Iraqi and Coalition forces raid one of Sadr’s offices in his Baghdad stonghold
|
|
|
Muqtada al-Sadr. |
The pressure on Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian backed leader of the Mahdi Army responsible for much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad, has been ratcheted up by Iraqi and Coalition forces. Just one day after U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad informed the press that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “has agreed to getting rid of the militias,” Iraqi and Coalition forces strike in the heart of Sadr’s center of power: Sadr city.
The Associated Press reports, based a military press release, that “Iraqi army special forces, backed up by U.S. advisers, carried out a raid to capture a ‘top illegal armed group commander directing widespread death squad activity throughout eastern Baghdad…’ Iraqi forces were fired upon and requested backup from U.S. aircraft, which used ‘precision gunfire only to eliminate the enemy threat.'”
|
|
|
Map of Baghdad. Note that Thawra is now Sadr City.Click to view. |
Al-Iraqia television reports “a booby-trapped motorcycle, weapons and explosives were found during the raid.” An Iraqi police colonel states four were killed and 18 wounded during the raid, while Reuters puts the number killed at 5. There is no word if the Sadr commander has been captured. Expect Sadr to run a public relations offensive, using the deaths to his advantage, as he has done in the past after raids on his offices in Baghdad.
The raid in Sadr follows yesterday’s raids on Sadr offices in the city of Hillah, as well as recent fighting in Amara and regular operations against Sadr’s forces in Diwaniyah and elsewhere in southern Iraq. The U.S. is continuing its policy of forcing Sadr to a decision point: disband the militia and enter the policy process as a legitmate actor, or battle it out openly against the elected government of Iraq and Coalition and Iraqi forces.
27 Comments
Decision Point
Last week US and Iraqi forces scored big when they captured a leader in the religionist crime organization run by Iran-backed cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The next day, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose political support depends on Sadr supporters ordere…
This also aids the SCIRI, which in turn hurts the Da’wa party and Maliki, ironically enough. There seems to be very little focus on the SCIRI’s Badr Organization and much on Sadr’s forces, suggesting that the SCIRI’s militia may continue onward as a partisan force from within the governmental establishment. Suppression of Sadrist political power would be unavoidable at that point. Da’wa, minus Sadrist support, would then most likely lose its hold on the premiership. Then again, any coalitional government that requires the support of Muqtada al-Sadr to stay afloat is probably one that needs massive re-working.
Bill, I recommend reading Amir Taheri whenever you are able. He’s from Iran and knows the Middle East. His latest article, http://www.nypost.com/seven/10252006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_west_may_save_irans_prez_opedcolumnists_amir_taheri.htm?page=0,
implicates Iran in much of the escalation of violence in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).
Both of yesterday’s briefs were odd.
– Both pointed hard at Iran and Syria.
– Both pushed the US agressive agenda vice PM Maliki’s political.
– Both pushed US strength.
– Both avoided details and Gen Pace was saying:
“If and when we go to Sadr City, you’ll see it.”
At the same time as a raid was going down in Sadr City…
I think that they were ment to:
– Put the blame of AQ and Mahdi on foreigners (Iraq is Nationalistic and Arabs do not like Persians).
– Put the blame for the sudden escalation against the hold outs and Mahdi Army on the “Bad Cop”. Maliki has to live there. He needs an out. That he can’t do anything about these mad Americans is it.
– Remind the other trouble makers that the US does not have that much actually committed. That we can take them out if they act up.
We are going hardball on Mahdi and those elements that have not done a deal.
This was the real announcement.
It concerns me a great deal that al-Maliki is now backing off his comment of getting rid of the militias and saying he was not consulted about the raid.
———————–
U.S. and Iraqi forces on Wednesday raided Sadr City, the stronghold of the Shiite militia led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disavowed the operation, saying he had not been consulted and insisting “that it will not be repeated.”
The defiant al-Maliki also slammed the top U.S. military and diplomatic representatives in Iraq for their Tuesday news conference, at which they said Iraq needed to set a timetable to curb violence ravaging the country. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said al-Maliki had agreed.
“I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it,” al-Maliki said at a news conference.
The prime minister dismissed U.S. talk of timelines as driven by the upcoming midterm elections in the United States.
“I am sure that this is not the official policy of the U.S. government, but it is a result of the election campaign and we are not much concerned with that,” the prime minister said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces raid Shiite militia stronghold
The pressure on Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian backed leader of the Mahdi Army responsible for much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad, has been ratcheted up by Iraqi and Coalition forces.
This phrasing is just wishful thinking. Sadr is a towering political figure among Iraqi Shiites: they give him an 80% approval rating. He doesn’t particularly mind minor skirmishes with American forces. They barely scratch his standing in his vast base, and they make the US look very bad to that same base. The invasion of Iraq has created a monster and he is getting stronger by the day. He will be worse in many ways than Saddam Hussein.
If Sadr were assassinated, Iraqi Shiites would respond to it about as well as Americans would if French troops assassinated Rush Limbaugh and Billy Graham both. He is untouchable.
It is no surprise that Maliki has defiantly contradicted his pledge to crack down on militias. He is just humoring the United States because he has to. Sadr and Hakim are his real allies.
Sadr’s a combination of Rush and Billy Graham? That’s downright comical. We should have killed, oops, assassinated Mookie a looong time ago. Hopefully he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time this go ’round, and Iraqi forces get to administer the coup de grace.
Sadr’s a combination of Rush and Billy Graham? That’s downright comical.
That is exactly how most Iraq Shiites think of him. He is their Rush Limbaugh, and their Billy Graham, and their Tom DeLay, all rolled into one. Unlike our Tom DeLay, there is no court to pull him down.
It may seem like a nice idea to rub him out, but if the United States did that, it would make permanent enemies out of most of the Shiite population. Sadr’s religious heritage would be reason enough for them to erupt in fury, but it’s not just that. It’s also that we promised Iraqi Shiites democracy, and Sadr is one of their choices. He controls 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament. We would destroy our credibility across the Middle East if our version of democracy ends with, “Blam! Choose again.”
After reading some more it appears that Maliki is afraid of Sadr.
He certainly is. And it’s not just that Maliki is afraid of Sadr, and Hakim too. He also owes them, and he agrees with them.
Jim Harris,
You have your warning. Lay off the idiotic political comparisons. Graham, Delay or Rush haven’t sent in death squads anywhere. Continue on your path and you’re no longer welcomed here. I just reopened the comments section, don’t force me to moderate again. Read the Comments Policy.
When Sadr and his guys were holed up in Najaf two years ago, there was no great uprising for him (and disgust with him when he left). He is popular now, true, but kill him and the organization will whither. We never should have backed off in 2004.
SCIRI are bad, but they have shown more of an ability to keep deals they make. Sadr has reneged several times, the worst being in June. We’ll get no piece from the Sunni, until we reign in Sadr at a minimum). It appears that there is only one way to reign him in. Assasination.
Graham, Delay or Rush haven’t sent in death squads anywhere.
You’re missing my point. It’s not that I would put any of these people in the same category as Moqtada al-Sadr. I think that Sadr is a horrible mass murderer and I don’t think any such thing about these Americans. All I’m trying to do is explain how and why Sadr is popular among Iraqi Shiites. Which he is: there was a poll of Iraqis organized by PIPA that found that he had an 81% approval rating.
It is true that Delay and Rush are divisive figures and may make for an awkard comparison. My point was that these men both have a huge following which would be inflamed if the “leaders” were removed, especially if it were done by foreign agents. Graham is not even all that divisive. My only point about him is that Sadr has the same sort of religious stature among Iraqi Shiites as Graham does among American evalengical Christians.
If you want a more complete political comparison, here is one. Sadr is like Billy Graham to the Iraqi Shiites, and he is also their Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest founded the Ku Klux Klan, which also had death squads. Most Iraqi Shiites think of the Mahdi Army in the same way that many Southerners considered the Klan in Forrest’s time: It isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary for security and even justice.
Comparisons aside, Sadr is popular, and he has also been elected through proxies. We’re in no position to tell Iraqis that we’re all in favor of their democracy, but not if they support a really bad person like Moqtada al-Sadr.
Jim Harris,
And you’re missing my point. As soon as you compare radical Islamists like Sadr to American political figures, you’re going to cause the comments to devolve into partisan attacks that are not welcomed here.
End it or move on. I won’t warn you again.
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6801&Itemid=21
Follow up.
Trying to draw dubious comparisons between conservative Christians and Islamists is useless, and I must complain almost always dishonest. For starters, those that try making such comparisons almost always have some axe to grind against the fundamentalist Christian community.
It would be nice to get an understanding of either on their own merits. Unfortunately, it seems that neither group is understood particularly well. Getting a look into the minds and society of the Islamists is difficult. The way the Islamists think and act is so utterly alien to us that preconceptions are almost useless. I like calling it an alien landscape of the mind. Unfortunately, honest scholarship about the conservative Christian community is also difficult to come by. I have long ago come to the conclusion that the media and academic community would rather view the conservative Christian community solely as an adversary, in place of gaining any sort of honest understanding about what they actually do think and why. This is really not the venue to argue in depth about such things. It should be stated though that first, they are not fundamentally a movement that stands as a rejection of the modern world. That stands in contrast to the Islamist movement, which has as part of it’s core belief system a thorough rejection of the modern western world. The Christian right has just as much invested in the modern secular world and political system as anyone else. Their understanding of what should be at the core of the such system is very different than other parts of the political spectrum though, and is often much at odds with other parts of society.
Dislike the conservative Christian community as much as you want. I might even agree with some of the criticism. Don’t think we don’t recognize a straw man argument when we see it though.
I maybe wrong but I get a sense that the Americans and IA do know whose doing most of the deathsquad stuff. They just need the all clear to go after them.
Others have dealt with the Sadr = Limbaugh comments I would also add that I think it is an insult to Shia Iraqi’s to say Sadr is wonderfully popular with all of them. He got 30 seats not a 150 and probably a fair bit of intimidation went with getting those 30.
I find reading Maliki at the moment very hard. Face value it seems like he is caving in but as I think Soldiers Dad pointed out in comments on his site this may well be an attempt to show he is ultimately in control but US patience running out and Sadr needs to come to Maliki now and deal with Maliki because the alternative is an American bullet.
I also wonder if Sadr was shot today for arguments sake if it would be such a bad thing. There would no doubt be a backlash for awhile but the Mahdi Army would be rudderless and the green light for chasing them all down could then be given especially if they struck back.
How much of the deaths in Iraq are down to him? We have the direct deaths from Mahdi Army deathsquads second we have the backlash deaths from Sunni insurgents as a result to that and further still how many Sunni Insurgent groups would at least agree to a ceasefire if he was killed or disarmed. If you ananlyse the deaths in Iraq particularly Baghdad the overwhelming majority are currently death squad executions.
Remove Sadr and I’d say you would at least halve the casualty rate in Iraq and finally be in a position to achieve a genuine ceasefire with most Sunni groups who would probably then also assist with rounding up AQ as well.
All roads lead to Sadr.
Sadr is an Iranian proxie. His power is tied to the money, weapons and support they provide for him. That implies that if we take him down then the Iranians will just appoint someone else and build them up. But I argue that is a risk we will have to take. No doubt there will be backlash, but this guy has got to go. It should have been done in 04.
I think it is an insult to Shia Iraqi’s to say Sadr is wonderfully popular with all of them.
I never said “all”. I said that his approval rating is 80% among Iraqi Shiites. Whether or not it is an insult, it is a documented poll result. The poll report is here.
I also wonder if Sadr was shot today for arguments sake if it would be such a bad thing. There would no doubt be a backlash for awhile but the Mahdi Army would be rudderless and the green light for chasing them all down could then be given especially if they struck back.
Israel pursued this approach for a long time with Hamas. They repeatedly decapitated Hamas, the most important incidients being the assassinations of Hamas’ spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin and Hamas’ political leader Abdel al-Rantissi. The result of it was that the next time the Palestinians held elections, Hamas won outright.
Now, I do not mean to go off onto the tangent of loaded analogies. (I’ve been asked not to.) But put yourself in the position of learning about the assassination of a political leader that you support. Even more so, a religious leader. It just doesn’t work as a method to change your mind. It works a lot better as a way to get you to hate the assassin.
You shouldn’t think that the concept of Shiite death squads just springs from Sadr. One illustration is that his death squads compete with rival death squads set up by his big rival Abdul al-Hakim. Hakim controls a party (and an associated militia) called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Another commenter here said that they keep their word. That may well be true — but it’s not a good thing. In fact, SCIRI has big connections to Iran going back many years. They are at least as pro-Iranian as Sadr’s militia.
As long as the War on Terror is fought with kid gloves, we’re likely to see much slower progress and more deaths.
Coalition forces need to start threatening to bury DNA identified suicide bombers and sectarian fighters with pig corpses. Swine is a great offense to Muslims, to die near one sends their soul straight to hell. No 72 virgins, just eternal oblivion.
If they protest, let them. They’re not likely to try anything given the incredible value they place on their souls and the sheer direness of the penalty. And if they do, more aren’t very likely to follow.
Removing the whole eternal bliss salvation motivation and instead replacing it with the complete opposite option will finally put some fear back into a clearly fearless force.
Politically incorrect, yes….blatantly. Would it calm down an unruly population where the majority live in constant fear of a wacked out minority? Most likely.
At some point, we need to stop our coddling and apologizing to a group of thugs that have a long way to go before they’re even worth an apology.
This rampant self-destructive jihadist ilk, only understands dire threats and consequences, not half measures and retreats.
And that goes for all of the Middle East’s trouble makers. You think Assad, Amedinajeed, Al-Sadr, Nasrallah, Zawahiri, & OBL will be so reveared when his followers find out they just went from having 72 virgins to some empty dungeon for all of eternity?
No way! They’ll be more furious than the workers at Enron when they found out Kenneth Lay had raided the pension fund!
Case in point, you need look no further than here in the US where people soured on the Iraq invasion as soon as the body bags started piling up.
This is the Plan B or should I say “Plan BBQ” that’s needed to take the wind out of the oppositions sails and finally start calming them down.
The US beat the soviets in Afghanistan by copying the Russians tactics in Vietnam, not by sticking to the typical American Military tactics up until that point.
You’re in an asymmetrical war, which means you need to start breaking out some asymmetrical tactics!
And probably the best one to make an example of with this new policy would be Saddam, himself. He’s the least likely of all the icons of Iraq to garner an 80% approval rating.
He was found guilty back in August, and pressure should be asserted following a conviction of his second trial he’s undergoing to send this guy packing to the next life.
Do what you want. I know that if something goes down near me, I’ll be heading to the nearest BBQ joint to stock up on “good bye presents” to lay down next to whatever pieces of suicide bomber are still left on the pavement.
A better comparison for Sadr might be Hezbollah. They have their own support base in Lebanon. It’s nowhere near the majority of the country but it’s still significant. Sadr is a major powerbroker in the Shiite community, especially the Shiite slums. They hold 30 of the 275 seats which is a little more than 10%. I still doubt he is supported by more than 15-20% of the popular which amounts to about 1/4 to 1/3 of Shiites.
I think Bill and the US military has it right.
Ignore Sadr himself. Just take out any and all of his armed militia commanders and fighters. Leave him to stand alone with no military support on his own. I suspect he’ll be much more conciliatory when/if he has no guns to back up his rhetoric.
A better comparison for Sadr might be Hezbollah. They have their own support base in Lebanon.
That’s certainly another point of comparison. The lesson here is that Hezbollah was a lot more popular when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 than when it invaded in 1982. (In fact, it didn’t even exist in 1982. The Shiites greeted the Israelis as liberators.) They stayed the course for 18 years, with the result that they had radicalized the Shiite population of South Lebanon. Arabs have never responded positively to foreign invasion.
I still doubt he is supported by more than 15-20% of the popular which amounts to about 1/4 to 1/3 of Shiites.
Even if he isn’t the first one that most of them voted for, that doesn’t mean that they don’t like him. The message from most of the Shiites in this poll was “yes” to the entire slate of Shiite fundamentalists. Some of them like Sadr a bit better, some of them Hakim, some of them someone else. But they are not choosing between completely different things; they are choosing between Coke, Coke Classic, Vanilla Coke, and Cherry Coke.
Then stay to defend and protect that border?
The Iran-Iraq border is 1000 miles long. Millions of Shiite pilgrims cross it every year in order to observe the great Shiite holidays. Saddam Hussein did not allow this traffic when he was in power, but after he was overthrown, Iraqi Shiites were ecstatic that they could finally engage in their most important rituals.
Iran has really got a foothold on Iraq and in order to crush them we have to plug the hole where the support is coming from.
What you are suggesting here includes suspending the Iraqi parliament.
Sounds like [Dawa] has crossed to their side.
He crossed to their side 35 years ago. He joined a radical Shiite party, Dawa, in the late 1960’s.
If that is true, then we are in worse trouble than we were at the start.
We are indeed in worse trouble than when we started.
Maybe they can get Sistani to go there and have several meetings with the people to persuade them that Sadr is using them for evil purposes and the persians want to take arab land!
One problem is that Sistani himself is Persian-Iranian. Sadr is Arab, although I am told that he speaks Arabic with a Persian accent. Another problem is that Sistani is 76 years old; Sadr is 33.
Bill,
What is your perspective on this. Muqtada al-Sadr is our strategic ally on most important matters. He is a fierce and implacable enemy of Al-Qaida, and salafi/wahabi/takfiri extremists of all sorts. He is also a ferocious enemy of Baathists.
Granted he is closely aligned with some powerful Iranian factions (and not all that close with others that back SCIRI/Badr), and isn’t fond of Sunni Arabs inside or outside Iraq, or nice to Kurds. He isn’t exactly running his five Iraqi ministries with amazing competence . . . and the health care and education of most Iraqis is suffering for it.
However, he DOES have considerable support among Iraqi Shia (hardcore support of maybe 1/3 of the Shia and 23% of the general population).
Shouldn’t we try to cooperate with him to fight our common enemies. We should offer billions of dollars in additional grants to Iraq’s education and health ministries that he controls in return for collaboration againsts Takfiris, Baathists and his quiet acquiescence to letting the Iraqi army take out the extremists in the Mahdi army that he can’t reign in.
Muqtada al-Sadr only turned on America after Bremer/Sergio Vieira de Mello/State Department/CIA blocked him from joining the Iraqi governing council in a ploy to weaken his ally Ahmed Chalabi (whom they hated.)
This seems to me to be the best solution to a very difficult situation.
Bill, am I missing something here? Not that I would vote for Muqtada if I were an Iraqi.
Eagerly awaiting your response.
Unfortunately, the stage for the present Shiite vs. Sunni clashes was set in the period since the spring of 2005. If you recall before that AQ tactics were primarily set against first Police and Army units, and second Sunni’s that were seen a collaborating with the Occupation authorities. The tactics were half successful. AQ did manage to cut way back on Sunni collaboration. Much of the Sunni population that worked with the collaboration was forced to quit their jobs and cut all contact with the government. Any Sunni’s with any sympathy for the new government were targeted. However, they totally failed to stop Shiite recruitment into Army and Police units. Repeated attacks made little lasting impact on recruitment.
In March of 2005 AQ tactics switched to targeting Shiite civilian targets on a mass scale. Daily they targeted wherever Shiites gathered in great numbers, at markets, gas stations, restaurants, queue lines, and finally at Shiite Mosques. Prior to this there had been limited outright targeting of the general Shiite population in the primary AQ operational areas along the Euphrates especially Fallujah and Rammadi, and also immediately south of Baghdad in the triangle of death. AQ at that time had been far more concerned with keeping the local Sunni population in line behind them. Even at that Sunni collaboration had been quite extensive.
In the 18 months since the beginning of the huge March 2005 bombing campaign the large scale targeting civilians has put a huge amount of pressure on the Shiite population. The security of Shiite populations became a top priority. Unfortunately, Sunni’s in there midst were now a security liability. Local militia increasingly reacted by driving Sunni minorities out of Shiite dominated areas. This trend was fairly slow until a year later in the aftermath of the March 2006 Shrine bombing. Already difficult to contain Shiite Militias went on a rampage through Sunni neighborhoods, Sadr’s Mahidi Army being the worst offenders. In response Sunni neighborhoods quickly barricaded themselves and quickly put up informal neighborhood defenders. Unfortunately, these informal neighborhood defenders where almost instantaneous marks for more formally tied AQ groups. The defenders were often full of teenagers and young adults many of them already very sympathetic to AQ and the resistance. Whatever purpose of neighborhood defense they originally had they were fruitful marks for almost instantaneous takeover by AQ. AQ now had it’s a whole Baghdad resistance structure reborn and multiplied. The Shrine bombing was no coincidence. It was calculated. AQ had pulled its forces in from the provinces in the previous winter months for the opportunity of a general Baghdad offensive.
Unfortunately, US forces were on their previous schedule of gradual withdrawal to satisfy political pressure from the home front. US forces did make great strides quelling the level of violence in the greatest priority area south of Baghdad, but did not have high enough troop levels to address problems in Baghdad proper area and to the north. It didn’t really impress US forces that the situation on the ground in Baghdad had deteriorated drastically. They failed to recognize that the situation within Baghdad had changed fundamentally, pitting whole neighborhoods against each other. They delayed increasing troop strength for months making the situation worse. That’s where we find ourselves now, trying to clean up a colossal setback.
That’s my basic synopsis of how we got to the present stage of the war.
Jim Harris
“”A better comparison for Sadr might be Hezbollah. They have their own support base in Lebanon.”
“Even if he isn’t the first one that most of them voted for, that doesn’t mean that they don’t like him. The message from most of the Shiites in this poll was “yes” to the entire slate of Shiite fundamentalists. Some of them like Sadr a bit better, some of them Hakim, some of them someone else. But they are not choosing between completely different things; they are choosing between Coke, Coke Classic, Vanilla Coke, and Cherry Coke.”
Jim Harris:
You wrote: “Israel pursued this approach for a long time with Hamas. They repeatedly decapitated Hamas, the most important incidents being the assassinations of Hamas’ spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin and Hamas’ political leader Abdel al-Rantissi. The result of it was that the next time the Palestinians held elections, Hamas won outright.”
That was not the result of the killing of the leaders. The result of the killing of the Hamas leaders (and the building of the wall) was the abrupt end of the 2nd Intifada. Successful attacks dropped off almost immediately.
Hamas was elected because it is the best known Jew killing organization in the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian populace has been indoctrinated (from cradle to grave) to fight Jews and they have elected the organization that they think will best represent what they believe to be their interests.
Whether killing Sadr would bring about the same results is very hard to judge. The Israeli’s/Palestinian relationship is very different than our US/Iraqi relationship.
It would be best if we could provoke him into doing something that would justify his killing and if that killing could be swiftly carried-out by Iraqi forces.
Into Darth Sadr’s domain – UPDATED
I find your lack of faith disturbingBill Roggio covers the recent action…