Soccer players raise hopes of unity in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Despite the possibility of being kidnapped and killed, the dangers of flying into the capital or even driving here, most of Iraq’s national soccer team returned Friday to celebrate with fans after winning the country’s first Asian Cup championship.
Details of the visit were kept secret, but about 1,000 people flocked to the airport, chancing a drive up one of Baghdad’s most dangerous roads for a glimpse of their heroes. They were rewarded when 16 of the 23 players arrived from Amman, Jordan, young men in tracksuits weeping at the sight of so many Iraqis united by their 1-0 victory Sunday over Saudi Arabia.
“There is no happier moment,” goalkeeper Noor Sabri told Al Iraqiya state television.
Teammate Ali Rahima added, “We hope that this unity will not be only for football. We hope everybody will unite to bring happiness to the Iraqi people.”
After darkness fell, the players were whisked by bus into the fortified Green Zone in the heart of the city to attend a dinner with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other dignitaries. They passed more fans, waiting with a live band.
Maliki greeted the players, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, one by one, draping garlands of white and green flowers around their necks, kissing them on both cheeks. Nearby, President Jalal Talabani waited to add his thanks.
“You have returned the smile to the Iraqi people,” Maliki told the players. “You have established the path.”
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, was also on hand to greet the players.
“This team has set an example of teamwork for all of Iraq,” he said. “They proved that Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites could in fact work together.”
Absent from the event were team captain Younis Mahmoud and several other marquee players who have been recruited by wealthy soccer clubs in the United Arab Emirates. Mahmoud, a Kurd, had said he was afraid he would be killed if he returned to Iraq.
Iraq’s minister of youth and sport, Jassim Mohammed Jafar, said Mahmoud and the other players could not come because they had to sign contracts in Dubai today.
The team has not played at home for years, especially after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as athletes became targets for kidnappers and killers. Even their games abroad sparked violence. Celebratory gunfire after the Asian Cup playoff games killed at least 10 in Baghdad, and a car bomb in the Karada neighborhood after the semi-final victory against South Korea killed at least 50 people.
The parents of a young man killed in the Karada bombing attended Friday’s gala. The crowd parted as his mother, in a black abaya, walked up to meet the prime minister and receive a floral wreath, an Iraqi flag and the promise of a new home to replace the one destroyed by the bombing. Her husband thanked the players, saying they “made my son rejoice in his grave.”
“Long live Iraq,” he said.
Many of the players plan to stay in Iraq through Sunday, Jafar said, and will attend a celebration today in the Green Zone and visit family before returning to Amman.
The visit comes as Maliki and Talabani are struggling to hold the coalition government together. The main Sunni Arab bloc withdrew Wednesday from Maliki’s Cabinet after submitting a list of demands that include disarming militias, releasing prisoners not charged with specific crimes and sharing security decisions between political blocs.
In Baghdad, Sunni cleric Sheik Abdul Kareem Samarrai called the bloc’s departure a “denunciation of the government’s attitude toward the bloc and the hotspots that need to be addressed by the government.”
“Let’s see what this government can do for the Iraqis,” Samarrai said at Friday prayers, noting that shortly after Maliki’s spokesman condemned the Sunni ministers for withdrawing, eight mortar shells struck the west Baghdad offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the Sunni bloc.
Shiite clerics said the bloc’s exit threatened to ruin the joy of the soccer team’s victory.
“They withdrew when all Iraqis were celebrating the soccer win and when all Iraqis forgot about their misery,” said Sheik Saleh Hayden, a Shiite.
Meanwhile, Maliki is scheduled to visit Turkey and Iran on Monday and Tuesday, spokesman Ali Dabbagh announced Friday.
He said Maliki planned to address Turkey’s concerns about the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, an insurgent group battling Turkish troops that is said to have bases in northern Iraq.
In Tehran, Dabbagh said, the main topic will be security. A security committee was created during the second round of talks last month between officials from Iraq, Iran and the United States.
Several clerics addressed the role of Iraq’s neighboring countries in their Friday sermons, including Sadruddin Qubanchi, preaching in the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.
“If they want to support Iraq, they could support us with the services that we are lacking instead of sending car bombs and suicide bombers,” he said, noting that some neighborhoods had been without electricity for three days.
The U.S. military reported Friday that three soldiers died in a roadside bombing the day before in east Baghdad, bringing the number of U.S. forces killed in Iraq since 2003 to 3,665, according to icasualties.org.
Police in Baghdad reported recovering 17 bodies Friday.
It was also announced that an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, had been killed Thursday by unknown gunmen in Najaf. Two weeks earlier, one of Sistani’s aides was fatally stabbed near the cleric’s office, and in early June one of his representatives was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Iraqi soldiers and police working with U.S. forces in the northern city of Kirkuk detained five suspects in multiple car bombings July 16 in a crowded market that killed at least 76 people. All five had confessed to being involved in the bombings, Kirkuk police Lt. Mustafa Mohammed said.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Zeena Kareem, Saif Rasheed, Said Rifai and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Najaf contributed to this report.
