Sadr Threatens Iraqi Government With Open War

Although car bomb attacks are continuing in Iraq, the government backed by U.S. occupation troops seems today more concerned with fighting its potential allies. For several weeks now, the regular army, backed up by Shiite militia groups, notably the militia allied with Abdul Aziz Al Hakim’s Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (CSII, formerly known as the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), have been confronting Moktada Sadr’s partisans, whose number is estimated at several thousand and who form the Mahdi Army. The fighting is doubly fratricidal. On the one hand, the combatants are all Shiites, and on the other, after having led two insurrections against the U.S. forces, the Sadr deputies had virtually been members of the governing majority since 2006. But last year they suspended their backing of and their participation in the government, notably to protest against the Prime Minister’s refusal to demand that the U.S. establish a withdrawal plan.

Last month, this self-same Prime Minister, Nouri Al Maliki, went in person to Bassorah in southern Iraq to supervise what were to be quick and easy operations. Maliki was counting on a victory to refurbish his image, which has been considerably tarnished by an evident lack of results, both in security terms and in economic and political terms. A victory would also have weakened his main adversary in the municipal and provincial elections to be held in October.

Four hundred dead since the beginning of March.

As to the easy victory, the fighting has been tough and has demonstrated the strong determination of Sadr’s combatants. Moreover Baghdad’s Sadr City is also a stronghold of Sadr resistance. Intense fighting between Iraqi regulars and Shiite militiamen has cost at least 13 lives in the past few days, and nearly 400 lives since early March.

US and Iraqi soldiers have begun building a wall in Sadr City. According to the U.S. command, the wall will prevent the infiltration into the southern zone of rocket and mortar teams which regularly target the “green zone,” the fortified enclave on the west bank of the Tigris that is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy.

While hundreds of concrete walls have been put up in Baghdad since the beginning of the U.S. occupation in April, 2003, to protect military positions, government and business buildings and open markets, they have also been built to separate neighborhoods inhabited by Sunnis and Shiites. This has aroused the anger of the people in these neighborhoods, who see the walls as part of an effort to divide up the Iraqi capital into more easily-controlled homogenous sectors.

“Last Warning”

On Saturday, April 19, Moktada Sadr threatened an “open war” against the Iraqi government if it did not put an end to the repression campaign that U.S. and Iraqi security forces have unleashed against his partisans. The prospect of a large-scale uprising by Sadr’s forces has raised the stakes in his struggle with Nouri Al Maliki, who has threatened to ban Sadr’s movement from politics if he does not disband his militia.

“I’m giving the Iraqi government my last warning and my final word : either he comes to his senses and takes the road of peace (...), or he will be the same as the previous government,” Sadr declared, referring to the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein, without going into greater detail. He added : “If they do not come to their senses and do not cut back the infiltration of militiamen, we will declare an open war until liberation.” He also wanted the country’s Shiite religious leaders to set a date for the departure of U.S. forces. On Sunday April 20, as U.S. secretary of state Condoleeza Rice was landing in Baghdad for a surprise visit, in Sadr City you could hear the mosque loudspeakers, which are used to call to prayer, saying “Fight against the occupant, drive him from your homes.”