An Iraqi reporter acclaimed as a hero across much of the Middle East after he threw his shoes at President Bush was sentenced in Baghdad to three years in prison yesterday.
And contrast:
Premier Wen Jiabao has asked Cambridge University to forgive the student who threw a shoe at him during his speech there this month, the Chinese ambassador to the UK said on Saturday.
WASHINGTON, May 23 (IPS) – Nationalist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s bid to unite Sunnis and Shiites on the basis of a common demand for withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces, reported last weekend by the Washington Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan, seems likely to get a positive response from Sunni armed resistance. An account given Pentagon officials by a military officer recently returned from Iraq suggests that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, who have generally reflected the views of the Sunni armed resistance there, are open to working with Sadr.
According to Raghavan’s report on May 20, talks between Sadr’s representatives and Sunni leaders, including leaders of Sunni armed resistance factions, first began in April. A commander of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Abu Aja Naemi, confirmed to Raghavan that his organisation had been in discussions with Sadr’s representatives.
Sadr’s aides say he was encouraged to launch the new cross-sectarian initiative by the increasingly violent opposition from nationalist Sunni insurgents to the jihadists aligned with al Qaeda. One of his top aides, Ahmed Shaibani, recalled that the George W. Bush administration was arguing that a timetable was unacceptable because of the danger of al Qaeda taking advantage of a withdrawal. Shaibani told Raghavan that sectarian peace could be advanced if both Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgent groups could unite to weaken al Qaeda.
Raghavan reports that the cross-sectarian united front strategy was facilitated by the fact that Shaibani had befriended members of Sunni nationalist insurgent groups while he was held in U.S. detention centres from 2004 through 2006. Now Shaibani, who heads a “reconciliation committee” for Sadr, is well positioned to gain the trust of those Sunni organisations.
The talks with Sunni resistance leaders have been coordinated with a series of other moves by Sadr since early February. Although many members of Sadr’s Mahdi Army have been involved in sectarian killings and intimidation of Sunnis in Baghdad, Sadr has taken what appears to be a decisive step to break with those in his movement who have been linked to sectarian violence. Over the past three months, he has expelled at least 600 men from the Mahdi Army who were accused of murder and other violations of Sadr’s policy, according to Raghavan.
The massive demonstration against the occupation mounted in Najaf by Sadr’s organisation on Apr. 9, which Iraqi and foreign observers estimated at tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, was apparently timed to coincide with his initiative in opening talks with the Sunnis.
The demonstration not only showed that Sadr could mobilise crowds comparable to the largest ever seen in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, but also made clear Sadr’s commitment to transcending sectarian interests. The demonstrators carried Iraqi flags instead of pictures of Sadr or other Shiite symbols. It also included a small contingent of members of the Sunni-based Islamic Party of Iraq.
Sadr’s decision in mid-April to pull his representatives out of the al-Maliki government also appears to have been aimed in part at clearing the way for an agreement with the Sunni insurgents. Leaders of those organisations have said they would not accept the U.S.-sponsored government in any peace negotiations with the United States.
U.S. officials have been quietly trying to counter Sadr’s approach to the Sunni insurgents by discrediting him. Sadr went underground in February, fearing an attempt by U.S. forces to capture or kill him, and the U.S. official line on Sadr since then has been the persistent claim that he has left Iraq to take refuge in Iran. That appears to be an attempt to feed into Sunni suspicions of all Shiite leaders as agents of Iran.
Sadr’s aides have repeatedly denied that Sadr has left the country. The speed with which Sadr’s strategy has unfolded in recent months suggests that he has remained in close contact with his organisation. Relying on electronic communication with Sadr outside Iraq would be highly risky, given the well-known capability of U.S. intelligence to intercept any such calls.
U.S. officials have long argued that an early withdrawal of U.S. forces would leave Sunnis vulnerable to the Shiite security forces and militias. Media reporting in recent months has portrayed Sunni leaders as not wanting a U.S. military withdrawal any time soon, because of their fear of Shiite repression in the absence of the U.S. troop presence.
But a Navy Seal special operations officer recently returned from eight months in Anbar province, who discussed the situation there with high-ranking Pentagon officials at the end of April, suggests that that the views of Sunni leaders are quite compatible with those of Sadr. A source familiar with the officer’s account said the Sunni Sheiks in Anbar have been telling U.S. commanders that the United States must withdraw its troops, and that the Sunnis know how to handle both al Qaeda and the Shiites.
The officer also reported that Sunni tribal sheiks have explicitly disavowed the notion that Sadr is a pawn of the Iranians, insisting instead that he doesn’t like either Iran or the newly-renamed Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, which was created in Iran and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The sheiks have warned their U.S. military contacts against aggressive military actions against Sadr’s followers in Sadr City during the troop surge, according to the account given by the special ops officer. They said Sadr hopes such provocative United States actions will ultimately result in a new Shiite resistance war against U.S. forces, and they urge swift withdrawal to avoid that outcome.
Sadr’s project for a Sunni-Shiite united front against both al Qaeda and U.S. occupation offers a potential basis for an eventual settlement of the sectarian civil war in Iraq as well as for U.S. withdrawal. But it could also be the basis for a new and more deadly phase of fighting if Sadr returns once more to military resistance.
Technorati Tags: Middle East, Iraq, Anbar, Moqtada al-Sadr
The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has reappeared before thousands of supporters for the first time in months to call for American troops to end the occupation of Iraq.
In an impassioned sermon to 6,000 worshippers in a mosque in the holy city of Kufa al-Sadr, wearing a white martyr’s cloak thrown over his dark robes, he cried: “No, no to Satan! No, no to America! No, no to the occupation! No, no to Israel!”
He had appeared earlier in the morning in the nearby shrine city of Najaf to travel in a long motorcade to Kufa to deliver the Friday sermon.
Mr Sadr, leader of a powerful Shia political movement and the much-feared Mehdi Army militia, disappeared some four months ago, evidently fearing that he would be targeted by the US. But he stood down his militiamen as the US Army introduced a security plan for Baghdad and avoided an all-out confrontation with the US.
In his sermon yesterday he forcefully demanded an end to the US-led occupation and offered reconciliation to Sunni Arabs. The Sadrist movement, founded by Muqtada’s murdered father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, in the 1990s, has always been nationalist but the Mehdi Army is hated by many Sunnis for its death squads and sectarian cleansing.
Surrounded by guards and aides in Kufa al-Sadr, Mr Sadr declared: “I renew my demand for the occupiers to leave or draw up a timetable for withdrawal, and I ask the government not to let the occupiers extend the occupation even for one day.” He has removed six Sadrist ministers from the government, citing its failure to set a timetable for American departure.
Mr Sadr’s demand for an end to the occupation is likely to resonate in Iraq where the Sunni community has favoured this since the invasion of 2003 and the majority Shia community has increasingly wanted a timetable for a withdrawal, according to opinion polls. The Sadrists have been meeting with anti-al-Qa’ida Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar to discuss forming a common front. Sectarian suspicions between Shia and Sunni are so deep and bitter, however, that differences will be difficult to bridge.
There has been escalating intra-Shia fighting in southern Iraq over the past two months with skirmishes in all the main Shia cities. Often the police and security forces are simply militiamen in uniform.
Yesterday, Mr Sadr condemned fighting between the Mehdi Army and Iraqi security forces, saying that this served “the interests of the occupiers”. He said that he preferred peaceful protests and sit-ins.
In an attempt to refurbish his reputation as a non-sectarian nationalist, Mr Sadr said he was ready to co-operate with Sunnis “on all issues”. He added: “I am completely ready to defend them [Sunnis and Christians] and be their armour against their enemies.”
Mr Sadr has been out of Iraq in Iran and Lebanon according to one of his aides, abandoning the Sadrist claim that he never left Iraq. He seems to have returned about a week ago, at which time Iraqis talking to Sadrist leaders noticed that they seemed to be able to reach him rapidly by phone on landlines, though there are no landlines to Iran.
His return now is probably explained by the damage his prolonged absence was doing to his movement. It is very dependent on the cult-like devotion felt towards the 33-year-old Mr Sadr by millions of poor and devout Shias.
Previously unheard of by the outside world, he emerged as a surprisingly powerful leader in 2003 at the time of the fall of Saddam Hussein. He inherited much of the authority of his father, who was assassinated with two of his sons by Saddam Hussein’s agents in Najaf in 1999.The Sadrist movement’s blend of Islam, Iraqi nationalism and populism has proved highly attractive to Shia, particularly those who are very poor. The US tried and failed to eliminate Mr Sadr in two armed confrontations in April and August 2004. The Sadrist movement survived and went on to do well in the parliamentary elections of 2005, gaining 32 seats in the 275-member national assembly and six ministerial posts.
A further reason for Mr Sadr’s return now is the growing competition between his supporters and those of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) led by the ailing Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. SIIC, formed under Iranian auspices in Tehran in 1982, has been trying with some success to rid itself of the imputation that it is subservient to Iran.
The Sadrists, by contrast, were traditionally hostile to Iran but under US pressure have increasingly come to depend on Tehran’s support.
The Sadrists and SIIC are the main components of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia front supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the religious hierarchy or Marjai’iyyah. Much though they dislike each other, they will be under pressure from the grand ayatollah not to divide the Shia community.
Technorati Tags: Middle East, Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr
Click either of the buttons below to subscribe to this blog's feed.
Bad Behavior has blocked 170 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Recent Comments