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Once again the New York Times reports on the Association of Muslim Scholars without noting certain crucial facts about that group.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 18 - In a troubling sign of rising tensions between Iraq's two main religious groups, a leading Sunni cleric on Wednesday publicly accused a Shiite militia of killing Sunni clerics.What's missing from the story could best be demonstrated by the coverage the Times of London gave a claim from the group a few months back.The cleric, Sheik Harith al-Dari, used blunt language to charge that members of the militia group, known as the Badr Brigade, had killed clerics, including one whose body was found Sunday in Shaab, a Shiite area of northern Baghdad.
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According to the Association of Muslim Scholars, the group Sheik Dari leads, one member, whom it identified as Sheik Hassan al-Neimi, was among the dead found in Shaab. The government, for its part, has denied that the military was involved, and says the killings have been carried out by small groups of insurgents pitting Sunnis against Shiites.
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.Here's Omar at Iraq the Model, from October 2004:
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.See also previous Mudville coverage of the group here. This organization was behind the effort to suppress Sunni voting in the recent elections, and also took credit for securing the release of Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena. That they are also now encouraging their followers to "join" the Iraqi police and armed forces may not be as welcome a development as the New York Times indicated in a recent report here.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.
The current NY Times story also notes an interesting coincidence (that might even be too convenient):
The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who leads a group called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, also weighed in on Wednesday in an audiotape posted on an Islamic Internet site. A voice said to be Mr. Zarqawi's denounced Iraq's Shiites as collaborators and traitors, The Associated Press reported.The two statements almost seem coordinated - an idea not entirely far-fetched given reports of a meeting of anti-Iraqi terrorist groups in Syria this week.
The NY Times seems to routinely quote the Association of Muslim Scholars as an authoritative and reliable source of information from Iraq. Perhaps they are, but wouldn't a simple inclusion of the line "a Sunni group suspected of links to rebels" meet the standards of journalistic integrity the paper maintains?
