sir Thomas Rumbold, returned with £200,000. When the British played the game of replacing Nawabs in Bengal to the highest bidder, an estimated total of Rs.2,000,000 was paid out in the form of gifts by various aspirants. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a ‘turban jewel’ set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls that was presented by Mir Jaffer to Admiral Charles Watson who, along with Robert Clive, had appointed him ‘Nawab of Bengal’. Gifts and bribes for undue favours and war booty played a large part in the ‘drain of wealth’.
In 1856, the British annexed Oudh, exiling Wajid Ali Shah to Calcutta. An absolutely captivating ornament, which the Nawab of Oudh wore in his turban, is also at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Satyajit Ray’s 1977 film ‘Shatranj ke khiladi’ (Chess players) is based on this theme of clever British maneuvers. Similar policies of ‘self-interest’ was also visible in another part of the world, when in 1918, British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour commented that he did not care under what system Iraq was ruled as long as the British got the oil.
chk here..
It hurts to know that they were such big looter..
Monday, June 11, 2007
Cold War & CIA Slogan
During the last cold war (1945 to 1989) the Muslims stood with America in its fight against communism. Many Arabs countries, le.g. Saudi Arabia, refused to recognise the Republic of China or the Soviet Union, although both have supported the Palestinians while America supported and armed Israel. Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda men accepted CIA money and arms to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. The dismantling of the Soviet Union left America as the only super power attacking others with impunity. At this moment there is an ongoing USraeli anti-Muslim crusade. It is a golden chance for Putin to support the Muslim revolutions and to defeat America and its mercenaries and agents in government. The cold war will produce a multi- polar world where American arrogance can be neutralised.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the Gulf supported Bush senior in his attack on Iraq. The CIA has succeeded so far in promoting the idea that Russia is as bad as America. Arabs will remain stupid as long as they don´t identify America as the enemy and work toward gaining friends, like Russia.
This is an old CIA slogan which equated friendly Russia with criminal America. Why should the USSR be with Arabs when most Arab leaders were towing the American line. Arabs and Muslims must identify America as the enemy and work to gain Russia as a friend.
Bush steps on the tail of the Iranian lion.
Ahmedinejad and Bush are heading towards a real heavy weight match. Bush is rushing all types of vessels and submarines in preparation for the imminent attack on Iran, probably before the end of June 2007. Bush needs to prove to Putin that America still has teeth to bite despite its humiliation in Iraq. In return, Ahmedinejad challenged Bush by saying that Iran is like a lion resting in his den and will devour those who dare to step on its tail. It is high time for Putin to regain Russia´s superpower status by anouncing his support for Iran in order to stop American provocations at Russian borders.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the Gulf supported Bush senior in his attack on Iraq. The CIA has succeeded so far in promoting the idea that Russia is as bad as America. Arabs will remain stupid as long as they don´t identify America as the enemy and work toward gaining friends, like Russia.
This is an old CIA slogan which equated friendly Russia with criminal America. Why should the USSR be with Arabs when most Arab leaders were towing the American line. Arabs and Muslims must identify America as the enemy and work to gain Russia as a friend.
Bush steps on the tail of the Iranian lion.
Ahmedinejad and Bush are heading towards a real heavy weight match. Bush is rushing all types of vessels and submarines in preparation for the imminent attack on Iran, probably before the end of June 2007. Bush needs to prove to Putin that America still has teeth to bite despite its humiliation in Iraq. In return, Ahmedinejad challenged Bush by saying that Iran is like a lion resting in his den and will devour those who dare to step on its tail. It is high time for Putin to regain Russia´s superpower status by anouncing his support for Iran in order to stop American provocations at Russian borders.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
U.S. Arming "Insurgents"
U.S. Arming "Insurgents"
For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
06/09/07 "Washington Post" --- - BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah. On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29, he received a cellphone call that would change everything.
"We're going after al-Qaeda," a leading local imam said, Kuehl recalled. "What we want you to do is stay out of the way."
"Sheik, I can't do that. I can't just leave Amiriyah and let you go at it."
"Well, we're going to go."
The week that followed revolutionized Kuehl's approach to fighting the insurgency and serves as a vivid example of a risky, and expanding, new American strategy of looking beyond the Iraqi police and army for help in controlling violent neighborhoods. The American soldiers in Amiriyah have allied themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots -- a group that American soldiers believe includes insurgents who have attacked them in the past -- in an attempt to drive out al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Americans have granted these gunmen the power of arrest, allowed the Iraqi army to supply them with ammunition, and fought alongside them in chaotic street battles.
To many American soldiers in Amiriyah, this nascent allegiance stands out as an encouraging development after months of grinding struggle. They liken the fighters to the minutemen of the American Revolution, painting them as neighbors taking the initiative to protect their families in the vacuum left by a failing Iraqi security force. In their first week of collaboration, the Baghdad Patriots and the Americans killed roughly 10 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq members and captured 15, according to Kuehl, who said those numbers rivaled totals for the previous six months combined. He is now working to fashion the group into the beginnings of an Amiriyah police force, since the mainly Shiite police force refuses to work in the area.
"This is a defining moment for us," said Kuehl, who commands the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 1st Infantry Division.
But aligning Americans with fighters whose long-term agenda remains unclear -- with regard to either Americans or the Shiite-led government -- is also a strategy born of desperation. It contradicts repeated declarations by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that no groups besides the Iraqi and American security forces are allowed to bear arms. And some American soldiers worry that standing up a Sunni militia could have dire consequences if the group turns on its U.S. partners.
"We have made a deal with the devil," said an intelligence officer in the battalion.
The U.S. effort to recruit indigenous forces to defend local communities has been taken furthest in Anbar province, where tribal leaders have encouraged thousands of their kinsmen to join the police. In the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, about 2,000 people unaffiliated with security forces are now working with Americans at village checkpoints and gun positions.
Kuehl said he recognizes the risks in dealing with an unofficial force but decided the intelligence that the gunmen provided on al-Qaeda in Iraq was too valuable to pass up.
"Hell, nothing else has worked in Amiriyah," he said.
It was about 2 a.m. on May 30 when Capt. Andy Wilbraham, a 33-year-old company commander, first heard military chatter on his tank radio about rumors that local gunmen would take on al-Qaeda. Later that morning, a noncommissioned officer turned to him with the news: "They're uprising."
"It was just a shock it happened so fast," Wilbraham said.
By noon, loudspeakers in mosques throughout Amiriyah were broadcasting a call to war: "It is time to stand up and fight" al-Qaeda. Groups of men, some in black ski masks carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, descended on the area around the Maluki mosque, a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq base of operations, and launched an attack. For the most part, Kuehl's soldiers stood back, trying to contain the violence and secure other mosques, and let the gunmen do their work.
The next day, a Thursday, al-Qaeda counterattacked. Using machine guns and grenades, its fighters drove the militiamen south across several city blocks until they were holed up in the Firdas mosque, soldiers said. "I was getting reports every 10 minutes from one of the imams: 'They're at this point. We're surrounded. We're getting attacked. They're at the mosque,' " Kuehl recalled. He dispatched Stryker attack vehicles to protect the militiamen.
"We basically pushed that one back just by force," said Capt. Kevin Salge, 31, who led the Stryker team of about 60 men to the mosque. "We got in there. Our guns are much bigger guns. Then freedom fighters, Baghdad Patriot guys, started firing."
Spec. Chadrick Domino, 23, was with a Stryker unit that drove north of the mosque to set up a perimeter to prevent others from joining the fight. About noon, he was the first member of his team to walk into a residential courtyard. He may not have had time to see the machine gunner who killed him.
To the Americans, the fighters on both sides appeared nearly identical. They wore similar sweat suits and carried the same kind of machine guns. "Now we've got kind of a mess on our hands," Salge remembered thinking. "Because we've got a lot of armed guys running all over the place, and it's making it very hard for us to identify which side is which."
By afternoon, the Americans had secured the Firdas mosque and were helping treat the wounded who lay in the courtyard. Kuehl drove out from his headquarters to meet with the leaders of the militiamen and work out the terms that would guide their collaboration in coming days. Kuehl agreed to help if the militiamen did not torture their captives or kill people who were not affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The militiamen agreed to hold prisoners for no more than 24 hours before releasing them or handing them over to the Americans. They in turn wanted the Americans not to interfere and to provide weapons.
"We need them and they need us," Kuehl said. "Al-Qaeda's stronger than them. We provide capabilities that they don't have. And the locals know who belongs and who doesn't. It doesn't matter how long we're here, I'll never know. And we'll never fit in."
The militiamen, who call themselves freedom fighters, are led by a 35-year-old former Iraqi army captain and used-car salesman who goes by Saif or Abu Abed. In an interview, he said he had devoted the past five months to collecting intelligence on al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in Amiriyah, whose ranks have grown as they have fled to Baghdad and away from the new tribal policemen in Anbar province. He has said his own group numbers over 100 people, but American soldiers estimate it has closer to 40. At least six were killed and more than 10 wounded in the first week of collaboration with Americans.
"These guys looked like a military unit, the way they moved," Wilbraham said. "Hand and arm signals. Stop. Take a knee. Weapons up."
Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Sunni Dulaimi tribe who works in Anbar and Baghdad, said many of the fighters in Amiriyah belong to the Islamic Army, which includes former officers from Saddam Hussein's military and is more secular than other insurgent groups. The fighters have been organized and encouraged by local imams.
"Let's be honest, the enemy now is not the Americans, for the time being," Suleiman said. "It's al-Qaeda and the [Shiite] militias. Those are our enemies."
The American soldiers initially asked their new allies to wear white headbands and ride around in the Strykers to point out al-Qaeda households. But the joint patrols didn't work because the local fighters were disoriented after riding in the enclosed Strykers and couldn't find the right houses, Salge said.
Before long, he added, "people everywhere were wearing headbands, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of them were al-Qaeda."
The Americans then supplied reflective armbands that could be seen from their vehicle scopes, and had the fighters ride in Iraqi army Humvees instead of Strykers. They also gave the fighters plastic flex cuffs, to subdue captives, and flares -- red to use if they are in trouble and green to signal when a raid is over.
On June 1, a Friday, the fighters directed the soldiers to a large weapons cache. Sniper rifles, Russian machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition were stashed in a secret room, accessible only by removing a circuit-breaker box and crawling through a hole. While the Americans were tallying the haul, an explosive detonated outside, wounding several soldiers, including one whose feet were blown off.
In return for their services, the militiamen had one request: Give us the weapons in the cache.
"Who are these guys really?" Salge remembered worrying. He told them to talk to the battalion commander.
Kuehl said later that he would probably supply weapons to the militiamen, but in limited amounts. The fighters have given the Americans identification, including fingerprints, addresses and retinal scans, so the soldiers believe they could track down anyone who betrayed them. "What I don't want them to do is wither on the vine, " Kuehl said.
On Wednesday, a week after the fighting broke out, the Islamic Army issued a statement declaring a cease-fire with al-Qaeda in Iraq because the groups did not want to spill more Muslim blood or impede "the project of jihad." American soldiers played down the statement and suggested it did not reflect the sentiments of the men they are working with in Amiriyah.
Later that night, Wilbraham led his tank unit on an overnight mission to allow the militiamen to arrest seven al-Qaeda in Iraq members. The raids were to begin at 1 a.m., but two hours later the tanks were waiting on deserted streets, with no sign of the group. Then Wilbraham was told the militiamen had called off the raids.
The tank driver, Spec. Estevan Altamirano, 25, expressed skepticism about his new partners.
"Pretty soon they run out of al-Qaeda, and then they're going to turn on us," he said. "I don't want to get used to them and then I have an AK behind my back. I'm not going to trust them at all."
For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
06/09/07 "Washington Post" --- - BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah. On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29, he received a cellphone call that would change everything.
"We're going after al-Qaeda," a leading local imam said, Kuehl recalled. "What we want you to do is stay out of the way."
"Sheik, I can't do that. I can't just leave Amiriyah and let you go at it."
"Well, we're going to go."
The week that followed revolutionized Kuehl's approach to fighting the insurgency and serves as a vivid example of a risky, and expanding, new American strategy of looking beyond the Iraqi police and army for help in controlling violent neighborhoods. The American soldiers in Amiriyah have allied themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots -- a group that American soldiers believe includes insurgents who have attacked them in the past -- in an attempt to drive out al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Americans have granted these gunmen the power of arrest, allowed the Iraqi army to supply them with ammunition, and fought alongside them in chaotic street battles.
To many American soldiers in Amiriyah, this nascent allegiance stands out as an encouraging development after months of grinding struggle. They liken the fighters to the minutemen of the American Revolution, painting them as neighbors taking the initiative to protect their families in the vacuum left by a failing Iraqi security force. In their first week of collaboration, the Baghdad Patriots and the Americans killed roughly 10 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq members and captured 15, according to Kuehl, who said those numbers rivaled totals for the previous six months combined. He is now working to fashion the group into the beginnings of an Amiriyah police force, since the mainly Shiite police force refuses to work in the area.
"This is a defining moment for us," said Kuehl, who commands the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 1st Infantry Division.
But aligning Americans with fighters whose long-term agenda remains unclear -- with regard to either Americans or the Shiite-led government -- is also a strategy born of desperation. It contradicts repeated declarations by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that no groups besides the Iraqi and American security forces are allowed to bear arms. And some American soldiers worry that standing up a Sunni militia could have dire consequences if the group turns on its U.S. partners.
"We have made a deal with the devil," said an intelligence officer in the battalion.
The U.S. effort to recruit indigenous forces to defend local communities has been taken furthest in Anbar province, where tribal leaders have encouraged thousands of their kinsmen to join the police. In the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, about 2,000 people unaffiliated with security forces are now working with Americans at village checkpoints and gun positions.
Kuehl said he recognizes the risks in dealing with an unofficial force but decided the intelligence that the gunmen provided on al-Qaeda in Iraq was too valuable to pass up.
"Hell, nothing else has worked in Amiriyah," he said.
It was about 2 a.m. on May 30 when Capt. Andy Wilbraham, a 33-year-old company commander, first heard military chatter on his tank radio about rumors that local gunmen would take on al-Qaeda. Later that morning, a noncommissioned officer turned to him with the news: "They're uprising."
"It was just a shock it happened so fast," Wilbraham said.
By noon, loudspeakers in mosques throughout Amiriyah were broadcasting a call to war: "It is time to stand up and fight" al-Qaeda. Groups of men, some in black ski masks carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, descended on the area around the Maluki mosque, a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq base of operations, and launched an attack. For the most part, Kuehl's soldiers stood back, trying to contain the violence and secure other mosques, and let the gunmen do their work.
The next day, a Thursday, al-Qaeda counterattacked. Using machine guns and grenades, its fighters drove the militiamen south across several city blocks until they were holed up in the Firdas mosque, soldiers said. "I was getting reports every 10 minutes from one of the imams: 'They're at this point. We're surrounded. We're getting attacked. They're at the mosque,' " Kuehl recalled. He dispatched Stryker attack vehicles to protect the militiamen.
"We basically pushed that one back just by force," said Capt. Kevin Salge, 31, who led the Stryker team of about 60 men to the mosque. "We got in there. Our guns are much bigger guns. Then freedom fighters, Baghdad Patriot guys, started firing."
Spec. Chadrick Domino, 23, was with a Stryker unit that drove north of the mosque to set up a perimeter to prevent others from joining the fight. About noon, he was the first member of his team to walk into a residential courtyard. He may not have had time to see the machine gunner who killed him.
To the Americans, the fighters on both sides appeared nearly identical. They wore similar sweat suits and carried the same kind of machine guns. "Now we've got kind of a mess on our hands," Salge remembered thinking. "Because we've got a lot of armed guys running all over the place, and it's making it very hard for us to identify which side is which."
By afternoon, the Americans had secured the Firdas mosque and were helping treat the wounded who lay in the courtyard. Kuehl drove out from his headquarters to meet with the leaders of the militiamen and work out the terms that would guide their collaboration in coming days. Kuehl agreed to help if the militiamen did not torture their captives or kill people who were not affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The militiamen agreed to hold prisoners for no more than 24 hours before releasing them or handing them over to the Americans. They in turn wanted the Americans not to interfere and to provide weapons.
"We need them and they need us," Kuehl said. "Al-Qaeda's stronger than them. We provide capabilities that they don't have. And the locals know who belongs and who doesn't. It doesn't matter how long we're here, I'll never know. And we'll never fit in."
The militiamen, who call themselves freedom fighters, are led by a 35-year-old former Iraqi army captain and used-car salesman who goes by Saif or Abu Abed. In an interview, he said he had devoted the past five months to collecting intelligence on al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in Amiriyah, whose ranks have grown as they have fled to Baghdad and away from the new tribal policemen in Anbar province. He has said his own group numbers over 100 people, but American soldiers estimate it has closer to 40. At least six were killed and more than 10 wounded in the first week of collaboration with Americans.
"These guys looked like a military unit, the way they moved," Wilbraham said. "Hand and arm signals. Stop. Take a knee. Weapons up."
Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Sunni Dulaimi tribe who works in Anbar and Baghdad, said many of the fighters in Amiriyah belong to the Islamic Army, which includes former officers from Saddam Hussein's military and is more secular than other insurgent groups. The fighters have been organized and encouraged by local imams.
"Let's be honest, the enemy now is not the Americans, for the time being," Suleiman said. "It's al-Qaeda and the [Shiite] militias. Those are our enemies."
The American soldiers initially asked their new allies to wear white headbands and ride around in the Strykers to point out al-Qaeda households. But the joint patrols didn't work because the local fighters were disoriented after riding in the enclosed Strykers and couldn't find the right houses, Salge said.
Before long, he added, "people everywhere were wearing headbands, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of them were al-Qaeda."
The Americans then supplied reflective armbands that could be seen from their vehicle scopes, and had the fighters ride in Iraqi army Humvees instead of Strykers. They also gave the fighters plastic flex cuffs, to subdue captives, and flares -- red to use if they are in trouble and green to signal when a raid is over.
On June 1, a Friday, the fighters directed the soldiers to a large weapons cache. Sniper rifles, Russian machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition were stashed in a secret room, accessible only by removing a circuit-breaker box and crawling through a hole. While the Americans were tallying the haul, an explosive detonated outside, wounding several soldiers, including one whose feet were blown off.
In return for their services, the militiamen had one request: Give us the weapons in the cache.
"Who are these guys really?" Salge remembered worrying. He told them to talk to the battalion commander.
Kuehl said later that he would probably supply weapons to the militiamen, but in limited amounts. The fighters have given the Americans identification, including fingerprints, addresses and retinal scans, so the soldiers believe they could track down anyone who betrayed them. "What I don't want them to do is wither on the vine, " Kuehl said.
On Wednesday, a week after the fighting broke out, the Islamic Army issued a statement declaring a cease-fire with al-Qaeda in Iraq because the groups did not want to spill more Muslim blood or impede "the project of jihad." American soldiers played down the statement and suggested it did not reflect the sentiments of the men they are working with in Amiriyah.
Later that night, Wilbraham led his tank unit on an overnight mission to allow the militiamen to arrest seven al-Qaeda in Iraq members. The raids were to begin at 1 a.m., but two hours later the tanks were waiting on deserted streets, with no sign of the group. Then Wilbraham was told the militiamen had called off the raids.
The tank driver, Spec. Estevan Altamirano, 25, expressed skepticism about his new partners.
"Pretty soon they run out of al-Qaeda, and then they're going to turn on us," he said. "I don't want to get used to them and then I have an AK behind my back. I'm not going to trust them at all."
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Rising Persian influence is a sign of Iraq's ascendance, not Iran's.
Its newly ascendant Shiites no longer have to suppress their Persian roots, which tie them closely to Iran
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
April 16, 2007
NAJAF, IRAQ — Persian script laces and flows across the walls of Najaf's seminaries.
Shiite Muslim religious scholars in the ancient city's turquoise-tiled edifices bury their noses in Koranic texts illustrated with Persian calligraphy, in scenes that evoke Mesopotamia's rich history.
For centuries, Najaf has been a key shrine city and center of worship for much of Iraq's people. But for centuries, Iraq's Ottoman and Arab rulers rarely considered Najaf part of their own history. It was always considered a troublesome outpost of the enemy: Iran.
They were right, for the most part. Historically and culturally, Najaf has long been under Persia's sway.
But so has much of Iraq.
The reading of the Koran in this country differs from the rest of the Muslim world: The rhythm and cadence of Sunnis are unique to Iraq and the Shiites' are unique to Iran. Persian dishes such as fesenjan, a pomegranate stew, are a standard part of Mesopotamian fare. Even this nation's capital carries a Persian name, Baghdad.
The sectarian nature of the war between Shiite and Sunni Arabs in Iraq reflects a centuries-old battle between Persia and the Arab world.
It is a point often misunderstood by U.S. policymakers and ground commanders, who perceive the reemergence of Persian influence among Iraq's newly powerful Shiite Muslim majority as proof of meddling by the regime in Tehran.
Rising Persian influence is a sign of Iraq's ascendance, not Iran's.
"Iraq has been part of the Persian sphere of influence for more than 400 years," said Karar Dastour, an Iraqi Shiite intellectual who lives in southern Tehran and travels to Iraq. "But governments have always tried to crush anything that had the scent of Shiism or Iran. They were never accepted."
Violent Sunni Arab rejection of Iraq's Persian roots plays out daily on the streets of the capital. In February, three bombs went off in the Shorja market in central Baghdad, killing more than 70 people. It was the fifth time the place, whose name means "salty well" in Persian, was struck in less than a year. Shiite Muslims were the intended targets, but so too was a landmark established long ago by Iranian merchants.
When saboteurs blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year, an attack widely viewed as the accelerant of the current civil war, they destroyed the handiwork of Iranian artisans.
In their Internet postings, Sunni Arab insurgents, many of them officers during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, describe their attacks on Shiites as settling accounts with "Safavids," a reference to the 16th century dynasty that embraced Shiite Islam as the official religion of Persia. Shiite Safavids and Sunni Ottomans fought for decades in a conflict that infused sectarianism into what had been a centuries-old ethnic and political conflict between Arabs and Persians.
"There has always been conflict between the Arabs and Iranians, and they always tried to involve Iraq," Sheik Humam Hamoodi, an Iraqi Shiite politician and cleric who lived in Tehran during Saddam Hussein's rule, said in an interview last year. "Both have wanted to use Iraq as the trench for their battles."
Ignoring the protests of many Shiites, the British forces who forged modern-day Iraq after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire placed a Sunni Arab tribal leader at the country's helm. They dismissed the quarrelsome Shiite clerics as Iranian-backed interlopers in their plans to create an Iraq dominated by Sunni Arabs.
Minority rule
Iraq's 20th century leaders tried to graft a Sunni-dominated Arab identity onto a country that was majority Shiite. Even during the relatively benign years before Hussein's rise in the late 1960s, Shiites visiting Sunni Arab towns such as Tikrit and Fallouja feared for their lives. Pilgrims visiting Samarra, which housed the famous Shiite shrine destroyed by Sunni insurgents last year, rushed to make it back to Baghdad by sundown.
The battle over Iraq's identity accelerated under Hussein, who brutally suppressed what he saw as the non-Arab elements of his country's character. Hussein equated Persians to "flies," invaded Iran and subsequently killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, dubbing them Iranian collaborators.
Hussein banned ceremonies of Ashura, the annual festival-like holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, revered by Shiites as a saint. He ordered the desecration of Shiite shrines and the silencing and execution of the sect's clerics, many of them of Persian descent or married into Persian families. Offices and banks were ordered to stay open on Nowruz, the Persian New Year that falls on the first day of spring and is celebrated by Iraqi Kurds as well as Iranians, Tajiks and Afghans.
"There was a sectarian dimension and there was an ethnic dimension to his hatred," said Musayeb Naimi, editor of Al-Wifaq, a Tehran-based Arabic-language newspaper. Hussein's downfall after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 ended the enforced separation between Iran and Iraq, much to the frustration and rage of Iraq's long-dominant Sunni Arabs. Industrially incapacitated, Iraq must import electricity, foodstuffs, appliances and automobiles from Iran and other neighboring countries such as Turkey and Syria.
Persian cultural influences, long suppressed, have reemerged in the last four years. After Hussein's ouster, Iranian and Iraqi Shiites embraced during mass commemorations of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, rites once banned under Baath Party rule.
Those rites have now become symbols of Shiite power. Sunni insurgents repeatedly attacked the pilgrims headed to Karbala last month, killing more than 200.
Persian has become common on the streets of Najaf and Karbala, as well as in Baghdad's Convention Center, where the Iraqi parliament convenes. Colorful posters of imams Ali and Hussein, of the kind found in pious Iranian enclaves, appear more frequently in Iraqi markets and homes.
Young Iraqi women have begun wearing the same Grace Kelly-style head scarves and short overcoats favored by Iranians.
Motorcycles, popular among youths in Iran but banned during Hussein's rule, traverse Baghdad streets, as do the heroin and opium that have become a habit for young Iranians.
Unease among Sunnis
To many Sunni Arabs, all those have been disturbing signs of a Persian ascendancy.
Brought up on a diet of Arab nationalist propaganda, Sunni Iraqis see their country's drift into the Persian sphere of influence as foreign. At first Sunni insurgents attacked mostly U.S. troops, whom they saw as an occupation force. But as the Shiite-dominated government took hold in early 2005, the attacks took a sharply sectarian turn. Seconds before his execution, Hussein cursed both the Americans who overthrew him and the "Persians" who shouted populist Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's name as he stood on the gallows.
A bitter Jan. 2 television debate about Hussein's legacy on the satellite channel Al Jazeera underscored the ethnic underpinnings of Sunni Arab rage against Iraq's new Shiite order.
The debate pitted Mishaan Jaburi, a Sunni Arab politician, against Sadeq Moussawi, a Shiite journalist and supporter of the current government.
During the debate, which was posted on the Internet and rapidly became famous here, Jaburi waved sheets of white paper at Moussawi, screaming, "These are your documents! You are an Iranian citizen …. You are Persian."
"Your father killed Kurds," Moussawi snapped back.
"You are Iranian," Jaburi reiterated. "These documents show that [you]applied for Iraqi citizenship in May 2004."
Moussawi didn't bother denying the accusation. "We will settle accounts with all of you," he said instead.
Yet many of Iraq's Persian-influenced citizens are neither loyal to nor fond of the government in Tehran. Many Shiites fought on Iraq's side in the war against Iran. And most Iraqis who sought shelter in Iran during Hussein's rule experienced hardship and bigotry. But culturally and politically, they cleave toward Iran instead of Washington's preferred proxy powers — Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Iraqi Shiites have some leaders, including the cleric Sadr, who are Arab nationalists. In the last year, however, many of them have strayed from the Arab world, angered that Arab countries have shunned Iraq's newly crystallizing Shiite identity.
Persians and Shiism have become so intertwined that opposition to Tehran's policies across the region has taken on a Sunni character. Ethnic Baluchi separatists in southeastern Iran fight under the banner of a Sunni Muslim group linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. And in a growing number of cases, Iran's Shiite Arab separatists have converted to Sunni Islam.
Even as Sunnis fight Shiites, accusing them of being Iranians, Shiites have begun to whisper about the identity of Iraq's Sunnis.
"The Sunnis of Iraq aren't really Arabs," one Iraqi Shiite diplomat said recently. "They're Turks."
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
April 16, 2007
NAJAF, IRAQ — Persian script laces and flows across the walls of Najaf's seminaries.
Shiite Muslim religious scholars in the ancient city's turquoise-tiled edifices bury their noses in Koranic texts illustrated with Persian calligraphy, in scenes that evoke Mesopotamia's rich history.
For centuries, Najaf has been a key shrine city and center of worship for much of Iraq's people. But for centuries, Iraq's Ottoman and Arab rulers rarely considered Najaf part of their own history. It was always considered a troublesome outpost of the enemy: Iran.
They were right, for the most part. Historically and culturally, Najaf has long been under Persia's sway.
But so has much of Iraq.
The reading of the Koran in this country differs from the rest of the Muslim world: The rhythm and cadence of Sunnis are unique to Iraq and the Shiites' are unique to Iran. Persian dishes such as fesenjan, a pomegranate stew, are a standard part of Mesopotamian fare. Even this nation's capital carries a Persian name, Baghdad.
The sectarian nature of the war between Shiite and Sunni Arabs in Iraq reflects a centuries-old battle between Persia and the Arab world.
It is a point often misunderstood by U.S. policymakers and ground commanders, who perceive the reemergence of Persian influence among Iraq's newly powerful Shiite Muslim majority as proof of meddling by the regime in Tehran.
Rising Persian influence is a sign of Iraq's ascendance, not Iran's.
"Iraq has been part of the Persian sphere of influence for more than 400 years," said Karar Dastour, an Iraqi Shiite intellectual who lives in southern Tehran and travels to Iraq. "But governments have always tried to crush anything that had the scent of Shiism or Iran. They were never accepted."
Violent Sunni Arab rejection of Iraq's Persian roots plays out daily on the streets of the capital. In February, three bombs went off in the Shorja market in central Baghdad, killing more than 70 people. It was the fifth time the place, whose name means "salty well" in Persian, was struck in less than a year. Shiite Muslims were the intended targets, but so too was a landmark established long ago by Iranian merchants.
When saboteurs blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year, an attack widely viewed as the accelerant of the current civil war, they destroyed the handiwork of Iranian artisans.
In their Internet postings, Sunni Arab insurgents, many of them officers during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, describe their attacks on Shiites as settling accounts with "Safavids," a reference to the 16th century dynasty that embraced Shiite Islam as the official religion of Persia. Shiite Safavids and Sunni Ottomans fought for decades in a conflict that infused sectarianism into what had been a centuries-old ethnic and political conflict between Arabs and Persians.
"There has always been conflict between the Arabs and Iranians, and they always tried to involve Iraq," Sheik Humam Hamoodi, an Iraqi Shiite politician and cleric who lived in Tehran during Saddam Hussein's rule, said in an interview last year. "Both have wanted to use Iraq as the trench for their battles."
Ignoring the protests of many Shiites, the British forces who forged modern-day Iraq after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire placed a Sunni Arab tribal leader at the country's helm. They dismissed the quarrelsome Shiite clerics as Iranian-backed interlopers in their plans to create an Iraq dominated by Sunni Arabs.
Minority rule
Iraq's 20th century leaders tried to graft a Sunni-dominated Arab identity onto a country that was majority Shiite. Even during the relatively benign years before Hussein's rise in the late 1960s, Shiites visiting Sunni Arab towns such as Tikrit and Fallouja feared for their lives. Pilgrims visiting Samarra, which housed the famous Shiite shrine destroyed by Sunni insurgents last year, rushed to make it back to Baghdad by sundown.
The battle over Iraq's identity accelerated under Hussein, who brutally suppressed what he saw as the non-Arab elements of his country's character. Hussein equated Persians to "flies," invaded Iran and subsequently killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, dubbing them Iranian collaborators.
Hussein banned ceremonies of Ashura, the annual festival-like holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, revered by Shiites as a saint. He ordered the desecration of Shiite shrines and the silencing and execution of the sect's clerics, many of them of Persian descent or married into Persian families. Offices and banks were ordered to stay open on Nowruz, the Persian New Year that falls on the first day of spring and is celebrated by Iraqi Kurds as well as Iranians, Tajiks and Afghans.
"There was a sectarian dimension and there was an ethnic dimension to his hatred," said Musayeb Naimi, editor of Al-Wifaq, a Tehran-based Arabic-language newspaper. Hussein's downfall after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 ended the enforced separation between Iran and Iraq, much to the frustration and rage of Iraq's long-dominant Sunni Arabs. Industrially incapacitated, Iraq must import electricity, foodstuffs, appliances and automobiles from Iran and other neighboring countries such as Turkey and Syria.
Persian cultural influences, long suppressed, have reemerged in the last four years. After Hussein's ouster, Iranian and Iraqi Shiites embraced during mass commemorations of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, rites once banned under Baath Party rule.
Those rites have now become symbols of Shiite power. Sunni insurgents repeatedly attacked the pilgrims headed to Karbala last month, killing more than 200.
Persian has become common on the streets of Najaf and Karbala, as well as in Baghdad's Convention Center, where the Iraqi parliament convenes. Colorful posters of imams Ali and Hussein, of the kind found in pious Iranian enclaves, appear more frequently in Iraqi markets and homes.
Young Iraqi women have begun wearing the same Grace Kelly-style head scarves and short overcoats favored by Iranians.
Motorcycles, popular among youths in Iran but banned during Hussein's rule, traverse Baghdad streets, as do the heroin and opium that have become a habit for young Iranians.
Unease among Sunnis
To many Sunni Arabs, all those have been disturbing signs of a Persian ascendancy.
Brought up on a diet of Arab nationalist propaganda, Sunni Iraqis see their country's drift into the Persian sphere of influence as foreign. At first Sunni insurgents attacked mostly U.S. troops, whom they saw as an occupation force. But as the Shiite-dominated government took hold in early 2005, the attacks took a sharply sectarian turn. Seconds before his execution, Hussein cursed both the Americans who overthrew him and the "Persians" who shouted populist Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's name as he stood on the gallows.
A bitter Jan. 2 television debate about Hussein's legacy on the satellite channel Al Jazeera underscored the ethnic underpinnings of Sunni Arab rage against Iraq's new Shiite order.
The debate pitted Mishaan Jaburi, a Sunni Arab politician, against Sadeq Moussawi, a Shiite journalist and supporter of the current government.
During the debate, which was posted on the Internet and rapidly became famous here, Jaburi waved sheets of white paper at Moussawi, screaming, "These are your documents! You are an Iranian citizen …. You are Persian."
"Your father killed Kurds," Moussawi snapped back.
"You are Iranian," Jaburi reiterated. "These documents show that [you]applied for Iraqi citizenship in May 2004."
Moussawi didn't bother denying the accusation. "We will settle accounts with all of you," he said instead.
Yet many of Iraq's Persian-influenced citizens are neither loyal to nor fond of the government in Tehran. Many Shiites fought on Iraq's side in the war against Iran. And most Iraqis who sought shelter in Iran during Hussein's rule experienced hardship and bigotry. But culturally and politically, they cleave toward Iran instead of Washington's preferred proxy powers — Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Iraqi Shiites have some leaders, including the cleric Sadr, who are Arab nationalists. In the last year, however, many of them have strayed from the Arab world, angered that Arab countries have shunned Iraq's newly crystallizing Shiite identity.
Persians and Shiism have become so intertwined that opposition to Tehran's policies across the region has taken on a Sunni character. Ethnic Baluchi separatists in southeastern Iran fight under the banner of a Sunni Muslim group linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. And in a growing number of cases, Iran's Shiite Arab separatists have converted to Sunni Islam.
Even as Sunnis fight Shiites, accusing them of being Iranians, Shiites have begun to whisper about the identity of Iraq's Sunnis.
"The Sunnis of Iraq aren't really Arabs," one Iraqi Shiite diplomat said recently. "They're Turks."
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
IRAQ:River Tigris becoming a graveyard of human bodies
GRAVEYARD RIVER
BAGHDAD, 8 May 2007 (IRIN) - The River Tigris has long been a symbol of prosperity in Iraq but since the US-led invasion in 2003, this amazing watercourse has turned into a graveyard of bodies. In addition, the water level is decreasing as pollution increases, say environmentalists.
Pollution in the river is caused by oil derivatives and industrial waste as well as Iraqi and US military waste, they say.
The river was one of the main sources of water, food, transport and recreation for the local population but after four years of war and pollution, it has been transformed into a stagnant sewer, according to environmentalists.
"The situation is critical. The river is gradually being destroyed and there are no projects to prevent its destruction," said Professor Ratib Mufid, an environment expert at Baghdad University.
"A large part of the river has been turned into a military area, forcing families to leave their homes around the riverbanks and close restaurants. Fishermen are prohibited from fishing where the river passes through the capital and all vessels are banned in the area," Mufid said.
The river is contaminated with war waste and toxins, and residents of the impoverished Sadr City suburb are often left with no alternative but to drink contaminated water from the Tigris. This is why, specialists say, many Sadr City residents are plagued by diarrhoea and suffer from recurring kidney stones.
In the hot dry summer months, when the water level drops, mud islands can be seen, and water levels appear to be decreasing every year.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains. Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which help to decrease the water flow. The idea [of dam-building] was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow," Seif Barakah, media officer for the Ministry of Environment, said.
Ban on shipping, fishing
Military forces have banned shipping and fishing in the river, and many families who depend for their income on fishing have been deprived of their means of survival.
"Many fishermen have been killed trying to fish at night because they encountered insurgents looking to plant bombs on the riverbanks. It is still possible to find some men trying to fish, but it is rare," Barakah said.
During the day, military boats can be seen making their daily patrols, and in more secure areas, such as those near the fortified Green Zone, snipers are on guard 24 hours a day preventing insurgents from entering the zone.
Dead bodies
Every day local police haul bodies from the Tigris bearing signs of torture. Locals who live near the river constantly see floating bodies.
The situation is even worse in Suwayrah, a southern area of the capital, where the government has built barriers with huge iron nets to trap plants and garbage dropped in the river but now this is also a barrier for bodies.
"Since January 2006 at least 800 bodies have been dragged from those iron nets, and this figure does not include those collected from the central section of the river. Most of the bodies are unidentified and buried without family claims," said Col Abdel-Waheed Azzam, a senior officer in the investigation department of the Ministry of Interior.
According to Azzam, 90 percent of the bodies found in the river show signs of serious torture. "Because of the state of the bodies, it is not useful to try to have an autopsy done, and if the bodies are not claimed within 24 hours they are automatically buried," he said.
Highly polluted
During Saddam Hussein's regime people caught dumping garbage in the river were punished, but today mountains of rubbish can be seen on the riverbanks; and these affect the normal watercourse and pollute the area.
"With dams decreasing the water flow, the salt level rises and in conjunction with the high level of pollutants dumped in the river by northern cities, this reduces oxygen levels, making an unpropitious environment for any living being," Barakah said.
Fishermen said that years ago it was easy to catch a fish in the river but today even if you use nets it is practically impossible to catch a fish and many can be found floating, having died of pollution and lack of oxygen.
"Today, the only fish you can catch are those floating and which died from pollution after ingesting toxic waste and eating rubbish," said Ateif Fahi, 56, a fisherman in the capital, Baghdad.
BAGHDAD, 8 May 2007 (IRIN) - The River Tigris has long been a symbol of prosperity in Iraq but since the US-led invasion in 2003, this amazing watercourse has turned into a graveyard of bodies. In addition, the water level is decreasing as pollution increases, say environmentalists.
Pollution in the river is caused by oil derivatives and industrial waste as well as Iraqi and US military waste, they say.
The river was one of the main sources of water, food, transport and recreation for the local population but after four years of war and pollution, it has been transformed into a stagnant sewer, according to environmentalists.
"The situation is critical. The river is gradually being destroyed and there are no projects to prevent its destruction," said Professor Ratib Mufid, an environment expert at Baghdad University.
"A large part of the river has been turned into a military area, forcing families to leave their homes around the riverbanks and close restaurants. Fishermen are prohibited from fishing where the river passes through the capital and all vessels are banned in the area," Mufid said.
The river is contaminated with war waste and toxins, and residents of the impoverished Sadr City suburb are often left with no alternative but to drink contaminated water from the Tigris. This is why, specialists say, many Sadr City residents are plagued by diarrhoea and suffer from recurring kidney stones.
In the hot dry summer months, when the water level drops, mud islands can be seen, and water levels appear to be decreasing every year.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains. Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which help to decrease the water flow. The idea [of dam-building] was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow," Seif Barakah, media officer for the Ministry of Environment, said.
Ban on shipping, fishing
Military forces have banned shipping and fishing in the river, and many families who depend for their income on fishing have been deprived of their means of survival.
"Many fishermen have been killed trying to fish at night because they encountered insurgents looking to plant bombs on the riverbanks. It is still possible to find some men trying to fish, but it is rare," Barakah said.
During the day, military boats can be seen making their daily patrols, and in more secure areas, such as those near the fortified Green Zone, snipers are on guard 24 hours a day preventing insurgents from entering the zone.
Dead bodies
Every day local police haul bodies from the Tigris bearing signs of torture. Locals who live near the river constantly see floating bodies.
The situation is even worse in Suwayrah, a southern area of the capital, where the government has built barriers with huge iron nets to trap plants and garbage dropped in the river but now this is also a barrier for bodies.
"Since January 2006 at least 800 bodies have been dragged from those iron nets, and this figure does not include those collected from the central section of the river. Most of the bodies are unidentified and buried without family claims," said Col Abdel-Waheed Azzam, a senior officer in the investigation department of the Ministry of Interior.
According to Azzam, 90 percent of the bodies found in the river show signs of serious torture. "Because of the state of the bodies, it is not useful to try to have an autopsy done, and if the bodies are not claimed within 24 hours they are automatically buried," he said.
Highly polluted
During Saddam Hussein's regime people caught dumping garbage in the river were punished, but today mountains of rubbish can be seen on the riverbanks; and these affect the normal watercourse and pollute the area.
"With dams decreasing the water flow, the salt level rises and in conjunction with the high level of pollutants dumped in the river by northern cities, this reduces oxygen levels, making an unpropitious environment for any living being," Barakah said.
Fishermen said that years ago it was easy to catch a fish in the river but today even if you use nets it is practically impossible to catch a fish and many can be found floating, having died of pollution and lack of oxygen.
"Today, the only fish you can catch are those floating and which died from pollution after ingesting toxic waste and eating rubbish," said Ateif Fahi, 56, a fisherman in the capital, Baghdad.
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