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In an unprecedented step, a top leader of the pro-US tribal alliance in Anbar Province traveled to Sadr City Tuesday to meet with leaders of the Sadrist current.
Sheikh Hamid al-Hayis, who leads the armed wing of the US-backed movement known as the Anbar Awakening, or the Anbar Salvation Council, held a rare meeting with Sadrist leaders in Baghdad’s Sadr City, the bastion of support for the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and stronghold of the Mahdi Army.
“This meeting is a message to Iraqi politicians to get rid of their differences and to seek real reconciliation,” Hayis said, according to the AFP.
“We are trying to pressure (the government) to make political changes for the sake of the Iraqi people who are drowning in the blood of their sons,” Hayis added.
“This visit shows that Iraqi tribes are standing side by side and they are the nail in the coffin of the abhorrent sectarianism which has split our country,” said Shi'a Sheikh Malik Sewadi al-Mohammedawi, whom AFP identifies as the head of one of Sadr City’s most influential tribes.
Mohammedawi blamed the country’s sectarian strife on “occupation forces and foreign takfiris,” using a common term for Sunni extremists, derived from the practice of takfir, or branding fellow Muslims as unbelievers.
The Sunni tribal alliance known as the Anbar Awakening or Anbar Salvation Front cooperates closely with US forces in its operations in the western province.
The Sadrist current and the Anbar Salvation Front have very different relationships to the Maliki government and the US occupation forces. The Sadrists have repeatedly clashed with US forces, and call for withdrawal of foreign armies from Iraq, while the Anbar Front accepts aid and training from the US and coordinates closely with it in its operations.
However, the two groups share similar interests in building their political image on the Iraqi stage nationalists with an agenda that can include all Iraqis. The Anbar group plands to stand in upcoming elections, while the Sadrists are hoping to shed the baggage of having ushered the Maliki government into power, as well as the sectarian reputation of the Mahdi Army.
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Ironically, Sadr’s Shi'a bloc may be closer to a rapprochement with the Baghdad-based Sunni parties that sit in Parliament than the Sunni Anbar tribesmen, who are maneuvering to challenge their hold on Sunni politics, in Anbar and nationally.
Outstanding issues remain preventing the full embrace of the Sadrist current and the major Sunni parties, such as the de-Ba'thification law and the sectarian reputation of the Mahdi Army.
Muqtada al-Sadr’s whereabouts remain undisclosed, but he was represented in the meeting by three MPs from the 30-strong bloc in Parliament loyal to him, a senior political advisor, and prominent individuals from the Sadr City area.
Kuwait’s Kuna News reports in Arabic that the three Sadrist MPs were Salih al-'Ukayli, Falah Shanshal, and Nassar al-Sa'idi.
Kuna reports that representatives of the Anbar Awakening included Shaykh al-Hayis, Tariq al-Dulaimi, and Salih Abu Risha.
AFP reports that the participants in Tuesday’s meeting called for “improved national security services, for holding internationally monitored provincial council elections, and for ‘calling any killer of Iraqis a terrorist who has to be fought’.”
In a statement issued by the two groups at the end of the discussions also affirmed the unity and sovereignty of Iraq and called for building up the country’s armed forces on a professional and national basis, Radio Sawa Net reports in Arabic.
Participants also mooted the possibility of a meeting between Muqtada al-Sadr and the leader of the Anbar tribal group.
“Abu Risha said he would visit Sadr soon,” said Abdel Mahdi al-Muteiri of Sadr’s office, AFP reports. “There will be a meeting soon in the holy city of Najaf. The sayyid (Sadr) liked and welcomed the idea of the visit,” he added.
Abu Risha, the head of the Rishawi tribe, is the leader of the Anbar Awakening organization, Abdel Sattar Baziya.
“We want to stress that we are one nation and one people,” said Falah Hassan Shanshal, an MP from Sadr’s parliamentary bloc, AFP writes. “This is a message to all the world.”
After the meeting, Sadrist MP Salih al-'Ukayli told Radio Sawa that the two groups had reached an understanding about how to work together to fight terrorism and to unify the national ranks.
Al-'Ukayli also told Radio Sawa that the two groups agreed on the principle of expediting local elections at the provincial level, and on the call for displaced families to return to their original areas of residence, the US-funded broadcaster reports in Arabic on its website.
He added that this meeting represents a new step in the relationship between the Sadrist current and the Sunni Arabs of Iraq.
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