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After the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr went into hiding and ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to lay low during the US-Iraqi operations of the Baghdad security plan, observers wondered what it would take to bring the militia back into the open.
For Sunni militant groups, this has been more than just a philosophical question: Many of the most violent assaults on Iraqi Shi'a population centers seemed to be efforts to draw the Shi'a militia out into the open, with the goal of sparking fighting between the Mahdi Army and US and Iraqi forces.
The Sunni militants’ provocations, including massive bombings in Shi'a neighborhoods of Baghdad and in the Shi'a shrine city of Karbala, as well as bombing attacks on traveling to Shi'a holy places, took hundreds of lives, but have not spurred the militia to bring its armed presence back to pre-security plan levels.
Instead, it is power struggles in contested cities within the Shi'a community that have brought the Mahdi Army out in force in over the last weeks.
The struggle for power between the Shi'a organizations at the local level in Iraq has led to clashes between well-armed fighters, and between the Mahdi Army and local security forces, often loyal to rival militias.
The rivalry between Iraq’s various Shi'a movements extends back even to the rule of Saddam Hussein, but has come to open hostilities more frequently in recent weeks than at any time since the 2003 US invasion.
The fighting concerns some of the most powerful organizations in Iraq, including the SIIC (formerly SCIRI), run by Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, which enjoys the largest number of seats in the ruling party and commands the Badr militia. SIIC also controls several local and provincial governments in Iraq’s Shi'a areas. Other organizations, such as the Fadhila party, do not have the same national presence, but control local strongholds, such as the group’s provincial base in Basra.
Remarkably, the Mahdi Army has picked up its arms against rival Iraqi Shi'a groups while it has not taken the bait of al-Qa'ida and other Sunni militant attackers to come out in force against Iraqi Sunnis -- even though al-Qa'ida and Sunni militant groups are directly responsible for many more deaths of Sadrist supporters and Iraqi Shi'a since the start of the security plan in mid-February.
The most recent major fighting occurred in the southern city of Nasiriya on Wednesday, leaving at least 12 dead. Wednesday’s fighting is one event in a growing list of conflagrations in what US war planners had thought of as the solid Shi'a south.
In Diwaniya, US forces were involved in clashes against the Mahdi Army in April, which also centered on local power struggles between rival Shi'a groups. Fighting also occurred on Wednesday and Thursday in Diwaniya between Mahdi Army fighters and the local authorities. On Thursday, four were killed in fighting, al-Jazeera Net reports in Arabic.
In late March, Mahdi Army supporters fought openly with rival militiamen from the Fadhila party in Basra, and tensions have remained high in the city between the Shi'a parties as the power struggle unfolds between the Sadrist movement, the Fadhila party, and the SIIC for political and security control of the oil-rich southern province.
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Even in Baghdad, open fighting has broken out between the Mahdi Army and the Badr militia, loyal to the SIIC party, for control of turf in the Shi'a neighborhoods of the capital.
Wednesday’s clashes in Nasiriya are a prime example of the growing tensions within the Iraqi Shi'a community between rival political forces, and rival militias, and the increasing impotence of the Iraqi central government -- itself led by parties involved in the struggle for control of the Shi'a areas -- to project law and order on the increasingly unruly southern areas.
Maliki vows harsh response in Nasiriya
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to deal “harshly” with the city of Nasiriya in order to impose security on the city after Wednesday’s open fighting between the Mahdi Army militia and Iraqi security forces.
Iraq’s politicians discussed Wednesday’s clashes in Nasiriya at the highest levels at a meeting of the “Political Council for National Security,” consisting of the country’s top elected officials, according to a statement issued by the office of the Iraqi president.
The council is composed of President Jalal Talabani, who oversees the body, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Iraqi Vice Presidents Adil Abd al-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashemi, Parliament Majority Leader Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, and a representative of the Kurdish regional president Ruz Nuri Shawis.
Ali Dabbagh, Iraqi government spokesperson, said that the council discussed the violence in Nasiriya, adding that the prime minister was “disturbed” by what happened and saying that the government had taken steps to extend a security plan (Khitat Fard al-Qanoun) to Nasiriya, according to Kuwait’s KUNA News.
“There is no choice for the government except to confront those who are carrying weapons and threatening the security of the citizens,” said al-Dabbagh.
Maliki called on the various political blocs to cooperate with the efforts of the security apparatus.
The Political Council for National Security was established in mid 2006 after forming the current Iraqi government under Nuri al-Maliki. It consists of the Iraq's president and the premier and speaker of the parliament, the two vice presidents, the premier's two deputies, president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, head of the supreme court and heads of the parliamentarian blocs, VOI writes.
The council, a consultative body, meets periodically to discuss the political and security developments in the country.
Shaykh Sabri al Ramid, the former governor of Dhi Qar province, who participated in the negotiations that were conducted on Wednesday afternoon between officials from the Sadrist current, provincial authorities, and a number of notables in the city, said that the parties affirmed their desire for an immediate halt to the clashes and for the central government to conduct disarmament activities, taking its role in imposing security, al-Quds al-Arabi reports in Arabic.
Al-Ramid said that Mahdi Army fighters had withdrawn from the streets of Nasiriya after an agreement to stand down forces was struck.
At the local level, provincial officials announced the formation of a committee formed of members of the provincial council, the leader of the Nasiriya police, the commander of the Iraqi Army Third Brigade, as well as representatives from the “Office of the Martyr Sadr,” the official Sadrist organization, met Thursday, to discuss the clashes.
In other words, the Nasiriya clashes ended in a truce, and could flare up again at any time. While the city is, for the moment, under the control of the security forces, the underlying political differences and competing agendas of the Shi'a parties involved, at the local and national levels, have not been decided.
The director of health affairs in Nasiriya, Dr. Hadi Badr al-Riahi, said that Wednesday’s clashes resulted in 12 dead and 45 wounded, and said that the dead included Jawad 'Abd al-Kadhim, the director of the counter-terrorism office in the province, along with his brother and two soldiers.
The clashes began when Mahdi Army members tried to force the release of two militiamen who had been arrested by the authorities on suspicion of planting IEDs.
