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Al-Sadr threat comes to a head
Moqtada al-Sadr has been a menace to the U.S.-led coalition here since the day after Saddam Hussein's regime fell. Al-Sadr and his followers were immediately cast as suspects in the slaying April 10 of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a Shiite Muslim clergyman whose moderate brand of politics had engendered U.S. support. On Sunday, al-Sadr, a chunky, 30-year-old aspiring Shiite political force, established himself as something more: a violent adversary. The violence he has inspired is posing a threat to Iraq's stability as a June 30 deadline for handing authority to Iraqis approaches. Al-Sadr reportedly turned down an appeal Monday from other Shiite leaders to end the violence. He was barricaded in a mosque in Kufah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad. Gun-toting militiamen were stationed outside the mosque.

Al-Sadr has taken an unusual path to prominence in post-Saddam Iraq. He is a low-level cleric but does not have the religious qualifications that are a prerequisite in Shiite law to assume political leadership. A radical known for his big mouth fiery rhetoric, he inherited his popularity mainly from his father, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, who was assassinated in 1999 along with two other sons, probably on Saddam's orders. Shiite clergy and political leaders say al-Sadr has pursued a strategy of opposition — both to the traditional Shiite political and clerical structure and to the coalition — to raise his profile and find support largely among the poor in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City. The slum, formerly known as Saddam City, was renamed for al-Sadr's father after Saddam was toppled. "The people following Muqtada are limited in number," says Sheik Abas Reza, caretaker of Sayed Idris mosque, one of Baghdad's holiest Shiite places of worship. "He is not part of the (official) clergy and not a political authority. People give him respect because of his father." But Reza and others say that the coalition was slow to respond to Iraqi needs in the immediate aftermath of the war. That has allowed al-Sadr to find a needy constituency among the young and disaffected in Iraq, they say. "America's slow performance has provoked problems and put them in this trouble," Reza says. "It makes the job of Muqtada and others easy."

Al-Sadr doesn't have the standing of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has counseled patience while pushing for more political representation for Shiites in Iraq's future government. Sistani has remained a largely oracle-like figure who has stayed above the fray even while challenging the coalition on some points. Al-Sadr "has put his followers in a questionable situation," Reza says. "The (Shiite) clergy will have nothing to do with him directly." A widespread uprising would be difficult to suppress, particularly while coalition forces are battling an insurgency in the "Sunni Triangle" west of Baghdad. However, coalition officials say the Shiite violence is the work of an illegal militia group and does not represent widespread Shiite dissatisfaction.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-04-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=29804