Opponents of Occupation are also Opponents of al-Zarqawi... posted by Richard Seymour

I have insisted that there is a distinction to be had between Islamist forces like those of Muqtada al-Sadr and the sectarian cells of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That has been questioned by some contributors to the discussion in the comments boxes. Happily, the Washington Post has cleared it up for us:

Key Iraqi opponents of the U.S. occupation expressed
unease Friday over the wave of insurgent attacks that killed more than
100 Iraqis a day earlier, and rejected efforts by foreign guerrillas to
take the lead in the insurgency and mate it with the international jihad
advocated by Osama bin Laden.

The objections -- from anti-U.S. Shiite and Sunni Muslim leaders,
including rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr, and even from militia fighters
in the embattled city of Fallujah -- arose in part from revulsion at the
fact that victims of the car bombings and guerrilla assaults in six
cities and towns Thursday were overwhelmingly Iraqis. But they also
betrayed Iraqi nationalist concerns that the fight against U.S.
occupation forces risked being hijacked by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a
Jordanian whom U.S. officials describe as a paladin in bin Laden's al
Qaeda network.

"We do not need anyone from outside the borders to stand with us and
spill the blood of our sons in Iraq," Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae, a
Sunni cleric with a wide following, declared in his Friday sermon at Umm
al Qurra mosque in Baghdad.

...

Sadr, whose Mahdi Army has fought U.S. troops in the Sadr City slum in
eastern Baghdad and in Najaf, 90 miles to the south, ordered his
followers to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi police in
Sadr City to "deprive the terrorists and saboteurs of the chance to
incite chaos and extreme lawlessness."

"We know the Mahdi Army is ready to cooperate actively and positively
with honest elements from among the Iraqi police and other patriotic
forces, to partake in safeguarding government buildings and facilities,
such as hospitals, electricity plants, water, fuel and oil refineries,
and any other site that might be a target for terrorist attacks," said
an order from the Mahdi Army distributed in Sadr City.

...

"This gesture is designed to distinguish between honorable, legal
resistance against the occupation and the dishonorable resistance, which
does not target the occupation, but targets the Iraqi people," he said.

Aws Khafaji, a cleric in Sadr's militantly political stream of Shiite
Islam, disowned Thursday's violence even more clearly in a sermon at the
Hikma mosque in Sadr City.

"We condemn and denounce yesterday's bombings and attacks on police
centers and innocent Iraqis, which claimed about 100 lives," he said.
"These are attacks launched by suspects and lunatics who are bent on
destabilizing the country and ruining the peace so that the Iraqi people
will remain in need of American protection." (Edward Cody, Washington Post Foreign Service, Saturday, June 26, 2004).

Case closed.

In other news, James at Dead Men Left has a nice ear-bashing for the rancorous sectarians over at the Alliance of Workers' Liberty, notable for their refusal to support the resistance to the occupation of Iraq.