Gorilla’s Guides

I Still Believe General Casey

The falling out between the Iraki Shia political establishment represented by green zone government Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement has reopened interest in the Shia nationalist leader. It has been clear for some time the U.S. “surge” has as a major goal the elimination of Al Sadr’s political movement which is backed by an irregular force the “Jaish Al Mahdi” (”Mahdi Militia”, henceforth JAM). )

Muqtada Al-Sadr is is the fourth son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq as-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party in 1999 because of his blunt criticism of its policies. The remainder of his family - including two of his older brothers Mu’mil and Mustapha, his uncle Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr were murdered by Ba’ath Party operatives in 1980.(His other brother now lives as a recluse studying religious texts)

His political movement, or trend, is one of several blocs competing for dominance within the majority community and positioning themselves for when the Americans are forced out of Irak. For present purposes I intend to concentrate upon four trends or blocs.

Background:

The Hawza

The first trend issues from the supreme Shi’ite religious authority in Irak, the Hawza in Najaf . At its head is Grand Ayatollah Al-Sayed Ali Al-Sistani, followed by ayatollahs Mohamed Ishaq Al-Fayyad, Hussein Bashir Al- Afghani and Mohamed Said Al-Hakim. The Grand Ayatollahs enjoy the respect of most Iraki Shi’ites, but have lost ground to the Sadrist trend politically.

The Sadrists

The second trend is made up of Al-Sadr’s followers. They have demonstrated considerable ability to mobilise and to assume control of important population concentrations. At present they control Sadr city, some areas of Baghdad, and various population centres in the governorates in particular the southern governorates. They are attempting to establish or strengthen their control of centres such as Samawah, Nasiriya, and Diwaniyah. Thereby striking at the power centres of Dawa and SIIC.

عاجل القوات الأمريكية المحتلة تعتقل الشيخ ناصر الساعدي القيادي البارز في الخط الصدري

قامت قوات الاحتلال ليلة امس الأحد باعتقال الشيخ ناصر الساعدي مع كافة إفراد عائلتة في مدينة شعلة الصدرين ويعد الشيخ من احد قيادي الخط الصدري،ولم توضح القوات المحتلة سبب هذا الاعتقال وهذا الاعتقال ليس الاول من نوعه.كما ويعد هذا الحدث الابرز بعد تصريحات نوري المالكي حول التيار الصدري ، ويأتي اعتقال الشيخ في اطار بركات تصريحات المالكي الاخيرة التي تضمنت اشارات تلغيزية تطال ابناء الخط الصدري ومما يجدر ذكره بأن الشيخ الساعدي كان من مناهضي النظام البائد وممن ذاق مرارات المعتقلات والسجون في مستوطنات البعث العقابية

…:: شبكة أخبار العمارة المجاهدة::… - عاجل القوات الأمريكية المحتلة تعتقل الشيخ ناصر الساعدي القيادي البارز في الخط ال

By taking the initiative in Shi’ite neighbourhoods and cities, establishing militias to maintain order and security after the disintegration of authority, and providing welfare and health services, they have made a strong bid to lead the Shi’ite community in Irak. Additionally they can draw on the rich heritage of political and religious thought created by the late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq as-Sadr.

The Sadrist trend’s bid for leadership is strengthened by its strongly nationalist stance, which in the eyes of many gives it a credibility lacked by organisations such as the Dawa party and SIIC that are closely linked to Iran. Moreover much of its leadership such as the recently detained (and subsequently hastily released) Sheikh Nasser al-Saadi, can, like al-Sadr himself genuinely claim to have resisted the Ba’athist government when others remained silent or moved out of Iraq. (See sidebar for an example)

Islamic Daawa Party and Affiliates

The third trend is made up of the political parties and organised movements, such as the Islamic Daawa Party headed by green zone government Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, the Islamic Task Organisation and other small factions. These groups operate under several burdens most notably:

• Internal divisions.
• The chorus of contempt and disapproval arising from:
• • The second attack on the Shrine of The Two Imams.
  • Their handling of the Dar al-Hanan scandal.
  • Their disastrous handling of the water, electricity, and food situations.

    (To give but a few examples.)

• Their external connections established in exile.
• Their flagrant fanning of sectarianism.
• Their political and military subservience to the American invaders.

Domestically their failures are, to a very large extent a function of the fact that their senior and middle echelon leadership’s experience lies exclusively in covert political action from abroad. Prior to their return in the wake of the American invaders neither their senior nor their mid-level echelons had been involved in action on the ground in Irak since the 1970s and 1980s. They thus lack the knowledge to meet the challenges of operating in a changed and extraordinarily difficult environment. There is little evidence that they have either the will or the capacity to provide solutions to political, economic and social problems. Their failure in this regard coupled with their isolation within the green zone may well prove to be their undoing.

SIIC (SCIRI)

The fourth trend is made up by SCIRI which changed its name to SIIC last month in an attempt to downplay their close links to Tehran. SIIC’s leader prior to his assassination in August 2003 was Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Al-Hakim was warmly welcomed by the populace partly because of his family background (his father Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhsin al-Tabataba’i al-Hakim was primus inter pares in the marja’iyya, before Grand Ayatollah Abul Qasim al-Khoei) and partly because of his attempts to overthrow Saddam. It is worth mentioning however that, contrary to what some partisan interlocutors would have you believe, the scenes that greeted his return in no way resembled those that took place upon Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran.

Following Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim’s assassination his brother Abdul Aziz al-Hakim assumed the leadership.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is a considerably less gifted leader than his brother was and far less devoted to Iraki unity. His continued support for a Southern region largely independent of Baghdad is one of the reasons for the complete collapse of green zone government authority throughout the southern governorates. His public appearances are stiff and contrived appearing. He is generally thought to be far more gravely ill from lung cancer than has been admitted and his duties have largely been taken over by his son Amar Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim.

Amar Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim is a seemingly far more capable leader than his father. He is now engaged in attempting to consolidate his position to ensure an orderly succession when his father dies. Working in his favour is the fact that he has run the Al-Hakim Foundation for several years and as the person in charge of its multimillion-dollar welfare and education projects he has succeeded in building up a considerable client list. Moreover during the 2005 elections he proved to be an energetic and charismatic campaigner for the party in marked contrast to his father. Working against him is that he is as committed to the southern strategy as his father and is widely believed to be heavily involved in organised corruption including within the green zone government Interior Ministry and oil smuggling. Moreover on several occasions both I and other team members have heard him compared to Uday Hussein. This does not augur well for SIIC’s future, “Amar Uday” is not a name to conjure with in present-day Irak.

Al Sadr’s Rise Part 1

Al Sadr is now the major player on Irak’s political stage. He was always going to be prominent but a combination of political skill, American hamfistedness, and successive ruinously ineffective puppet governments in the green zone have combined to ensure that he and the JAM are stronger than ever. In the instability and chaos created by deliberate American destruction of the instruments of government, al-Sadr acted. He sent his followers into the streets to supply residents with food and with water. He sent his militia onto the Baghdad streets to maintain a modicum of social order and security for the populace all the while denouncing the United States invaders in general and the Coalition Provisional Authority (C.P.A.) in particular. Nor was these operations confined to such parts of the capital as Sadr city, Al Shula, and Kadhimiya, similar operations were conducted in, Kut, Amara, Nasiriyah, East Baghdad, Karbala, Kufa, Najaf, Basrah, and Samawa to name but a few.

This prompt and effective action particularly in the vast and densely populated Sadr city earned him and his followers considerable kudos amongst the populace and is the basis of the position of power that he retains to this day. By the time the C.P.A. headed by self-styled “terrorism expert” Paul Bremer recognised that he was a threat to their plans for Irak it was already too late.

Their first attempt to rid themselves of al-Sadr failed as miserably, as completely, and as predictably as everything else the Americans have done in Irak. Like the Soviets in Afghanistan the failure sprang from an attempt to impose an alien ideology onto a people at the point of a gun. Following the “Foolish Bremer” editorial Bremer, who is singularly devoid of amour propre sent American troops on March 28, 2004 to shut Al-Hawza down. The pretext Bremer used was that the paper was inciting the population to violence against the invaders.

The next step was to detain one of al-Sadr’s chief lieutenants on an April 2003 murder charge. This was seen both by the Sadrists and the populace at large for what it was. An attempt to punish Al Sadr. He responded by calling for and getting a civil disobedience campaign reasoning that doing so would provoke the Americans to yet further folly. This calculation turned out to be correct. On April 4th Bremer issued a second arrest warrant this time for al-Sadr himself using the same April 2003 murder charge used against his lieutenant as the pretext for al Sadr’s arrest. Al-Sadr and a large part of his militia fortified themselves in Najaf and al Sadr expedited his fulfillment of promises he had made to the fighters resisting the American rape of Fallujah. JAM fighters and supplies streamed west.

The fighting however was not confined to Fallujah and Najaf, JAM forces engaged Badr brigade (SCIRI) and Kurdish peshmerga “Iraki” soldiers throughout Irak. As predicted by those who had seen them in action against determined opposition they performed miserably and were forced to call upon the Americans for support. - A pattern that has remained the case to this day. This open uprising caught the Americans by surprise and proved, if further proof were necessary, that the military defeat of America in Irak was only a matter of time. The Americans backed down. Despite Sanchez’s bluster that al Sadr would be captured or killed the JAM fought the Americans to a standstill and his popularity surged.

Smarting under their defeat the Americans sought another round. In August 2004 hostilities recommenced throughout southern Iraq, JAM fighters engaged invader troops in Basrah, Amara, Nasiriya, Kufa, Karbala, Najaf, and Sadr City. In Najaf pausing only to take his personally signed pair of Bremer’s Booties® from his mouth Colonel Anthony Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf announced to a rapt audience of in bedded embedded western journalists that he was preparing to “root out” Al Sadr once and for all and that the forces under his command were;

“making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started,”

Those whom God would destroy he first permits to afflict themselves hubris and the good Colonel’s words proved as meaningless as every other piece of flagrant propaganda churned out by the truckload by the U.S. military in Irak.

Given the odds against them the JAM performed surprisingly well a function of their willingness to sustain casualties without running away. All the Americans succeeded in doing was in blooding them and increasing their unit cohesion.

markfromireland,
Al Sadriyah,
Baghdad,
Irak