Shrine's destruction carved path of violence
Twin blasts fueled sectarian conflict
SAMARRA, Iraq -- The town was quiet, its residents asleep. A minute after midnight, the on-duty officer at a small US base here started his log. At 6:43 a.m., Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Gallas noted the sound of two explosions. Four minutes later: "Nighthawk elements report Main Dome on the Golden Mosque has been blown up."
Gallas did not know it, but the attack he recorded would reverberate throughout Iraq and the rest of the world.
The twin explosions last February claimed no lives. But the destruction of the Shi'ite Muslim al-Askari shrine in a Sunni city led to the death of thousands as Iraqis engaged in a frenzy of vengeance, torching mosques and publicly executing civilians.
This was the dawn of Iraq's sectarian conflict.
For almost three years, Shi'ites endured bombings and assassinations by Sunni insurgents. They buried thousands with only limited retaliation. Their preeminent cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, preached restraint.
But Feb. 22, 2006, was the day Shi'ites stopped listening.
The desecration of one of their holiest sites in Iraq was unfathomable. Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, a Shi'ite, compared its emotional resonance to the effect the Sept. 11 attacks had on Americans.
Top US officials described the bombing as a "crime against humanity."
The government imposed a nationwide curfew. Iraqi and US troops were sent into the streets to protect Sunnis from retaliation.
But the rage would not be contained.
At daybreak after the attack, an Iraqi interpreter for the Americans was one of the first people to reach the shrine.
Fuad, nicknamed "Tiger," has a Shi'ite mother and a Sunni father. He is agnostic. But that morning, seeing the Golden Mosque reduced to gray rubble, Fuad cried.
Next to him, Sunni police from Samarra and Shi'ite forces from Baghdad were weeping. Although Samarra is a mostly Sunni city, the shrine is a source of pride for both groups. The explosions brought sleepy Iraqis into Samarra's narrow streets. Looking toward the Golden Mosque, they saw its luminous shell shattered.
A call went out from mosque loudspeakers: Jews have done this, Americans are responsible.
By 8:10 a.m., a large group gathered at the market near the mosque. Protesters threw rocks at Iraqi commandos, and there was sporadic gunfire. Some men simply held up a Koran, repeatedly chanting, "Allahu akbar" -- "God is great."
The mob pushed toward the US base. Troops prepared to defend the compound. The standoff didn't last long. The crowd dissipated.
This was no longer about the Americans.
In Sadr City, a poor neighborhood in east Baghdad, Shi'ite militiamen picked up AK-47s and grenade launchers and marched north toward the Sunni heartland. Elsewhere, killers were on the prowl.
Khalil Duleimi, a Sunni cleric, was among the first to be slain. He died at his mosque in east Baghdad, killed in a drive-by shooting.
In the Shi'ite-dominated southern city of Basra, a mob pulled a dozen Sunnis from prison and executed them.
Dozens of others were slain that first day, hundreds in the days to follow.
The schism between Shi'ites and Sunnis dates to the seventh century and a dispute over the Prophet Mohammed's rightful heir.
Two-hundred years later, a Sunni caliph, Abu Ishaq al-Mutasim ibn Harun, worried about a possible Shi'ite insurrection, brought two direct Shi'ite descendants of the prophet, Ali al-Hadi and his son, Hassan al-Askari, to Samarra. They died under house arrest, believed to have been poisoned by Mutasim. The al-Askari shrine contains their tombs.
During the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, laborers built the golden dome above the al-Askari shrine, completing it in 1905. For the next 100 years, the setting sun's rays were reflected by the gilded canopy.
The city's inhabitants looked upon the shrine as a member of the family; they saluted it as they walked by. Children called, "Salam alikum" -- "Peace be with you" -- to its golden top.
Bringing down the golden dome required cruelty, a well-laid plan and lots of explosives: A wall 3 feet thick and 9 feet high surrounded the shrine. 