US tries to curb a powerful Iraqi and his militia
WASHINGTON -- Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shi'ite Muslim preacher who has steadfastly fought against American forces in Iraq, has emerged as one of the most powerful leaders in the country, holding the key to ending the tit-for-tat sectarian violence that threatens to drag Iraq into civil war, US officials say.
Sadr's unofficial militia, known as the Mahdi Army, has steadily swelled from a few hundred men in 2003 at the time of the US invasion to more than 10,000 fighters. State Department and Defense Department officials say Sadr's fighters have kidnapped and killed Sunni civilians in retaliation for attacks on Shi'ites, playing a growing role in the sectarian violence that has engulfed Baghdad since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine.
Yesterday, a joint US-Iraqi military raid targeting a kidnapping-and-torture operation in Sadr's stronghold in eastern Baghdad erupted into a two-hour, helicopter-supported battle with Sadr's increasingly formidable militia. The raid demonstrated the Americans' determination to challenge Sadr's militia before it grows stronger, even as they seek to avoid a full-fledged military confrontation.
Attacking Sadr carries significant risks for the United States as well as the Iraqi government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite who relies on Sadr for political support, said yesterday he was ``very angered" by the raid, and warned that such operations could ruin his efforts to bring about national reconciliation.
Maliki's comments show just how significant Sadr's populist political movement has become. Sadr, who was shut out of the previous two US-appointed governments in Iraq, won 29 seats in the Legislature in elections last December and joined the governing Shi'ite coalition. And in the model of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, Sadr then sought to control social services that affect the daily lives of Iraqis. While other political parties fought to control the ministries of oil or defense, Sadr successfully campaigned for the ministries of transportation, health, and electricity.
His supporters have set up Sharia courts in neighborhoods they control to enforce Islamic law and have banned the sale of alcohol and make-up in Sadr City, a teeming slum of 2 million in eastern Baghdad named after his father, a renowned Shi'ite cleric assassinated during the era of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Sadr inherited his father's mantle and has become the increasingly popular voice of an increasingly angry Shi'ite underclass. As Baghdad's Shi'ite majority lives in fear of random, deadly bombings by Sunni insurgents, Sadr is now seen as an important source of protection. He is far more influential than he was in 2004, when his outnumbered fighters waged an unpopular bloody campaign against American troops in Najaf and elsewhere.
``It does not bode well for the Iraqi people that Sadr is the most powerful Shi'ite leader in the country, apart from [moderate cleric Ayatollah Ali] Sistani," said a Kurdish politician who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. ``What people thought Iraq was -- this predominantly secular-leaning country -- is now developing into a very Islamic country. It is becoming now fashionable to be part of the Mahdi Army."
``Sadr today is probably the most powerful person in Iraq," said Nimrod Raphaeli , a senior analyst at the Middle East Media Research Institute, in Washington. ``He is able to mobilize tens of thousands of people to demonstrate. . . . His control over his people is almost total."
US officials acknowledge that Sadr has taken on a new importance since widespread sectarian violence engulfed the country. The officials say they hope a combination of quiet political pressure from other Shi'ite politicians and selective military strikes on Madhi Army death squads, like the one targeted yesterday, will persuade Sadr's men to cease their attacks on Sunnis.
A senior State Department official in Washington said in a recent interview that it was important to stage such strikes.
If Sadr's forces stand down, he said, then their chief competitor, a rival Shi'ite militia known as the Badr Organization, would also stand down. Sunnis would in turn reduce assaults against Shi'ites, potentially breaking the cycle of violence.
But any military operation against Sadr's forces risks provoking an open confrontation with his entire movement, threatening to doom the new Iraqi government's chances for bringing calm to the country.
``It's true that we are targeting death squads, but we are not going after the Madhi Army in particular," said a US official based in Baghdad, speaking in a telephone interview on condition of anonymity. ``If we were, it would be much more violent here. It would be a very big fight."
US officials are clearly anxious to avoid an open confrontation.
During a Senate hearing on Thursday, Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, twice asked General John Abizaid , the top US commander in the Middle East, if the US government was going to address the issue of Sadr's militia. Twice Abizaid answered, ``The issue will be addressed by the Iraqi government."
Abizaid said that elements of Sadr's militia are ``trying to ensure that the Iraqi government, as voted, fails, and that they become ascendant." He estimated the number of hard-core fighters to be in the ``low thousands."
But the US official based in Baghdad said Sadr has between 10,000 and 30,000 fighters, far more than the roughly 3,000-strong Mahdi Army force that battled the United States in the city of Najaf in August 2004.
A news release from the US-led military in Iraq yesterday conspicuously avoided mention of Sadr. It said only that the raid was ``targeting individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities."
Sadr's aides told reporters in Baghdad that the raid targeted their fighters, alleging that it was punishment for Sadr's recent rally in support of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that drew an estimated 15,000 protesters.
At the rally, Sadr threatened to send fighters to support Hezbollah.
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a military spokesman, said Iraqi Special Forces led the raid against the ``torture cell" and called for aircraft support when they faced heavy resistance. Three unnamed suspects were arrested on the scene, according to an Iraqi military spokesman.
Sadr has been a thorn in the side of the US-led coalition since the 2003 invasion. He repeatedly preached against US coalition forces and challenged the Shi'ite establishment, led by Sistani.
Sadr forcibly took control of the two holiest Shi'ite shrines at Najaf and Karbala and was widely accused of orchestrating the 2003 murder of Hojjat ul-Islam Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a renowned Shi'ite cleric and former teacher of Sistani, according to Raphaeli, the Middle East analyst.
For 2 1/2 years, the Shi'ite majority heeded Sistani's call to refrain from seeking revenge for the continuous bombings of Shi'ite targets by Sunni insurgents. But after February's bombing of the Golden Mosque, a major Shi'ite shrine, Shi'ite militias unleashed a violent response, setting off a cycle of sectarian killings.
Now some Shi'ites see Sadr's militia as their sole protection, and Sistani's words of restraint resonate less with an angry population.
``Sistani is on the brink of becoming irrelevant," said the Kurdish politician. ``The Iraqi government could become irrelevant. The militias could step in and become the few relevant forces in the country."
Meanwhile, Sadr has become an ambitious powerbroker.
``He has mass support," said Joost Hiltermann, Jordan-based Middle East project director of the International Crisis Group, a global think tank on conflict resolution, which recently released a report urging the new government to integrate Sadr's militia into the official security forces. ``The fact is that we have a new set of actors in Iraq, some of whom are completely unpalatable. . . . To alienate [Sadr's] people -- who constitute the urban underclass in Iraq -- is to invite revolution." 