The Association of Muslim Scholars

This bit from the story on the Ramadi mosques raid

The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group suspected of links to rebels, condemned the mosque raids as an example of alleged American hostility toward Islam.

reminded me of a quote from another recent Iraqi/American success story, this one in Samarra:

But if the Americans were pleased with their success, not all Iraqis were. In Baghdad, the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents more than 3,000 Sunni mosques around the country, denounced the military operation and accused American and Iraqi troops of widespread atrocities in Samarra. The clerics, who spoke at a news conference in Baghdad, said the military action would undermine any support in the area for the elections.

"The hospital is full of bodies, children are buried in the gardens, and there are bodies filling the streets," said Muhammad Bashar al-Faidhi, one of the members of the group in Baghdad who said he was basing his accusations on witness accounts. It was impossible to independently verify his claims.

"These policies will increase the anger of the Iraqi people," he said, "and if the government insists on resolving the crisis in this horrible American way, then we expect that the Iraqi people will not cooperate in any forthcoming election or any other political program."

Note the London Times doesn't lavish ink on declaring the credibility of the group, and mentions the suspected link to rebels, a point the NY Times was ignorant of or ignored.

But since this Iraq the Model post came out in between the two, perhaps the Gotham Fishrap can be forgiven:

Last Monday, while I was in Basra watching TV in the afternoon, Al-Fayhaa channel broadcasted a film they said it was sent to the station via e-mail. I have to say that the credibility of the film is questionable but since I found that no one in the media, whether inside or outside Iraq commented on it, I decided to tell you about it and perhaps we could together find some answers.

The film was taped on July 11 this year as written on the screen and it showed six young men, all Iraqi as there looks and accent showed, and they were reading written confessions about attacks they launched against Iraqis and coalition troops.

All those six men (the youngest is 21 years old) mentioned that they were given orders from the ?Association of Muslim Scholars? to perform certain operations against ?Iraqi collaborators?, multinational troops and some moderate She?at clerics. One of the men said that he received (350 000 ID) from a member of the association to assassinate a She?at cleric and when the first attempt failed, he was ordered to try again as he stated.

Go read the whole thing. And watch for more on this group in the coming weeks.

I'm hoping we give them reasons to cry.