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Now a politician, Sadr retains militia, anti-US outlook
 Barely 18 months ago Muqtada al-Sadr was a man on the run, wanted for murder and holed up with a band of fighters in a mosque besieged by U.S. troops.Fast forward to February 2006 and the young Shiite cleric is a kingmaker with so much clout that he engineered a stunning political coup, helping Ibrahim al-Jaafari win approval for a second term as prime minister with significant consequences for Iraq and the United States. Al-Sadr pulled it off while visiting Syria for talks with its hardline leadership, long accused of allowing insurgent leaders to remain on its soil and turning a blind eye to foreign jihadists using its territory to slip into Iraq to fight U.S. forces. The single-vote victory by al-Jaafari over his heavily favored rival has showcased al-Sadr's ascent in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq a matter of concern to others in the Shiite establishment as well as the United States. Officials of the Shiite alliance say the Sadrists' intervention in favor of al-Jaafari may have endangered Shiite unity, jeopardized the alliance's close links to the Kurds and could prompt some of the alliance's partners to join other blocs. They hinted that intimidation, or even veiled threats of violence, may have been used by the Sadrists to help independent lawmakers make up their minds. The Sadrists moved in forcefully in the 24 hours that preceded the vote, said Ridha Jawad Taqi of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the country's largest Shiite party. SCIRI's candidate, Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, lost to al-Jaafari. Al-Sadr supporters, who are expected to be given five Cabinet posts in al-Jaafari's next government, deny any impropriety. They say they backed al-Jaafari because they share with him a vision for an Iraq free of foreign occupation. They, however, were at pains to conceal their satisfaction that al-Jaafari's win dealt a blow to the Supreme Council, their rival within the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of religious parties that has won the largest number of seats 130 in the 275-member parliament. We have no problem with the Supreme Council. It was a purely democratic contest decided by the ballot box, said Falah Hassan Shalshal, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr. A close Sadrist alliance with Iraq's next prime minister would not be good news for Washington. The United States is targeting Islam, the Muslim and Arab states in the Middle East and beyond, al-Sadr told Syrian television in a Feb. 13 interview. It wants to control the world. Al-Sadr, between meetings with Jordan's leaders, stepped up calls Saturday for the United States and other foreign troops to leave Iraq. The aim of my visit to the region is to improve relations with neighboring countries, which is a very important issue, and to free this area from the Western, American war, whether it be in Iraq, Iran, Syria or the rest of the region, al-Sadr said. Before coming to Jordan, al-Sadr visited Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Syria. His aides say he plans visits to Lebanon and Egypt. While in Syria, the 33-year-old al-Sadr met with radical Palestinian factions, expressed hope that the sweeping victory by the militant Hamas group is the beginning of an Islamic awakening. He rejected calling Iraq's mostly Sunni insurgents terrorists and said al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a fictitious personality or one created by the (U.S.) occupation. Al-Sadr and his followers burst on the Iraqi scene almost three years ago, filling the power vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam's regime. The movement quickly raised its profile, organizing anti-U.S. protests and later taking on the Americans in battles across central and southern Iraq. The protracted battle of Najaf, a holy Shiite city south of Baghdad, in the summer of 2004 saw his militiamen soundly defeated by a joint U.S.-Iraqi force. Taking the fight to his stronghold in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Sadr City district brought him another defeat. By the end of 2004, al-Sadr's days as an anti-U.S. warrior cleric were over, but he and his followers are still some distance from being a peaceful and democratic force. The Sadrists have kept a highly mobile militia numbering in the thousands. They follow a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law and, according to residents in areas where they are dominant, often resort to violence to enforce it. They are suspected of running death squads, primarily targeting Saddam loyalists and militant Sunni Arabs known for anti-Shiite sentiments. They are closely linked to Iran, maintain contacts with some factions of the Sunni-dominated insurgency and, like other Shiite groups, have allowed hundreds of militiamen to infiltrate the security forces. In the southern city of Basra, for example, residents say al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen bomb stores suspected of selling liquor or permissive entertainment material. They intercept, and in some cases beat up, men and women whose appearance they deem immodest. Last year, Mahdi militiamen burned three offices belonging to the Supreme Council after al-Sadr's Najaf office was torn down to allow for the expansion of a plaza outside the mosque of Imam Ali, Shiism's founding father. In the southern city of Kut, residents say the Mahdi militiamen have stopped parading on the streets as they used to in 2004, but were suspected of bombing liquor stores and barber shops. Muzafar al-Moussawi, al-Sadr's representative in Kut, denies the Mahdi Army was involved in the bombings, but acknowledges that its fighters assist security forces when asked. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-19 |
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