Iraqi Shiite Leader Says Baghdad Cannot Deal Effectively With Terrorism

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An upsurge of violence and deadly car bombs in Iraq in the past few months appear to have served as a wake up call to some Iraqi leaders, among them former Vice President Adil Abd Al-Mahdi.

“Terrorism is clear in its message, but we are not clear in our plans and reactions,” Abd Al-Mahdi wrote last week on his personal Facebook page.

Abd Al-Mahdi is from the Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) and is considered one of Iraq’s most influential Shiite leaders.

His party controls many important security and army posts. But Abd Al-Mahdi believes that the government does not quite know how to deal with the problem of terrorist attacks.

“We either react to it on a sectarian basis or only give it more popular support and space, which it doesn’t deserve,” he wrote, “Or we deal with it haphazardly and kill the innocent instead of the culprit.”

Abd Al-Mahdi, who shares his views on the social media almost daily, says that the authorities must be able to distinguish between those behind the attacks, and ordinary people.

On Monday, more than 20 people were killed when a series of car bombs went off in Iraq’s relatively safe cities of Kut, Basrah and Nasiriyah.

A recent report by the United Nations says that in May alone, more than 1,000 people were killed in Iraq, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian violence in 2007.

Abd Al-Mahdi is not alone in criticizing the government’s incompetence in tackling the country’s deteriorating security situation.

In a speech to members of his party during a cultural forum late last year, SIC head Ammar al-Hakim said that Iraqi security officials evade their assigned responsibilities.

“Why in Iraq do officials not feel responsible for what is happening?” asked al-Hakim. “So many bombings take place and we don’t even see a single Iraqi security official appear on TV to tell us what happened and why it happened.”

Iraqis cannot accept this anymore, he says.

As much as blaming the government for its failure to restore security, Abd Al-Mahdi warns that the country itself has fertile grounds where armed groups prosper and find support.

“Terrorism does not appear out of the blue,” he says. “It is born in society and in a religious environment.”

“We will not succeed fighting it unless we manage to deprive it of that environment,” he adds.

The sudden increase in violent attacks in Iraq could be attributed to recent tensions between the central government in Baghdad and the country’s Sunni provinces.

The Iraqi army and Sunni fighters came to clashes on several occasions following anti-government protests in Mosul, Hawija and Ramadi in which security forces killed dozens of protesters and detained many more.

Sunni leaders complain that Baghdad has ignored their provinces in terms of providing public services, and they accuse the security forces of storming homes and arresting innocent family members.

For its part, the government has branded protest sites as “terrorist hubs” and vowed to prevent them from regrouping by any means necessary.

But Abd Al-Mahdi, the vice president, believes such a policy on the part of the government could backfire and only worsen the situation.

“Unless we review our policies, provide equal security and protection for all citizens, the terrorists will continue to prosper,” he wrote recently. “Worst of all, the government will lose its legitimacy and will be treated as a gangster.”