Article

2006-10-21 Iraq

Al-Maliki sends delegation to Amarah to resolve tension

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Posted by Fred 2006-10-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I rarely agree with the leftist, sewer-rat, Juan Cole, but I think he has correctly assessed the situation in Amarah. If true, he points to a grave miscalculation by Iranian intelligence:

"...Amara is the capital of Maysan province (pop. 770,000). Maysan province in general and Amara in particular support the nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Maysan and its capital are among the places to which the Marsh Arabs were displaced when their swamps dried up, and they are often desperately poor and very tribal, and they seem to have joined the Sadr Movement en masse during the past 3 years.

When the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim controlled the Interior Ministry in 2005 and until May, 2006, it used the ministry's national oversight of local police forces to infiltrate members of SCIRI's paramilitary, the Badr Corps, into the Amara police force. There is a bubbling low-level feud between the Sadrists in Maysan and the SCIRI police.

So recently the Mahdi Army assassinated Qasim al-Tamimi, a police official who was also a member of the Badr Corps. The Badr Corps was formed in Iran and trained by the Revolutionary Guards, and is viewed by many in the Iraqi-nationalist Mahdi Army as the tool of a foreign power.

Then the police arrested or abducted (when militia are in police, how could you tell?) 5 men, including the brother of a Mahdi Army leader in Amara.

Then protests escalated into fighting, and the Mahdi Army took over several police stations and killed or wounded dozens of police/ Badr Corps militiamen.

The Western press is mostly reporting this story backwards, as a pro-Iranian Sadr Movement taking over Amara. In fact, the Sadr Movement already dominated Amara politically, but the (Iranian-trained) Badr Corps had this unnatural niche in the police. It was Badr that had "taken over" the security forces in a largely Sadrist city. The Mahdi Army was attempting to align local politics with local power.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the young spiritual leader of the Sadr Movement and the Mahdi Army, demanded that his men stop fighting and said that he washed his hands of anyone who disobeyed his orders, according to Aljazeera.

Ahmad al-Sharifi, a Sadrist leader, told al-Zaman that the fighting in Amara is one of the consequences of the law on provincial confederacies passed last week by the Iraqi parliament, to which the Sadr Movement was opposed.

Al-Zaman's contacts in the Iraqi intelligence establishment warned that the clashes in Amara could spread to the cities of Basra and Nasiriyah. He said that the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps in those two cities had announced their mutual dislike of one another, and that they had begun recruiting further militiamen to replenish their ranks..."
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Pro-GWOT pundits need to assess the Arab media much better. Enemies will profit on less than insightful reporting. And we who are not fluent in Arabic, have no choice but to rely on Orientalists.

Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-10-21 04:24|| 2006-10-21 04:24|| Front Page Top

#2 The Badr Corps was formed in Iran and trained by the Revolutionary Guards, and is viewed by many in the Iraqi-nationalist Mahdi Army as the tool of a foreign power.

I've had it completely backwards.

Posted by Shipman 2006-10-21 08:50|| 2006-10-21 08:50|| Front Page Top

#3 I hope this is a double feature. Who's going to make the popcorn?

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2006-10-21 09:10|| 2006-10-21 09:10|| Front Page Top

#4 if Juan Cole is for a certain outcome, you can trust that he's slanting the facts to have an anti-western/anti-American otcome. Saltlick, please

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-10-21 09:41|| 2006-10-21 09:41|| Front Page Top

#5 Cole knows much less than he claims to know, but one area on which he is genuinely knowledgeable is Shia intramural politics in Iraq. This does not mean that you can trust his slant; however he probably has the facts right.

Posted by mhw 2006-10-21 23:18|| 2006-10-21 23:18|| Front Page Top

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