Iraq Reportedly Endures 3rd Day of Violent Unrest

Iraqi security forces fought for the third day Monday to quell demonstrations ignited by the killing of a senior Shiite Muslim cleric, opposition spokesmen said, and some reports indicated scores of people dead and more than 700 arrested.

Reports from Iraqi opposition groups in neighboring countries and the West spoke of a string of spontaneous protests--from the Shiite slums of Baghdad to half a dozen predominantly Shiite cities and towns in central and southern Iraq--in what appeared to be the most significant internal challenge to President Saddam Hussein’s regime in eight years.

In Baghdad, the government continued to reject as “completely unfounded” all claims of unrest. “A figment of the imagination,” Uday Tai, director of the state-run Iraqi News Agency, said Monday.

The regime’s public reactions--barring journalists from areas of reported unrest, broadcasting television footage designed to refute the allegations of disturbances and laying the blame for the cleric’s slaying on foreign forces--nevertheless suggested a government at least concerned about an overflow of public anger after the killing of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr.

According to the opposition, there have been riots or disturbances outside Baghdad in the cities of Najaf, Karbala, Nassariya and Hilla and in many smaller towns and villages in Basra and Babil provinces. Government forces are said to have withdrawn from some sites, including Haniya near Basra and Majer in Mara province, to avoid clashes with demonstrators.

These disturbances are the first sign of widespread unrest in Iraq since March and April of 1991, when Hussein’s Republican Guards put down a Shiite uprising in southern and central Iraq that followed Baghdad’s defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Although the unrest so far does not seem to constitute a serious threat to the regime, it comes at a time when the usual iron grip on power of Hussein’s government is under strain and may be in danger of weakening.

Just two months ago, the regime endured a four-day Anglo-American bombing campaign that hit at strategic assets across Iraq in retaliation for Baghdad’s blocking of U.N. weapons inspections.

Since then, the Iraqi government has found itself increasingly friendless in the Arab world and facing ongoing military pressure from U.S. and British warplanes, which are attacking Iraqi air defenses and other military installations almost daily.

The government says Sadr was slain along with his two sons Friday by unknown gunmen in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Opposition groups, however, have alleged that Sadr was actually killed in his home on Thursday night by security forces and then hastily buried to avoid a public demonstration.

Many Shiites have blamed the government for the deaths because Sadr had shown signs of independence from the regime in recent weeks, including defying an order not to preach at the mosque in Kufa two weeks ago and, reportedly, refusing to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against the United States for the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign in December.

His death was the latest in a series of attacks on senior Shiite figures in Iraq during the past year.

All the opposition accounts agree that the disturbances began Saturday in Saddam City--a poor, mainly Shiite-inhabited section of Baghdad that was previously known as Al Thawra--soon after Sadr’s killing was announced on Iraqi TV.

Since then, “300 people have been killed in the last two or three days,” said Abul Hassan Salah, a spokesman for the Shiite opposition group the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, speaking to reporters in Tehran.

U.S. officials who were following the situation said they believed some of the opposition claims but considered others exaggerated.

The Al Dawa party, a Shiite opposition group based in Syria, said that demonstrators attacked the offices of the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party in Saddam City and “killed a large number” of regime supporters. It said members of the Saddam Fedayeen militia then were deployed to seal off Saddam City and other Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, including Kadhimiya, Shula and Hurriyat, to keep the clashes from reaching the center of the capital.

The London-headquartered Iraqi National Congress estimated that up to 50 people were killed.

“This is the worst [disturbance] in years,” said Ahmad Helawi, a spokesman for the INC. But he added that he doubted it could escalate into a full-scale uprising.

“To do this, you need to have a leadership inside the country,” he said.

Hamid Bayati, a London spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, agreed that a revolt was probably not in the offing because the protesters were unarmed and disorganized. “It most likely will be crushed,” he said, “but we have to see what develops.”

After an initial CNN report Saturday of clashes in and heavy security around Saddam City, television and news agency journalists were kept away from the area except for an escorted tour Saturday night in which they were forbidden to leave their cars or ask questions of residents.

Tai, the news agency director, said that there would be a government-guided trip for journalists to southern Iraq today in order to demonstrate that there are no disturbances.

To counter the reports of disturbances, state television meanwhile broadcast scenes of people praying normally at the shrine in Najaf and of traffic and people shopping in the southern city. Also shown was a memorial service held for Sadr.

One U.S. State Department analyst said, “We believe that the reports are credible that indicate demonstrations took place in Saddam City.”

Noting that the casualty figures received from opposition groups have ranged from 25 to 300, he said U.S. officials “feel more comfortable” with the lower number.

The analyst said it would not be surprising for anti-government violence to erupt in Saddam City.

It “is like a rat’s warren, and it’s populated by [Shiites] from the south who’ve been displaced and forced to move to Baghdad,” the analyst said. “They’ve been deprived of food and other things by Saddam, to punish them but also to have a place he holds out when he wants to show the world how Iraqis are suffering.”

Shiites make up about 65% of Iraq’s 22 million people but complain of discrimination. Hussein is a Sunni Muslim, and most power in the country belongs to members of his Tikriti clan. Ever since assuming power two decades ago, Hussein has sought to cow the Shiite religious establishment, and Shiite loyalty to his rule has always been questionable.

Before Sadr’s death, two other internationally known Shiite religious scholars, Ayatollah Mirza Ali Gharavi and Ayatollah Murtadha Ali Mohammed Ibrahim Burujerdi, had been slain. Gharavi, 68, died June 18 last year, assassinated in his car on the road between the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. Burujerdi, 67, was slain April 21 while walking home after having led prayers at a shrine in Najaf.

State Department spokesman James Foley said the United States condemns the killing of Sadr and “other attacks by Baghdad against the Shiite community.”

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.