Gorilla’s Guides

Soldiers surrendering to Mahdi Army…better safe than sorry?

Basra, Apr 15, (VOI) – On the first day of ferocious fighting, namely March 25, a soldier, who settled for mentioning his initials as M.N., surrendered his arms and uniform to fighters from Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias in the area of al-Keziza, 10 km northern Basra.

M.N. deserted his brothers-in-arms totally perplexed with not an ounce of clue about what they should do; staying in their barracks to fight the Mahdi Army militiamen or laying their weapons and go home in peace just like he did?

M.N., a conscript in the Iraqi Army’s 14^th Division formations, did not know that Operation Saulat al-Forsan (Knights’ Assault) was targeting the Mahdi Army in specific.

“I believed that our mission was to serve the people. I surrendered because I did not want to fight our brothers. They’re Shiites like us, not Israelis,” he said.

The 28-year-old M.N. was one of 1,300 troops and policemen discharged from service upon a government decision. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to have the deserters court-martialed because they failed to “support security forces in their war against the militias.”

“Those people have lied because they swore by the Quran that they would never support their factions or parties but they eventually did just that,” Maliki said.

The Iraqi premier was speaking of clashes that erupted during the last week of March between government troops and gunmen who belonged to the Mahdi Army. The confrontations started in the oil-rich port city of Basra, 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad after Operation Saulat al-Forsan was launched.

The fighting, which later extended to Baghdad and southern Iraq provinces, ended only after Sadr ordered his militiamen off the streets and pledged to “disown” any one of his men carrying arms against government forces.

Maj. General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, the Iraqi interior ministry’s operations room commander, said the motive behind the government’s decision to discharge 1,300 soldiers and policemen was “their failure to fulfill the tasks they were assigned to in the face of the militias and gunmen.”

“Some 921 policemen and army soldiers were discharged in Basra, including 37 officers of high ranks starting from major up to brigadier, while others were discharged in Kut,” capital of Wassit province, Khalaf told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

The New York Times newspaper had quoted in early April Iraqi military officials as saying that more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen balked at fighting, or simply left their posts during the course of attacks on the Mahdi Army militiamen. The deserters included dozens of officers as well as at least two senior field commanders.

According to the testimonies of some soldiers and officers, the capitulation intensified on the first day of battles. An officer of the 9^th Division, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “After clashes that continued for hours between us and the Mahdi Army militiamen, I became positive that I could not go on fighting.”

“I found out that it was a lost unequal battle. The Mahdi armament was much stronger than the Iraqi army’s. We had no heavy mortars while the Mahdi fighters had mortars of all calibers, not to mention the improvised explosive devices they planted everywhere,” the 35-year-old officer told VOI.

The Mahdi Army, the military wing of the Sadrist bloc, was founded in mid-July, 2003. Its key structure relies on the followers and students of Muqtada’s father, the Shiite Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, whose assassination in the holy city of Najaf in 1999 was blamed on the former regime’s intelligence agencies.

The Mahdi Army had entered into two wide-scale battles with the U.S. army and government forces during the months of April and August 2004.
Its leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a freeze on its activities in late August 2007 for a period of six months and then renewed it for six months more as of February 2008.

The surrendering was not on an individual basis. It took place by groups.

A 14^th Division soldier who introduced himself as T, the first letter of his first name, and who served at the Military Hospital, told VOI, “I could not fight. I put on my civvies with other comrades. We laid down our weapons and surrendered. I and 30 others later stayed inside a house for three days and then we were set free.”

A Mahdi Army official who asked not to have his name mentioned told VOI, “Those who gave themselves up have either opted for safety when the fighting grew fierce or believed they were fighting a lost war.”

“The Mahdi Army has released those who surrendered voluntarily or against their will, and even gave them back their arms lest they should be held accountable,” he said.

A police official, however, told VOI, “Some 421 policemen from Basra, including 37 officers, were discharged from service, while 150 officers were sent to Baghdad for rehabilitations purposes,” noting “those were originally incorporated into the police through the merging of some militias and parties.”

Aswat Aliraq