After Muqtada, the militias
... By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the United States preoccupied
first with the Sunni resistance in Fallujah and then
with the Shi'ite opposition in Najaf, led by cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr, another, equally significant
development has taken place in the Shi'ite-dominated
south of Iraq.
According to Asia Times Online
contacts in the south, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia
Hezbollah has deeply infiltrated Basra and surrounding
areas, so much so that it virtually runs the province,
with the help of Shi'ite militias, and is committed to
establishing vilayat-e-faqih (rule by the
religious clergy according to the Shi'ite faith).
Most of Iraq's eligible males received military
training under the Ba'ath rule of Saddam Hussein, and
now the Shi'ite militias have equipped them with arms
and ammunition. According to the contacts, much of this
activity is being bankrolled through "welfare funds"
ostensibly given to mosques and shrines by Iranian
intelligence. Also, Iranian Shi'ites are said to be
flooding across the porous border in their thousands,
including Iranian revolutionary guards, who have already
established pockets, especially in Ammarah and Basra.
The former residence of the governor of Basra,
situated in Mohallah (locality) Manawi Basha (popularly
known as Corneesh) near the Sheraton Hotel is now being
used by Iranian intelligence under the cover of the
Sayyed al-Shohada political party. The party is like
many Shi'ite militias and calls itself a branch of the
al-Majlis al-Alla (Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution
in Iraq - SCIR) led by Ayatollah Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
However, the office bearers of the organization are not
known to local Iraqis, and are generally believed to be
Iranian.
However, it is often difficult to
distinguish between Iranians and native Iraqis in
southern Iraq as many Shi'ites, notably from the Dawa
Party, the SCIR and members of Muqtada's Mehdi Army
spent many years in exile in Iran during Saddam's rule.
Given the troubles of the US-led occupation
forces elsewhere, militias in the south have flourished.
This started immediately after the fall of Saddam's
regime last year, when Hezbollah sent hundreds of
volunteers to take over the control of holy shrines in
southern Iraq. Later, Hezbollah leaders helped Iraqi
Shi'ites establish the Iraqi Hezbollah to fight against
foreign forces, with the ultimate goal of establishing
vilayat-e-faqih , in line with Iran's desires.
The Iraqi Hezbollah now has its headquarters
right in the middle of Basra, in the old police
headquarters. The police have offices in a new building
in front of the Shatul Arab waterway. The Iraqi
Hezbollah has also established a powerful branch in
Ammarah.
This combination of Shi'ite militias
(reinforced with Iranians) and Iranian intelligence in
Basra and Ammarah is taking place under the watchful
eyes of the British, who are responsible for security in
the south, but they are reluctant to precipitate a major
clash, so have kept their distance.
These
Iranian supported-militias are one part of the Shi'ite
political puzzle. There are, of course, other key
pieces, notably Muqtada, who if nothing else has earned
himself a reputation for opportunism and
unpredictability.
After vowing to fight to the
"last drop of my blood" in Najaf, Muqtada has called on
his militia to put down their arms and leave the Imam
Ali Shine in Najaf, where their resistance was centered.
This at the behest of the powerful Shi'ite leader Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who favors a more moderate
secular-leaning Iraq to Muqtada's vision of a country
more in line with vilayat-i-faqih.
The
American-backed Iraqi government and Muqtada's
representatives continued talks on the future of his
militia late into Monday night. The focus was a peace
plan for the volatile Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City,
which has a majority Shi'ite population. At the same
time, a spokesman for Muqtada said that the cleric was
developing a "political program".
Getting
Muqtada off the battlefield and into the political
process is only a part of the problem in Iraq. Still
sidelined are many Arab nationalists (former Ba'ath
Party members), tribal chiefs, former Iraqi army top
brass, and last but not least many of the clergy and
prayer leaders at mosques, whether Shi'ite or Sunni.
These people formed the pillars of power under Saddam,
now they have been excluded - the Ba'ath Party was
banned, the army disbanded, etc.
Inevitably a
power vacuum formed, into which stepped people like
Muqtada and Sunni leaders in Fallujah. Interim Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi, who was himself a former Ba'athist
and once a jail mate of Saddam in the 1960s, is acutely
aware of this, and he is known to oppose the ban on the
Ba'ath Party, which has been partly relaxed. But
whether he will have a free hand over his US backers in
"rehabilitating" the former pillars of power is another
matter. The alternative is anarchy in the form of
militias. This is the dilemma the US now faces.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan Bureau
Chief, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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