VZCZCXRO4594
OO RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHMOS
DE RUEHKUK #0050/01 0610541
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O R 020541Z MAR 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD IMMEDIATE 0505
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0542
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0569

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 KIRKUK 000050 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
EMBASSY FOR POL, POLMIL, ROL COORDINATOR, NCT, IRMO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/2/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM MOPS KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: (C) MEASURED RESPONSE IN DIYALA TO SAMARRA BOMBING; ISF 
RELUCTANT TO CONFRONT JAYSH AL-MAHDI 
 
KIRKUK 00000050  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Scott Dean, Regional Coordinator (Acting), REO 
Kirkuk, DoS. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
CORRECTED COPY (KIRKUK 49) - CLASSIFICATION CHANGE TO SECRET 
 
¶1. (U) This is a SET Ba'qubah cable. 
 
¶2. (C) SUMMARY: The reaction in Diyala to the destruction of the 
al-Askariya shrine in Samarra has been restrained and generally 
focused on positive messages of shared determination to fight 
against takfirism, due in no small part to the responsible 
rhetoric and frenetic behind-the-scenes work by Diyala's 
religious and political leadership.  Both Sunnis and Shi'as have 
generally kept their heads rather than responding to acts that 
could have been taken as substantial provocations - despite the 
unsettling, though not entirely surprising, unwillingness of the 
ISF to keep armed Jaysh al-Mahdi elements off the streets. 
Unfortunately, this good-news story has been overshadowed by 
several massacres carried out in the thinly populated southwest 
corner of the province, a topic that will be covered septel. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
FEB 22: SMALL DEMO AND CIVIL STRIFE CONTAINED; 
GOVERNOR AND PC CHAIR PROCEED WITH IRAN VISIT 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶3. (SBU) News of the "Golden Mosque" explosion had filtered to 
all population centers in Diyala by the early afternoon of 
February 22.  A small demonstration formed in the late afternoon 
in the Shi'a village of Huwaydir, a suburb of Ba'qubah where 
many of Diyala's primary Shi'a political "fixers" reside.  It 
was accompanied by armed militiamen from the local "Sistani 
Brigades" as it marched into Ba'qubah, ultimately dispersing 
before reaching downtown. 
 
¶4. (C) Also during mid-afternoon of February 22, events that are 
still in dispute occurred in central, predominantly Sunni, 
Muqdadiyah.  According to our Sunni contacts, armed Jaysh 
al-Mahdi elements entered the city's marketplace and forcibly 
closed down shops in compliance with the call of Shi'a 
authorities for a mourning period.  When some shopowners refused 
to close down their shops, the JAM members allegedly fired into 
such stores, in some cases igniting the merchandise and causing 
further damage to seven stores.  (Sunni Assistant Governor Hafiz 
Abdulaziz al-Juburi, the owner of one of the damaged stores, has 
showed SET photographs taken of his store and others near it 
that show substantial gunfire damage.)  There are 
counter-allegations by Shi'as of gunfire from Sunnis during this 
period as well.  At some point during this exchange, one Sunni 
was killed and five, including the brother of (Sunni) Deputy 
Governor Auwf Rahumi al-Rubay'i, were wounded in the crossfire. 
The Deputy Governor exercised restraint in calling for calm, 
which was restored to the marketplace area by early nightfall. 
 
¶5. (C) The Deputy Governor's restraint was important, as he was 
not only the ranking Sunni provincial official, but the acting 
Governor.  A delegation led by (Shi'a) Governor Ra'ad al-Mullah 
Jawad al-Timimi, which included Provincial Council Chairman 
Ibrahim Bajillan and several other Provincial Council members, 
DG's, and security officials was en route to Kermanshah, Iran, 
on the morning of February 22 when the Governor received the 
news of the destruction of the al-Askariya shrine.  Our 
understanding is that the multi-sectarian delegation planned to 
discuss routine cross-border issues such as trade, electrical 
supply and return of refugees; despite any apparent urgent need 
to travel to Iran, however, the Governor elected at that time to 
continue his visit.  The decision left the province stripped of 
top leaders at a critical time; the delegation is currently 
scheduled to return to Diyala on March 1. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
FEB 23: LARGE, PEACEFUL DEMOS THROUGHOUT DIYALA 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶6. (C) The morning of February 23 saw a wave of demonstrations 
in Shi'a population centers.  The largest of these 
demonstrations, incorporating some 2,000 people, was held in 
Kan'an, a town east of Ba'qubah that is neither particularly 
large nor particularly dominated by Shi'as; the demonstration 
was organized by leading independent Shi'as, including Deputy 
Provincial Council Chairman Sheikh Dhari Tha'baan al-Asadi.  A 
1,000-person demonstration in the northwestern Shi'a center of 
Khalis included a substantial number of apparent JAM members 
armed with semiautomatic weapons. 
 
 
KIRKUK 00000050  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) Smaller demonstrations, numbering several hundred 
people, took place in Ba'qubah, Muqdadiyah, al-Ghalabiya (a 
village outside of Khalis), and the southeastern cities of 
Mandali and Balad Ruz.  As at Khalis, the march in Muqdadiyah 
allegedly incorporated armed JAM members to protect it.  After 
the events of the previous afternoon and evening, the Sunni 
leadership viewed this as a provocation and reacted by arming 
themselves; they did not, however, strike back.  In Balad Ruz, 
our Sunni and Shi'a contacts tell us that Sunnis and Shi'as 
marched together, chanting, "We are free, Sunni and Shi'a; this 
homeland we will not sell." 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
FEB 24 AND AFTER: CONSTRUCTIVE SERMONS AND EQUILIBRIUM RESTORED 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶8. (C) By February 24, our contacts were reporting that all was 
quiet.  A crowd gathering that morning at the primary Shi'a 
mosque in Muqdadiyah (which allegedly included armed JAM 
members) was dispersed after the Sunni mayor of Muqdadiyah 
contacted the imam of the mosque to request that he take steps 
to control the group.  Attendance at Friday prayers was light 
due to the curfew, but those of our contacts who did attend 
reported that the imams of the mosques preached sermons 
rejecting takfirism and calling for unity and restraint.  (This 
information tracks with the wider survey of mosque sermons 
carried out by the CF brigade stationed in Diyala, and with the 
assurances made to SET prior to the sermons by the Chairmen of 
both the Shi'a Waqf and the Sunni Waqf.)  A February 25 press 
conference brought together Diyala's ranking Sunni and Shi'a 
political officeholders, the local commanders of the Iraqi Army 
and Iraqi police, and representatives of the Shi'a Waqf and Suni 
Waqf to deliver the same message. 
 
¶9. (C) The curfews over the past several days have been 
maintained in Diyala's cities with varying degrees of 
stringency, but without substantial further incident.  IA 
elements have tended to enforce the curfew more strictly than 
IP, who reportedly took advantage of the curfew and consequent 
lines at the gas station to fill up their various vehicles. 
 
------------------------------- 
HIGH PROFILE FOR JAYSH AL-MAHDI 
------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) One constant feature of the various accounts that we 
have received from Diyala's major cities is the presence of 
armed JAM throughout the period following the Samarra mosque 
explosion. (Ba'qubah is the notable exception to this rule.) 
Aside from the events of February 22 in Muqdadiyah (the exact 
details of which are still in considerable debate), the presence 
of these elements does not appear to have provoked sectarian 
violence.  After their participation in "protecting" several of 
the marches on February 23, the JAM generally restricted 
themselves to protecting the Sadrist offices and principal Shi'a 
mosques, and did not often appear on the street outside of the 
vicinity of these places. 
 
¶11. (C) (NOTE: JAM mosque "protectors" appear to have primarily 
focused their efforts on large mosques rather than those with 
Sadrist leadership, many of which remained unguarded; their 
efforts in turn appear to have been welcomed by the imams of 
those mosques, regardless of their affiliations.  An example of 
this was the al-Imam al-Hussein Mosque in Balad Ruz, whose imam 
Taleb al-'Utbi is the principal deputy of Abdulrazzaq al-Asadi, 
Ayatollah Sistani's "envoy" in Diyala.) 
 
------------------------------------------- 
LITTLE ISF INTEREST IN CONFRONTING SADRISTS 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Despite relative JAM restraint, ISF tolerance of the 
presence of armed Shi'a militiamen on the streets during a 
period of high tension was troubling to Diyala's Sunnis, who 
allege IP complicity in the events in Muqdadiyah on February 22 
and contrast the tolerance of armed Shi'as with the hard line 
against armed Sunnis - four of whom, armed only with sticks, 
were detained by the IP on February 26.  In Khalis, the 
sustained presence of JAM in the marketplace (which lies between 
the city's principal Shi'a mosque and the Sadrist office) 
provoked continued complaints to us and to the ISF from the 
city's Sunnis.  None of these complaints appears to have 
provoked the ISF to disarm JAM forces or order them off the 
street.  The lone counterexample to this pattern during this 
period occurred on February 24, when IA elements responded 
positively to a request by a Sunni village in southwestern 
Diyala for protection against a JAM incursion (which did not, in 
the end, materialize). 
 
 
KIRKUK 00000050  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶13. (C) In part, the reluctance of the ISF to deal with JAM may 
have stemmed from a desire not to provoke an unnecessary 
confrontation - and the results appear to vindicate this course 
of action.  Another reason for the lack of ISF action may have 
been the apparently semi-legitimate status of the people 
guarding the mosques.  Assistant Governor Hafiz al-Juburi, 
requesting from the Muqdadiyah Chief of Police action against 
the men dressed in black patrolling around the area of the 
market, was told that the IP could not take action because those 
men held valid IDs issued by the Ministry of the Interior, 
naming them as members of the Public Order Battalions. 
 
¶14. (S) On the other hand, there are indications that the ISF 
reluctance to come to grips with the JAM may have had more to do 
with the JAM's perceived status as an ally in protecting the 
Shi'a from further attacks.  The Deputy Governor, while 
maintaining positive rhetoric towards the ISF in public, has in 
private accused the IP of actively cooperating with JAM in many 
cases - and in some cases, of serving as active members of JAM. 
The police chiefs in the principal areas where JAM were active - 
Khalis, Muqdadiyah, Balad Ruz, Khan Bani Sa'd, and Abu Sayda - 
are all Shi'as, and we have heard similar accusations from other 
Sunni contacts.  As is often the case in Diyala, it is difficult 
to tease out how much of the alleged collusion is real and how 
much is conspiracy theory, especially in the face of such 
one-sided demographics 
 
¶15. (S) The Deputy Governor's estimation of the IA performance 
was substantially more positive; in contrast to the IP, he sees 
them as having been scrupulously fair.  However, even the IA 
seems to have been unwilling to confront the JAM.  The Shi'a 
commander of the IA battalion assigned to Muqdadiyah - 
considered by CF to be one of the most dynamic commanders in 
Diyala - refused repeated requests by the Sunni Muqdadiyah mayor 
to bring troops into the market on February 22, well after there 
was evidence that people were being shot there, on the basis 
that it was not his job to intervene in political infighting. 
In one case just outside of Diyala, the identification between 
Shi'a members of the ISF and Shi'a militias showed clearer 
links: CF in southern Salah ad Din were able to successfully and 
peacefully turn around a convoy of 80 black-clad, armed men 
heading from Balad towards Samarra after the leader of the CF 
unit was recognized by a member of the convoy - who was also a 
sergeant in the IA unit with which the CF officer had worked. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶16. (C) Though the massacres of February 24-25 have dominated 
media coverage of Diyala's response to the Samarra mosque 
explosion, the overall picture was a positive one.  Shi'as were 
able to sufficiently assuage their grief through peaceful 
demonstrations; the Sunnis, despite a profusion of rumors of 
Shi'a atrocities, the wounding of the brother of the Deputy 
Governor, and the provocative presence on the streets of armed 
Shi'a militiamen, remained disciplined enough to keep the 
conflict from escalating.  Those members of the 
often-contentious provincial leadership who were present in 
Diyala ultimately came together with a consistent message of 
unity and restraint, though the Governor's puzzling decision not 
to cut short his trip to Iran left him looking both shortsighted 
and risk-averse.  Ultimately, the province emerged from crisis 
without any major conflict outside of the extreme southwest 
(which were likely reprisals neither for the Samarra explosion 
nor for the attacks on Sunni mosques in Baghdad - septel). 
 
¶17. (S) On the other hand, the events following the Samarra 
explosion also provided indications of potential problems if the 
ISF is ever ordered to confront the JAM.  The restraint of both 
the JAM and the Sunnis allowed the IA to avoid taking sides in 
the aftermath of the Samarra bombing, leaving open the question 
of how it would respond if ever ordered to confront the JAM.  By 
contrast, the cooperative approach evident in the IP's 
relationship with the JAM during the events of the past several 
days provides a clear sign of where their loyalties might lie in 
future crises. 
ORESTE