Starting on March 24, Iraq became the scene of intense fighting between the military forces of the U.S. puppet Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army, loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
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When the Iraqi parliament made a motion for a negotiated settlement of the conflict, the largest Shi’a bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, rejected the legislature’s involvement in what it called a “security issue.” The office of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki rejected calls for negotiations with “criminal groups” and announced that government forces would have “no mercy” on the militia.
On March 26, Maliki gave “armed groups” 72 hours to disarm. The Mahdi Army military commander in Basra, Abu Hassan al-Daraji, responded: “We will fight on and never give up our weapons. We will not turn over a single bullet.”
The government offensive did not proceed as planned. The Mahdi forces took control of many neighborhoods in Baghdad, some without resistance, amid large defections of military personnel. In New Baghdad, the Mahdi forces ordered the police to leave their checkpoints. The police obeyed, and the militiamen took control.
In the early fighting, the Mahdi Army also gained control of the southern city of Nassiriya. There was fighting in many other areas where the Mahdi forces had at least partial control, including the cities of Kerbala, Amara, Diwaniya, Kut and Hilla.
On March 25, the government started an offensive against the Mahdi Army in Basra, a city largely under the militia’s control. Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, is Iraq’s second largest city with a majority Shi’a population. Water and electricity were turned off in three main areas under attack from the Iraqi Army.
Government forces made little progress in their drive to take over Basra. An officer from a special police unit said: “We did not expect the fight to be this intense … Some of the men told me that they did not want to go back to the fight until they have better support and more protection.”
Reflecting this state of affairs, Maliki extended his original 72-hour deadline for disarmament by 10 days to April 8. Thousands of people demonstrated in Baghdad in a march organized by the Mahdi forces, demanding an end to the government offensive in Basra.
Sadr called on his fighters to leave the streets on March 30, a move which the Iraqi government welcomed reciprocated by announcing the end of the curfew it imposed in Baghdad. It remains to be seen whether the new truce will last. Sadr’s statement also called on the government to stop raids against his followers and free them from prison; fighting could resume if these demands are not met.
Sadr: Washington’s friend or foe?
The Mahdi militia, estimated to have 60,000 fighters, is loosely under the command of Muqtada al-Sadr. After the U.S. occupation of Iraq, most of the political elite of predominantly Shi’a south cooperated with the occupying forces. The Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, collaborated with the occupation and its fighters formed much of the Iraqi military and police, effectively under U.S. command.
Sadr’s forces, on the other hand, initially resisted the occupation. The United States eventually reached an agreement with Sadr, halting the Mahdi Army’s fight against the occupation.
In January 2005, Sadr forces joined the ruling coalition in the Iraqi government. The February 2006 bombing of the Askariya shrine, one of the holiest Shi’a shrines in Iraq, unleashed a series of sectarian killings, mainly by Shi’a militiamen against the Sunnis. The Mahdi Army carried out many of these killings.
To the extent that Sadr avoided leading an all-out struggle against the occupying forces, U.S. military planners benefited from the truce with his militia. The one thing that they feared the most was the national unity of Iraqis against their occupiers.
Toward this aim, the involvement of the Mahdi forces in murdering Sunnis was in line with what the imperialist occupiers had planned—the removal of the possibility of the formation of anti-occupation forces across religious and ethnic lines.
But the truce has always been an uneasy one. As early as in the first months of the occupation, L. Paul Bremmer, the highest U.S. official in Iraq, wanted to move decisively to annihilate the Mahdi Army. Then, as in later years, Sadr’s immense popularity prevented the U.S. military from going all out against his forces, fearing a strong backlash from a population that they hoped to pacify.
To the United States, the Mahdi Army was not a force to be trusted, the truce notwithstanding. Although not actively fighting during most of the years of the occupation, Sadr has consistently called for an immediate withdrawal of all occupying troops.
Sadr has also organized many massive demonstrations against the United States, and not just against the occupation of Iraq. In the summer of 2006, when a U.S.-supported Israeli offensive killed thousands in Lebanon before being defeated by Hezbollah, Sadr forces organized a demonstration of tens of thousands in Baghdad in protest.
Sadr is extremely popular among the working class and poor people in the south, as well as in parts of Baghdad. As a minor cleric, Sadr falls outside the control of the Shi’a elite—including Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who has largely supported the Shi’a forces aligned with the United States.
In August 2007, Sadr ordered his forces to observe a unilateral cease-fire, giving the militia time to regroup and purge itself of criminal elements. In February 2008, Sadr extended this cease-fire for another six months.
U.S.-trained Iraqi forces fail, U.S. military steps in
Despite the cease-fire, the Mahdi Army exerts effective control over much of Basra and parts of many other cities in the south, as well as the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. To have any chance of reducing its costly military presence in Iraq, Washington has to have its puppet government gain control of all of Iraq’s territory. The offensive against the Mahdi Army is what U.S. military planners hope to be a step in this direction.
In the early stages of the offensive, Washington avoided the appearance of overt military involvement. Had the forces of the puppet Iraqi government managed to defeat the Mahdi Army, it would have been a significant victory for the “sovereign” government.
Heaping praise on Maliki, President Bush said: “Prime Minister Maliki’s bold decision … to go after the illegal groups in Basra shows his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an even-handed manner.”
But as the government forces fared poorly on their own, U.S. officials had to drop the pretense of this being an Iraqi affair. The U.S. military joined in the action with U.S. warplanes and AC-130 gun ships bombing targets inside crowded city neighborhoods.
Following the established pattern of all these criminal bombing campaigns, Iraqis have suffered heavy civilian casualties. In one instance alone, none other than the Iraqi police reported that a U.S. bombing strike had killed eight civilians, including two women and a child in the Hananiyah neighborhood.
It is unclear whether the current fighting will result in the occupying forces and their Iraqi allies gaining control of Basra and the other Mahdi Army controlled areas, or whether they would be able to hold them if they do take them initially. It is clear, however, that the U.S. trained Iraqi military and police were not equal to the task.
It is also clear that despite the relative success of the Pentagon in fomenting ethnic violence and breaking the unity of Iraqis, the vast majority of Iraqis, Shi’a and Sunni, want the U.S. occupation to end. Many of them have been willing to give their lives to the struggle to drive out the occupiers.
