Doug Lorimer
Since August 5, fierce gunbattles have been fought in the south-central Iraqi city of Najaf between US occupation troops and rebel Iraqi Shiite leader Sayed Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
The heaviest fighting has been around Najaf's 15 square kilometre Wadi Al Salam cemetery, next to the shrine of Imam Ali, the most revered figure to Shiite Muslims and Sadr's headquarters. Mahdi fighters have repulsed repeated attempts by US troops to occupy the cemetery and force the militia fighters out of the shrine.
There have also been renewed skirmishes between US troops and the Madhi militia on the outskirts of Sadr City, Baghdad's huge Shiite slum. On August 10, US commanders declared an indefinite curfew in Sadr City, ordering its 2.5 million people off the streets from 4pm to 8am. However, the August 11 New York Times reported that Western "reporters returning from another day of skirmishes said practically all of Sadr City appeared to be under the effective control of militiamen who hide down side streets and alleys, promising a potential bloodbath in the event of any full-scale challenge from the Americans and Iraq's new security forces".
While the US military says it is attacking Sadr's militia in Najaf jointly with the new Iraqi security forces, "Iraqi officials privately say the role of local personnel is minor at best", the August 11 Seattle Times reported.
The fighting has shattered a series of delicate truces worked out two months ago that ended the Mahdi Army's first uprising. This broke out in April after the US occupation regime banned Sadr's weekly paper. During that period, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, then the top US commander in Iraq, vowed to "capture or kill" Sadr.
But Sadr's popularity among Iraqis — especially the young and the poor — soared, with an opinion poll conducted for the US occupation authority in mid-May showing Sadr enjoyed the support of 68% of Iraqis. Fear that this support would explode into a popular uprising led US commanders to enter into a formal ceasefire agreement in Najaf with the Mahdi Army in early June and to abandon attempts to reoccupy Sadr City.
The renewed attempt by the US military to "capture or kill" Sadr has followed a series of failed attempts during July by the US-appointed Interim Government of Iraq to get Sadr to collaborate with the IGI. Not only has Sadr denounced the IGI as a gang of US stooges, his refusal to participate in a third-day political conference planned for the end of July has undermined the legitimacy of Washington's next steps in installing a politically stable pro-US regime in Iraq.
In a formula devised by the United Nations, the conference — made up of 1000 appointed representatives of favoured religious, political, and tribal groups — was to select a 100-member National Council. The council was to act as a rubber-stamp parliament for the IGI while it prepared a national election in January 2005 for a transitional legislative assembly.
Members and supporters of the old Iraqi Governing Council, appointed by the US occupation authority in mid 2003 — especially the former exiles whose political credibility among Iraqis is almost non-existent — were heavily represented among the conference delegates. Twenty-two of the 100 National Council seats were already spoken for on behalf of former IGC members.
Sadr's denunciation of the conference and the projected National Council as yet another instrument of the US occupation forced the conference's postponement until August 15.
As the US commanders plotted what they have told reporters will an all-out "final" assault in Najaf, Allawi announced on August 10 that he intended to convene the political conference on August 14.
"Allawi thinks that if he crushes these people before the elections, then he will be well-positioned to get elected as a strongman who can lead the country after Saddam", an Iraqi official who asked to remain anonymous, told the August 11 Seattle Times. "The problem is that his enemies could disappear and go underground. Iraq could remain like this for years."
The August 12 Beirut Daily Star reported that in the south-central city of Nasiriya, "thousands of demonstrators enraged by the US military action in Najaf carried posters of Sadr and screamed: "Allawi you coward, you American agent."
"Workers at an oil-pumping station in Nasiriya said they had stopped operations to protest Allawi's backing of the US offensive in Najaf. The station cut supplies of refined products and liquefied natural gas to Baghdad."
Concern that such protest actions could rapidly spread across Iraq if the US military attaks the Imam Ali shrine appears to have led to a split in the puppet regime. "I call for multinational forces to leave Najaf and for only Iraqi forces to remain there", IGI deputy PM Ibrahim Jafari said in remarks broadcast by Aljazeera television on August 11.
From Green Left Weekly, August 18, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.