The April Uprising in Iraq (2004)

_{British soldiers fail to win hearts and minds in Basra, Iraq, March 2004}

By M.Gouldhawke, excerpts from ‘Iraqi Intifada’, Face to Face With the Enemy: Vancouver Anarchist Publication, June 2004

Throughout April, a widespread Iraqi uprising left 139 US soldiers dead and over 900 wounded, making it the most deadly month yet for the Americans since they invaded Iraq in March of last year. Doctors say that many of the injured US troops have suffered brain damage and 40 to 50 percent have no chance of regaining consciousness.

Using guerrilla warfare tactics — ambushing, attacking and then disappearing — the Iraqi people are putting the world’s most powerful and technologically advanced army in serious difficulty.

In March, British soldiers and Iraqi police in Basra and Najaf were targeted by rioting unemployed Iraqis and squatters who threw stones and gasoline firebombs.

Major acts of sabotage have been carried out against oil pipelines and an American-built telecommunications tower, and these kinds of attacks are ongoing.

The intifada is not limited to Iraqis loyal to the various religious leaders, but also includes independent villagers, workers and unemployed people […].

The history of Iraq is marked by many rebellions against capitalism and colonization, against Turkish [Ottoman] and British rule, but also their puppet regimes and the domestic Iraqi ruling class.

The ‘Revolution of 1920‘, for example, left 450 British troops dead and 1,500 injured, as military posts were overrun and large sectors of Iraq were liberated from British occupation.

Britain then installed a monarchy and negotiated a treaty with its puppet government in 1948, but the Iraqi people revolted against this fraudulent process. Four students were killed by police during anti-treaty demonstrations, prompting an uprising that became known as ‘al-Wathbah‘ (the Leap). Riots spread across the country, as popular rage was expressed against not only the treaty, but also bread shortages and rising prices. Police and soldiers opened fire on crowds of people, killing 400, but the Iraqi cabinet resigned in disgrace and the treaty was rejected. The British military withdrew from Iraq and martial law was declared, banning all demonstrations.

A student strike in 1952 spiraled into rioting in most Iraqi cities — a revolt which was called ‘al-Intifada‘.

In 1958, the ‘July 14th Revolution‘ brought down the Iraqi government. […] But a new government came to power and crushed the uprising, imposing a curfew.

[…] And in 1991, [in the wake of the first American invasion] a social insurrection raged throughout Iraq and Kurdistan, giving life to the ‘Shoras’ [shura, councils] […]

American Occupation and Iraqi Resistance (2003)

By M.Gouldhawke, from ‘Autonomous Action’, Number 2, May 2003, Vancouver

Seven US soldiers in the city of Fallujah were injured in a grenade attack at 1:00am in the morning on May 1. Two grenades were thrown into a former police station that is being used as a US military compound.

US troops had opened fire on Iraqi demonstrators the day before, on April 30, killing two and wounding 14. More than 1,000 people in the city of Fallujah had marched against the American occupation of their country and thrown stones and shoes at American troops.

Two days earlier, on the night of April 28, US troops shot and killed 13 Iraqi protesters.

On April 26, an explosion at an arms dump in a Baghdad neighborhood killed 12 Iraqis and angry locals pelted US forces with stones, forcing them to retreat.

On April 23, protesters in the city of Kut barricaded the Tigris bridge to block the passage of US Marines and threw rocks, smashing the windows of at least three Marines vehicles.

Marines fired on demonstrators in the northern city of Mosul on April 15 and 16, killing 10 people.

US troops have complained to the corporate media that almost every American patrol in every city has been attacked by hundreds of stone-throwing children.

“They definitely impede the job we’re trying to do because you have to put half your guys on keeping the children away,” said Sgt. John McLean, who was hit on the helmet, the back and on the heel.