Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

الحياة - اشتباكات متقطعة في البصر April 4, 2008

اشتباكات متقطعة في البصرة والجيش الأميركي يقصف مواقع بالطيران … المالكي يهدد الخارجين عن القانون بـ«صولات فرسان» والصدر يدعو الى تظاهرة مليونية في ذكرى سقوط بغداد

اعتبر رئيس الوزراء العراقي نوري المالكي مواجهات البصرة مع «جيش المهدي» التابع لرجل الدين الشيعي مقتدى الصدر «بداية المنازلة ضد الخارجين عن القانون»،

الى ذلك، جدد قياديون في تيار الصدر رفضهم تسليم سلاح «جيش المهدي»، فيما دعا الصدر أنصاره الى الاعتصام اليوم بعد صلاة الجمعة للمطالبة بـ «فك الحصار عن مدن شيعية»، وتنظيم تظاهرة «مليونية» في النجف لمناسبة الذكرى الخامسة لسقوط بغداد في قبضة الاحتلال الأميركي، في 9 نيسان ابريل عام 2003.

في غضون ذلك، استمرت الاشتباكات متقطعة بين القوات الحكومية والميليشيا الشيعية في البصرة، وشن الجيش الأميركي غارات جوية على مواقع في المدينة وفي الحلة قُتل خلالها مسلحون وعدد من المدنيين. وأكدت مصادر الشرطة ان قتالاً نشب خلال دخول جنود اميركيين يرتدون ملابس مدنية منطقة الجمعية وسط الحلة، حيث خاضوا اشتباكات مع مجهولين واستدعوا طائرة هيليكوبتر لمساندتهم.

More Than 1,000 in Iraq’s Forces Quit Basra Fight - New York Times, April 4, 2008

BAGHDAD — More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.

The desertions in the heat of a major battle cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the American-trained Iraqi security forces. The White House has conditioned further withdrawals of American troops on the readiness of the Iraqi military and police.The crisis created by the desertions and other problems with the Basra operation was serious enough that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki hastily began funneling some 10,000 recruits from local Shiite tribes into his armed forces. That move has already generated anger among Sunni tribesmen whom Mr. Maliki has been much less eager to recruit despite their cooperation with the government in its fight against Sunni insurgents and criminal gangs.

A British military official said that Mr. Maliki had brought 6,600 reinforcements to Basra to join the 30,000 security personnel already stationed there, and a senior American military official said that he understood that 1,000 to 1,500 Iraqi forces had deserted or underperformed.

Calm in Iraqi Cities After Cleric Calls for Truce - New York Times, March 31, 2008

BAGHDAD — Iraqis returned to the streets of Baghdad after a curfew was lifted, and the southern port city of Basra appeared quiet on Monday, a day after the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for his followers to stop fighting and in turn demanded concessions from Iraq’s government.

Mr. Sadr’s statement on Sunday afternoon was released at the end of six days in which his Mahdi Army militia had held off an American-supported Iraqi assault on Basra.No serious clashes were reported in Basra on Monday morning. In Baghdad, which had been virtually brought to a standstill by protests and violence over the past week, life appeared to return to normal with the streets filling with traffic. A succession of mortar shells rocked the Green Zone. But in most neighborhoods, people went back to work and shopped for supplies that they were unable to buy during the curfew.

The strict curfew imposed by the government on Thursday was lifted at 6 a.m., but remained in effect for vehicles in the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, where fighting between militiamen and Iraqi and American forces had continued through the day on Sunday, and in some other Shiite neighborhoods of the capital.

The substance of Mr. Sadr’s statement was hammered out in elaborate negotiations over the preceding days with senior Iraqi officials, some of whom traveled to Iran to meet with Mr. Sadr, according to several officials involved in the discussions.

The negotiations with Mr. Sadr were seen as a serious blow for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory. He has been harshly criticized even within his own coalition for the stalled assault.

الحياة - المالكي يعتبر أن «من يقاتل الحكومة أسوأ من القاعدة» … الصدر يأمر أتباعه بعدم تسليم السلاح ووحدات عسكرية عراقية لا تريد القتال
مع تواصل المواجهات بين القوات العراقية و»جيش المهدي»، امس، لليوم الخامس في أنحاء مختلفة في العراق، جدد رئيس الوزراء العراقي نوري المالكي اصرار حكومته على المضي في معركة البصرة ضد المسلحين الى النهاية، معتبراً ان «من يقاتل الحكومة اسوأ من القاعدة». ونقل عن الزعيم الشيعي الشاب مقتدى الصدر انه طلب من اتباعه عدم القاء سلاحهم، فيما رفضت وحدات في الجيش العراقي في مدينة الصدر مقاتلة «جيش المهدي» في سابقة لا يعرف بعد مدى تأثيرها وامتدادها على المواجهات بين الطرفين.

رجال شرطة يسلمون أمس أسلحتهم إلى رجل دين من أنصار الصدر في مدينة الصدر. ا ف ب

وبعد الغارات الجوية الأميركية لمواقع المسلحين في مدينة الصدر والبصرة تدخلت القوات البريطانية في المدينة الجنوبية، فقصفت بالمدافع مواقع للمسلحين في شمالها دعماً للقوات العراقية، فيما ارتفعت حصيلة المواجهات الى اكثر من 275 قتيلاً و500 جريح، بحسب مصادر رسمية.

Heavy fighting in southern Iraqi oil hub | World | Reuters, March 25, 2008

BASRA, Iraq Reuters - Heavy fighting erupted on Tuesday in the southern oil city of Basra where Iraqi security forces launched a major operation at dawn against powerful militias, military officials and witnesses said.

A Reuters witness in the city reported seeing black smoke over northern districts and hearing explosions and machinegun fire. A hospital source said “tens of wounded” were arriving at hospitals with some too busy to accept more casualties.

Television pictures showed Iraqi troops running through empty streets and helicopters flying overhead.

“There are clashes in the streets. Bullets are coming from everywhere and we can hear the sound of rocket explosions. This has been going on since dawn,” resident Jamil told Reuters by telephone as he cowered in his home.

Military officials said “many outlaws” had been killed.

Two powerful factions of Iraqs Shiite majority, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Mehdi Army militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, are fighting for power in Basra along with a smaller Shiite party, Fadhila.

Basra is Iraq’s second city and gateway to the Gulf. Its oil fields are the source of most government revenues.

Trudy Rubin, Now Iraq needs a surge of political will for reconciliation — baltimoresun.com, December 25, 2007

Now people have the breathing room to assess their sectarian parties that have failed to deliver services or safety while indulging in astounding levels of corruption. The judgments I heard from every Iraqi I spoke with were unremittingly harsh.

Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has had to pay attention to popular dissatisfaction with the shakedowns and murders carried out by thugs in his Mahdi Army militia. He has dispersed hit men to try to eliminate some of the more egregious violators in Baghdad neighborhoods. I spoke to one, a hard-faced, middle-aged tough named Abu Ali, who was limping from a gunshot wound to the leg; he told me his men had killed 17 “criminals” in Baghdad’s Hurriyah district on Mr. al-Sadr’s orders. The Shiite mafiosi are cleaning house.

Iraq’s Shiite religious leaders, too, are weighing in on the government’s failures. The leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent word through his spokesmen of his dissatisfaction with the fact that much of the parliament had decamped to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage at government expense. This at a time when crucial laws on oil and provincial elections are languishing in committees. Ayatollah al-Sistani said that parliamentarians would get no religious credit for the hajj because they had abandoned their duty.

Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is battling his Shiite rival along lines of personality, class and ideology. (By Alaa Al-marjani — Associated Press)

Sudarsan Raghavan, Shiite Contest Sharpens In Iraq - washingtonpost.com, December 26, 2007

KARBALA, Iraq — Posted at the door of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s office recently, a flier denounced the arrests of his followers. Up and down the barricaded street, soldiers and policemen loyal to his Shiite rivals stood sentry, some in tan armored personnel carriers, questioning anyone they suspected of links to the populist cleric.

Inside the shuttered office, five guards spoke frankly of their sense of vulnerability and weakness. Once in control of the streets of this southern city of holy sites, the Sadrists said they have been chased underground, their rivals at their heels.

The arrests of Sadr’s loyalists are part of a broader power struggle between the two most powerful Shiite factions seeking to lead Iraq: the Sadrists, who are pushing for U.S. troops to withdraw, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Bush administration’s main Shiite ally. Given the nation’s majority-Shiite population, this intensifying confrontation could play a major role in deciding Iraq’s future.

‘Bad’ Women Raped and Killed in Southern Iraq - by Ali al-Fadhily, IPS, December 19, 2007

BAGHDAD - Women are being killed by militia groups in southern Iraq for not conforming to strict Islamic ways, the police say. And increased threats from militia groups are driving many women away from their homes.

Basra police chief Gen. Jalil Hannoon has told reporters and Arab TV channels that at least 40 women have been killed during the past five months in the southern city.

“We are sure there are many more victims whose families did not report their killing for fear of scandal,” Hannoon said.

The militias dominated by the Shia Badr Organization and the Mahdi Army are leading imposition of strict Islamic rules. The enforcement of these rules comes at a time when British troops have left Basra, the biggest town in the south, to the Iraqi government.

The Shia-dominated Iraqi government is seen as providing tacit and sometimes direct support to militias. The Badr Organization answers to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the Shia bloc in the Iraqi government. The Mahdi army is the militia of anti-occupation Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Women who do not wear the hijab are becoming prime targets of militias, residents say. Many women say they are threatened with death if they do not obey.

“Militiamen approached us to tell us we must wear the hijab and stop wearing make-up,” college student Zahra Alwan, who fled Basra for Baghdad, recently told IPS.

(Warning: The film accessible by clicking on this article’s title contains graphic images.)

Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O’Kane and Ian Black, UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief, Guardian, December 17, 2007

In an ITV film on the Guardian Unlimited website , Basra’s police chief lists a catalogue of failings, saying:

· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being “immoral” because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;

· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;

· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq’s main port.

Patrick Cockburn, Britain bows out of a five-year war it could never have won - Independent, December 17, 2007

The British Army some time ago concluded that its patrols simply provided targets for militiamen without doing any good.

The steady retreat of the British has not so far been followed by a battle for Basra between the three main contenders for power. These are the Fadhila movement, which controls much of the government, the Mehdi Army militia, loyal to the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organisation of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).

All these groups control in part or in full different units of the security forces, as well as valuable economic concessions, such as Basra port, through which flows much of Iraq’s imports. Iran also retains a pervasive though often invisible influence over the militias.

Britain is officially handing over control, nominal though it may have been, of Basra to government security forces. This has supposedly long been the aim of the US and Britain in southern Iraq, but in practice both countries have increasingly favoured one only of the Shia parties, ISCI, as its favoured ally. This may eventually lead to a backlash by the Mehdi Army and Fadhila.

Amit R. Paley, On the Sidelines in Basra: British Tackle a New Role, WP, December 17, 2007

…interviews with three senior Iraqi security officials in Basra yielded three different sets of data on violence in the province. The provincial police chief said the number of killings, which occurred mainly in Basra city, had decreased from 142 in June to 75 last month, while the military commander in the province said the drop over that time period went from 154 to fewer than 70. Another senior military official said the decline had been less steep, going from 83 in June to 74 in November.

“If you want to know about the security situation, you can’t rely on the figures from officials,” Brig. Gen. Jalil Khalaf, the provincial police chief, said with a laugh. “All the officials have their own interests.”

Khalaf confirmed anecdotal reports from Basra residents that Shiite militias had perpetrated horrendous violence against women, killing dozens of them for wearing pants or not covering their heads in traditional Muslim fashion….

Because of a dispute between parties, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not recognize the current provincial governor, Mohammed Mossibh Mohammed Waili, and has appointed the current police and military chiefs as his main representatives here.

The two chiefs said they had been ordered by Maliki not to communicate with Waili, and the British forces planned to formally hand over security to the military commander, Gen. Mohan H. Fahad, instead of the governor

Lori Hinnant, British Hand Over Basra to Iraqi Control, AP, washingtonpost.com, December 16, 2007

Britain’s Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007, handover of Basra province will have a limited effect on security in Iraq’s biggest oil region because rival Shiite warlords and local officials have been wielding the real power in the area. The main players in Basra and southern Iraq are the powerful Shiite entities, al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia; Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political party and the Badr Brigade militia, which has largely been absorbed into the Iraqi security forces; and the Fadhila party, which also has its own fighters and a member as Basra’s governor.

Iraqis carry their luggage through Baghdad after returning from Syria this month. Many refugees come back to find their houses occupied or ransacked, and their neighborhoods transformed into sectarian strongholds. (By Wathiq Khuzaie — Getty Images)

Karen DeYoung, Balkanized Homecoming - washingtonpost.com, December 16, 2007

When the Iraqi government last month invited home the 1.4 million refugees who had fled this war-ravaged country for Syria — and said it would send buses to pick them up — the United Nations and the U.S. military reacted with horror.

Iraqis carry their luggage through Baghdad after returning from Syria this month. Many refugees come back to find their houses occupied or ransacked, and their neighborhoods transformed into sectarian strongholds.

U.N. refugee officials immediately advised against the move, saying any new arrivals risked homelessness, unemployment and deprivation in a place still struggling to take care of the people already here. For the military, the prospect of refugees returning to reclaim houses long since occupied by others, particularly in Baghdad, threatened to destroy fragile security improvements.

“It’s a problem that everybody can grasp,” said a senior U.S. diplomat here. “You move back to the house that you left and find that somebody else has moved into the house, maybe because they’ve been displaced from someplace else. And it’s even more difficult than that, because in many cases the local militias . . . have seized control and threw out anybody in that neighborhood they didn’t like.”…

In most of Baghdad, the population shift has been at the expense of Sunnis, many of whose former neighborhoods are newly populated by poorer Shiite migrants under militia protection and, often, control. Groups such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia “are no longer just thugs who are carrying guns around on the street,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the issue. “They’ve kind of supplanted local government, with streams of revenue — rent from housing they’ve taken over, protection money from businesses,” and control of fuel and electricity supplies.

Sudarsan Raghavan, Iraq’s Youthful Militiamen Build Power Through Fear, WP, December 13, 2007

BAGHDAD — On the first day of class, two male teenagers entered a girls’ high school in the Tobji neighborhood, clutching AK-47 assault rifles. The young Shiite fighters handed the principal a handwritten note and ordered her to assemble the students in the courtyard, witnesses said.

“All girls must wear hijab,” she read aloud, her voice trembling. “If the girls don’t wear hijab, we will close the school or kill the girls.”

That October day Sara Mustafa, 14, a secular Sunni Arab, also trembled. The next morning, she covered up with an Islamic head scarf for the first time. The young fighters now controlled her life. “We could not do anything,” Sara recalled.

The Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is using a new generation of youths, some as young as 15, to expand and tighten its grip across Baghdad, but the ruthlessness of some of these young fighters is alienating Sunnis and Shiites alike.

The fighters are filling the vacuum of leadership created by a 10-month-old U.S.-led security offensive. Hundreds of senior and mid-level militia members have been arrested, killed or forced into hiding, weakening what was once the second most powerful force in Iraq after the U.S. military. But the militia still rules through fear and intimidation, often under the radar of U.S. troops.

The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ,gestures while delivering Friday sermon, in a Mosque, in Kufa, 160 kilometers, (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday Sept. 22, 2006. Firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has quietly resumed seminary studies to attain the coveted title of a Shiite Ayatollah–a goal that could make him and his Mahdi Army an even more formidable power broker in Iraq. (AP Photo/Alaa Al-Marjani)

Iraq’s Maverick Cleric Hits the Books, AP, December 14, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) — The leader of Iraq’s biggest Shiite militia movement has quietly resumed seminary studies toward attaining the title of ayatollah — a goal that could make firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army an even more formidable power broker in Iraq.

Al-Sadr’s objectives — described to The Associated Press by close aides — are part of increasingly bitter Shiite-on-Shiite battles for control of Iraq’s southern oil fields, the lucrative pilgrim trade to Shiite holy cities and the nation’s strategic Persian Gulf outlet.

The endgame among Iraq’s majority Shiites also means long-term influence over Iraqi political and financial affairs as the Pentagon and its allies look to scale down their military presence in the coming year.

Al-Sadr’s backers remain main players in the showdowns across the region, where fears of even more bloodshed are rising following Wednesday’s triple car bombing in one of the area’s main urban hubs. At least 25 people were killed and scores wounded.