Clerical error
Having overestimated his support, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr backs down
Two months of fighting transformed this mecca in the Shiite heartland into a ghost town with razor-wire tumbleweed. After Saddam's fall, Najaf and other holy cities in Iraq's Koran belt had prospered from the inflow of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from Iran, Syria, and Bahrain. Many new hotels rose out of the dust to meet the demand, but, because of fighting, construction sites on Najaf's monochromatic streets remained abandoned last week.
The bazaar--a bustling, narrow alleyway that burrows through the heart of the city like a passageway into the ancient world of date peddlers and carpet merchants--echoed from the emptiness. Dust caked the metal shutters pulled over shops, and the alley was dank with the smell of sewage. Only one shop remained open for business, "as a challenge to show we're not weak," said its owner, goldsmith Ahmed Nasser, nervously fingering neon-green prayer beads. "If we all close our shops, it will look like we're frightened," he said, before a young woman, completely covered by a black robe except for a slit at the eyes, rushed in to purchase a $50 pair of gold earrings. "The economic situation stopped when the fighting began. My business went down by 90 percent."
The conflict hit dramatic highs and lows, with widespread public protests over the closing of Sadr's Al Hawza newspaper and fighting that threatened to grow into a unified Sunni and Shiite uprising. As a result, Sadr has ostensibly lost the battle, but coalition forces, which had previously counted on the support of the Shiite-dominated south, have lost ground in the war for hearts and minds here. Reeling from months of fighting and damage to the shrine, locals have been quick to forget the coalition's previous good deeds.
Publicly furious with the occupation, the citizens are also privately blaming Sadr for bringing the fighting to the holiest Shiite city, and they say that they will be grateful when he and his ragtag bandit army leave. "Things were very good two months ago. It was a peaceful town. Then people from outside our city came in [and] the majority of the fighters came from outside of Najaf," said Ali Nasser, 25, while eating a lunch of stewed lamb and rice in the emptied bazaar. "When the Americans first came here, they played soccer and dominoes with us. They were just like our friends. We didn't even see a tank."
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