Seeking peace, Najaf residents back US
NAJAF, Iraq -- The best measure of America's success in this holy shrine city didn't come on the battlefield but in the bazaar, where popular sentiment tilts toward the United States despite two months of bruising clashes between the American soldiers and Mahdi Army militiamen.
Black-uniformed militants loyal to the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr still brandished their weapons and testified to their thirst for martyrdom even after a peace pact was announced with US forces Thursday. But many of the religious students and merchants who make Najaf's famous Shi'ite academy and pilgrimage economy tick said they resented the Sadr followers who militarized the city and drew US soldiers into combat that left scores dead.
The two-month showdown between legions of Mahdi fighters and 2,500 American soldiers might ultimately prove a strategic victory for the United States, despite the still-fraught balance of power in the city.
Najaf residents described the Shi'ite militants who fought American soldiers as outside rabble. As a result, regardless of the threat still posed by the Mahdi Army and some fallout from damage caused to the shrine of Imam Ali in recent clashes, Najaf's Shi'ite heartland population seems to have responded positively to the US approach.
''When the Americans first came here they played football with us, and dominoes," said Ali Nasser, 25, a gold merchant in Najaf's once-busy bazaar. ''Two months ago it was still a very peaceful town . . . Then all the supporters of Sadr came here from other cities."
With the tentative agreement, US forces appear to have avoided the kind of all-out battle that ultimately limited their options in Fallujah, the other flash point of the twin uprisings that began in April. If the truce between Sadr and the United States sticks, despite sporadic clashes Friday and yesterday in nearby Kufa, the American cordon-and-contain tactic in the two cities might have produced some crucial long-term results.
Comparatively moderate clerics like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and his allies could emerge with a stronger hand in Najaf, with Sadr's followers discredited.
The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party -- both religious Shi'ite political movements competing with Sadr for influence -- also positioned themselves as groups that worked within the political process to negotiate a settlement. They shored up popular support in a spate of clashes with Sadr fighters in Najaf.
Nasser, the gold merchant, blames imported Sadr acolytes for the last two months of tension and violence. Now, he hopes, the city will revert to its status quo, complete with friendly exchanges with American soldiers.
The United States sought to marginalize Sadr. American soldiers tried to draw Mahdi fighters away from the gold-domed shrine, one of the holiest spots in the world for Shi'ites, and engage them on the far side of the Euphrates River.
Throughout the course of the past two months, since Sadr first rallied young supporters from across Iraq to make a stand against America with him at Najaf, many Iraqi political leaders and citizens predicted doom, as widespread conflict in the city appeared at times inevitable.
Najaf suffered more violence and privation during the standoff than during the US-led invasion. But the damage was far more limited than in nearby Karbala, the other Shi'ite holy city, where Mahdi fighters and US soldiers battled next to several shrines, destroying much of that city's commercial district.
Still, Sadr's lingering influence and military power can't be overlooked. And if at any point the United States is perceived to have crossed the line, attacking Shi'ism rather than the Mahdi Army, few in Najaf are likely to oppose a mass uprising.
Hundreds of fighters abandoned their positions as the cease-fire was finalized Thursday. But thousands more paraded through the streets and vowed to stay and fight in Najaf unless Sadr himself ordered them to leave.
''We are here for martyrdom," declared Mohammed Jassem, 27, a tae kwon do instructor from Sadr City in Baghdad. He traveled to Najaf the day the truce was signed to offer his services to the Mahdi Army, bringing only a plastic bag with a change of clothes.
''It is our duty to reject the occupier wherever we find him in Iraq," Jassem said.
Sadr has declared that supporters such as Jassem must leave Najaf; only members of the Mahdi Army from the city can stay, under the truce terms he sent to a group of Shi'ite members of the Iraqi Governing Council.
Much still has to happen this week for the terms of the cease-fire to stick, bringing some credibility to the United States as well as the moderate Shi'ite leaders who worked for nearly two months to forestall a frontal American assault on the city.
In coming days, Iraqi civil police are scheduled to take over Mahdi checkpoints ringing the town and the shrine of Imam Ali. Sadr will have to close down the Sharia religious court he opened and placed in control of the town's law -- even requiring visiting journalists to obtain permission letters from a Sharia judge before working in Najaf.
The gun-toting young men who form the Mahdi militia have imposed a strong presence here, publicly scolding and silencing those locals who have challenged Sadr's right to rule the streets.
On the day the settlement was announced, one 20-year-old fighter from Sadr City, who went by the nom de guerre Sayyed Ahmed, swaggered around a shrine entrance wearing an US military bulletproof vest with two machine-gun clips protruding from the pockets.
''I killed an American and took his vest to wear it," Ahmed boasted as a crowd of men gathered around him. He tied a black scarf around his face and posed for pictures, giving the victory sign.
''I consider myself as one of Moqtada al-Sadr's sons," Ahmed said. ''I am on the martyrdom project."
However, interviews with many merchants and residents in Najaf last week show that the town's fundamentally moderate religious bent has survived under two months of rule by Sadr and his militia. They professed their loyalty to Sistani and the marjaiya, the group of high-level ayatollahs who set religious law for all Iraqi Shi'ites.
''The real solution is for all militias to pull out," said Ali Hadi al-Assadi, 50, proprietor of a downtown Internet caf.
Restaurant owners, shopkeepers, and hotel proprietors, most of all want a return of the flood of pilgrims, who spend generously while paying respects at the shrine of Imam Ali.
None expressed a deep affection for living in a country under occupation, but nearly all who spoke out of earshot of members of the Mahdi Army said that until April they had lived well, and US forces in the area had largely left them alone.
''During the last nine months Najaf was a very peaceful town because the Americans never came into the center," said Haidar Hassan Ahmad, 40. When fighting accelerated, he said, for the first time Najaf felt the kind of privation that most of Iraq suffered during the US-led invasion in March 2003.
''For the last seven days we have no water, electricity, or telephone," he said. ''It's hot, but we can't sleep on the roof for fear of snipers."
Nasser, the gold merchant, said US forces had made many mistakes in their escalating conflict with Sadr, beginning with shutting down his polemical newspaper at the beginning of April and announcing a warrant for his arrest in connection with the murder of a rival cleric.
But, he said, the Mahdi fighters who held sway in much of Shi'ite Iraq represented the most volatile and unruly sliver of Shi'ite society.
''The other leaders, like Sistani, said let us wait until June 30," when the United States is to hand power to a sovereign Iraqi government, Nasser said. ''Why couldn't they wait?"
As he spoke, a 21-year-old woman named Hamida Ibrahim, her face fully covered, entered his store to buy a pair of earrings. ''I work in Sadr's office," she said. Americans killed her cousin two weeks ago, she said.
''I want to be a martyr," she said.
Turning to a visitor after the customer left, Nasser shook his head and clucked in disapproval.
''She is not welcome here," he said. ''Her politics are too extreme."
Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.
