{"id":159,"date":"2006-10-20T15:12:16","date_gmt":"2006-10-20T19:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=159"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:11:43","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:11:43","slug":"who-runs-amara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"Amara Clashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are confusing and conflicting reports coming out of Amara (sometimes Amarah<\/a>), scene of recent violence involving Sadrist forces and local police.<\/p>\n

A little background context might be helpful here.<\/p>\n

Amara is home to Abdel-Karim al-Mohammedawi, widely known as the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPrince of the Marshes.<\/p>\n

The current Interior Minister of Iraq, Jawad al-Bolani was formerly an aide to Mohammedawi<\/a>. According to a June 10, 2006 report in the New York Times<\/em><\/a> Bolani began his contemporary political career working with Moktada al-Sadr.<\/p>\n

When the British abandoned (or, more accurately, fled) Amara two months ago, Mohammedawi complained that they left the city in corrupt hands.<\/p>\n

An August 26, 2006 New York Times<\/em> report<\/a> included the following from Mohammedawi:<\/p>\n

”[Amara] was handed over to a corrupt authority…” said Sheik Abdul Kareem al-Muhammadawi, a prominent tribal leader in Amara. ”What do you think the attitude of an ordinary citizen would be….”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who was this “corrupt authority” of which Muhammadawi was complaining?<\/p>\n

The answer seems to the SCIRI and its Badr Brigades.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press report<\/a> from October 19th seems have captured the details of the current conflict:<\/p>\n

Clashes erupted Thursday between Mahdi Army fighters and policemen defending their headquarters in the southern city of Amarah after the family of a senior police officer struck back against his suspected killers, kidnapping the teenage brother of the Shiite militia’s commander, police said.<\/p>\n

The family of Ali Qassim al-Tamimi, the chief of police intelligence in Maysan<\/strong>, the province of which Amarah is the capital, said they would not release 19-year-old Hussein al-Bahadli until the culprits in al-Tamimi’s death were surrendered<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

Al-Tamimi was killed Wednesday by a bomb planted on the highway<\/strong> between Amarah and the city of Basra farther south. He was killed along with four of his bodyguards…<\/p>\n

Tamimi is known to be a member of the Badr Brigade<\/strong>, a militia linked to Iraq’s largest religious Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI. The family maintains that the rival Mahdi Army of radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was behind his murder<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

The Mahdi Army commander in Amarah is sheik Fadel al-Bahadli…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are confusing and conflicting reports coming out of Amara (sometimes Amarah), scene of recent violence involving Sadrist forces and local police. A little background context might be helpful here. Amara is home to Abdel-Karim al-Mohammedawi, widely known as the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPrince of the Marshes. The current Interior Minister of Iraq, Jawad al-Bolani was formerly an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}