Iraqis to Stage Demonstrations Against Continued Occupation

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A senior member of the Shiite Sadr Movement announced on Saturday that the Iraqi people are due to hold massive demonstrations in different cities of the war-torn country tomorrow to voice their strong protest at the continued occupation of their homeland by the US forces.     
"Tomorrow (Sunday) a massive demonstration is scheduled to be held on the occasion of the anniversary of the martyrdom of the senior Shiite cleric, Sheikh Mohammad Sadeq Sadr, in a number of major Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala," said Sheikh Zeinolabedin Sadr.

He reiterated that the demonstration will have an anti-occupation theme to protest at the presence of the US forces in the country and demand the Iraqi government to pave the way for their rapid pullout at the earliest.

The US military agreement signed between Baghdad and Washington at the end of November 2008 stipulates the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq by December 31, 2011 as a deadline.

But, the US has been pressing senior Iraqi officials to revise their decision on the US pullout and demand Washington to keep its troops in the country beyond their scheduled departure in the yearend.

Iraqi state officials as well as religious and political figures have all condemned the US attempts to extend the mission of its troops in the country.

A large number of Iraqi politicians and religious leaders believe that the US is seeking to find or even create a pretext for extending its military presence in the country.

Last Saturday, a prominent member of the Iraqi parliament cautioned that the US has slowed down training of Iraq's security forces in a bid to find an excuse to prolong its military presence in the war-torn country.

"The US has deliberately avoided strengthening the Iraqi forces and refrained from providing them with the necessary training in an attempt to prepare the ground for extending the security deal for a number of years," said Nabil Harbo, who is a member of al-Iraqiya Coalition.

The lawmaker lashed out at the US for its inaction in fulfilling its undertakings as stipulated in the Baghdad-Washington security deal, and stressed training Iraq's forces is merely an excuse for a longer occupation of the country.

Also after several bomb blasts in the holy city of Karbala took the lives of scores of people, Iraqi politicians condemned the US for the terrorist attacks and said the explosions took place as a result of a US plot to justify its longer military buildup in Iraq.

Spokesman of al-Ahrar Faction in the Iraqi parliament Mashreq Naji took the foreign and occupying forces responsible for the Sunday blasts in the holy city of Karbala, which killed at least 15 and wounded 113 more, and said the US is seeking to create an excuse for extending its mission in Iraq.

"The US occupying forces should be blamed for the yesterday blasts in the holy city of Karbala and they should account for it to the people," said Naji on Monday.

He said such moves are aimed at stirring or intensifying sectarian strife between the Shiite and Sunni populations in a bid to create a pretext for the extension of the occupying troops' mission in Iraq.

Naji described unity among different groups and tribes in Iraq as the only way to encounter such plots, and said, "The political groups should keep united against the enemies of Iraq since it is the only way to fight these infidel groups.

"We will be able to foil all their plots through our unity."

In relevant remarks, a spokesman for the Shiite Sadr Movement stressed that the multiple blasts in Karbala served as part of a broader plot hatched to spark sectarian strife in Iraq to justify a longer US military presence in the war-torn country.

"These explosions are mainly aimed at intensifying differences and ethnic tension between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis to prepare the ground for extending the security deal and the US military mission in Iraq," said Sheikh Saleh al-Obeidi last week.

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