ANALYSIS: Iraqi politicians' summit postponed amid speculation (dpa)

Middle East News

By Ziad Haris and Pakinam Amer
Aug 14, 2007, 15:27 GMT

Baghdad - A 'defining' crisis summit meeting of Iraq's main political factions which was scheduled to begin Tuesday afternoon in Baghdad was postponed amid speculation about the reasons for the move.

The meeting was to be held in an effort to save al-Maliki's coalition from collapsing after Sunni leaders walked out and others boycotted his government.

Disagreement between participants over the meeting's agenda is said to be the reason behind putting off the meeting, said observers. Some political blocs are also said to be awaiting their leaders' decision on whether or not to participate.

Hours before the meeting, members of different political factions voiced their anger, with some claiming that they had been elbowed out of the parley which should ideally be representative of Iraq's political forces. Turkmen leaders said they were not invited and decried what they called 'a conspiracy against Turkmen's interests.'

'Any decision that the meeting reaches will be considered fraud in the eyes of the Turkmen,' said Fawzi Akram Tarzi, a Turkmen policymaker shortly before the set time for the meeting.

Hossam al-Azzawi, a member of the Iraqi National List, which has 25 seats in parliament, said that his bloc was also overlooked.

Meanwhile, five of the nation's leaders - including al-Maliki and President Jalal Talibani - were holding a preparatory session on Tuesday to set an outline for the upcoming conference whose precise date has yet to be set.

The parley was called for last Sunday by al-Maliki, whose cabinet meetings currently have 17 empty seats. Five ministers and Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front announced their withdrawal from government earlier this month.

In April, six ministers of the movement led by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr resigned in protest at al-Maliki's failure to provide a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops.

Others from the Iraqi National List have boycotted the government. These moves have left al-Maliki's cabinet with mainly Shiites and Kurds.

The political standoff and the demands of the various blocs were said to be priorities on the meeting's agena, at least officially. The summit was also expected to take up the issue of political reforms and the establishment of a moderate front.

Observers insist, however, that these are all mere side issues - the main goal of the summit remains to be naming new substitute ministers from al-Maliki's governing coalition instead of those who quit from the Sadr bloc.

Tough negotiations are predicted by many, including al-Maliki himself.

Naming new Sunni ministers to replace the Accord ministers is still a tricky issue, as Sunnis decry discrimination against them.

Ahead of the conference, Adnan al-Duleimi, the head of the Sunni Accord, claimed in statements to the press that Sunnis are experiencing an 'annihilation campaign' of sorts that aims at giving pro-Iranian Muslims a tight grip on Baghdad.

In Tuesday statements to Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera, al-Duleimi reiterated some of his claims saying that the government was 'ignoring' the demands of the Sunni representatives.

However, according to the BBC, Selim Gabouri, spokesman for the Accord, said that his bloc had no objection to participating in the meeting, in principle.

But the party has no plans to return to the unity government under the current conditions, Gabouri added. It is not clear yet whether the meeting will feature Sunni participation or not.

Still, it is expected by many observers that the outcome of the meeting would be 'defining.' In a statement to Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa, Selim Abdullah, a member of the Accord, described the parley as 'decisive for all political blocs.'

Regarding the Sunni issue, al-Maliki seemed to have been treading cautiously so far. He did not promise that Sunni ministers would be immediately substituted. Instead, he said that he hoped that the crisis will end and the Accord ministers be back to the cabinet.

'But if they refused to do so we will find ourselves obliged to replace them,' he was quoted by the Voices of Iraq news agency as saying, arguably placing the ball in their court.

He dismissed speculation that his government could fall apart. 'It is a wish by some but it is far the day when people would see the government in its countdown.'

On the streets of Baghdad, amongst some Iraqis there was anger at their leaders. Tamim Nasry, a 27-year-old man, said that the Iraqis have given their political leaders many chances, but 'they failed every time.'

'The problem with Iraq is the problem of its leaders. They plant terror and fear in the country because of their failure to manage the affairs of the nation.

'We expect what will happen. The leaders will appear at a press conference(after the meeting has taken place) to announce the problems of Iraq solved; (they will say) all is well, peace and security are near. But the reality is that all will remain as it is. We have been used to this for years now,' added Nasry.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
© Copyright 2007 by monstersandcritics.com.
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Reconsidering jihad: the view from within - dpa

Middle East Features

By Pakinam Amer
Jul 20, 2007, 5:19 GMT

Cairo - Inside Egyptian prisons a profound change has been taking place around the Islamic ideology of jihad (literally 'struggle' but often taken to mean 'holy war').

Top militant leaders serving long sentences have been given the chance to gain their freedom by reneging on their previous ideas of establishing Islamist societies by violent means.

Kamal Habib is an example of one such man who made the transition.

A former member of Egyptian Jihad (also known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Habib served a 10-year prison sentence in connection with that group's assassination of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.

Fawaz Gergis, a university professor and an authority on Islamic militancy and Jihadist groups, speaks of Habib in his book Journey of the Jihadist.

'Habib was a key figure in the first generation of Muslim militants, who in the 1970s had planted the seeds of jihad throughout Muslim lands,' Gergis said.

'(He) graduated from Cairo University in 1979 at the top of his class, with a degree in political science. Charismatic and ambitious, he could have trained to become an academic. But neither money nor the allure of ascending the ladder in jahili (non-Islamic or 'pagan') institutions appealed to him,' Gergis added.

Of his reasons for joining the Egyptian Jihad group Habib to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that 'most Egyptians wanted to get rid of Sadat.'

Sadat, who was the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel, also was known for his government's oppressive policies domestically.

'At the beginning,' Habib said,'(Islamists) didn't advocate violence against individuals, that happened much later, in the 1990s, when retaliation by killing police officers and other violent acts took place.'

Many experts, including Islamists, have argued explicitly and implicitly that torture was behind much of the so-called prison revisions of the extremists in the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya (The Islamic Group) and Egyptian Jihad groups.

During a 2001 interview with the US broadcaster CNN, Habib had claimed severe torture in Egyptian prisons was something everyone knew about.

'I prefer not to talk about it. But back then, it was on a very large scale,' he said.

One of the victims of torture after the Sadat assassination was Ayman al-Zawahiri, now second-in-command of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Addressing the press in 1983 al-Zawahiri said about his three-year jail term as one of the 300 people tried for involvement in the Sadat case: 'They whipped us with electric cables, they shocked us with electricity, and they used their wild dogs.'

Habib denies the torture of the early days in prison had anything to do with this revision. Revisionism, he said, 'was something that was growing inside me, as a result of thinking, reading and talking to other people.'

Habib eventually used his term in jail to write a doctoral thesis in political science and revise much of his previous ideas.

When asked about the evidence used to advocate then reject violence, Habib says his sources - Sharia (Islamic law) and the Koran - did not change, only the interpretation did.

'This has to do with one's vision and mental state at a given time. I read differently into Islam and the Koran while reviewing the experience. The understanding was different,' said Habib.
The result was a book he published in the early 2000's titled The Islamist Movement from Confrontation to Revision.

But despite revising many of his earlier beliefs, Habib continues to blame the West, saying the conditioning of the country by Western imperialism ultimately produced the violence of the 1990s.

'The prevailing social and political context ... directed us to seek change in that way, so that we could drive out the occupiers of our homeland,' he said, explaining how militant Islamists like himself and his fellow prisoners felt.

Habib unapologetically justifies the position of the top two al- Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, arguing that it was the environment they lived under that guided their steps toward fundamentalism.

'If Western policies change,' Habib said, 'then perhaps these forms of violence and confrontation will take a different turn - the concept of the clash of civilizations, of demonizing Islam. All this has created supporters for Bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's project across the Muslim World.'

For Habib, the terrorists are driven by feelings shared by many Muslims: the lack of hope of a better future, be it for Muslims as a 'nation' or as individuals.

'They see the injustice done to them, and perceive their religion and identity as being threatened. This is the main source of their fear and anger. These people were not born violent.'

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
© Copyright 2007 by monstersandcritics.com.
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Link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/article_1332486.php/Reconsidering_jihad_the_view_from_within
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