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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iran backing Sadr's power bid |
| 2004-04-07 |
| Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi Shi'ite cleric who ordered his fanatical militia to attack coalition troops, is being supported by Iran and its terror surrogate Hezbollah, according to military sources with access to recent intelligence reports. Sheik al-Sadr's bid to spark a widespread uprising in Iraq comes at a particularly pivotal time. The United States is conducting a massive troop rotation that leaves inexperienced troops in some locations, including Fallujah, which is west of Baghdad and where Sunnis have mounted another series of rebellions. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he will consider more U.S. forces for Iraq if his top commander there, Gen. John Abizaid, requests them. There are about 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and the force strength is scheduled to shrink by 15,000 once the rotation is completed. "The commanders are using the excess of forces that happen to be in there because of the deployment process," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "They will decide what they need, and they will get what they need." Sheik al-Sadr, who has traveled to Iran and met with its hard-line Shi'ite clerics, is an ardent foe of the United States who wants all foreign troops to leave. The United States suspects that his goal is to create a hard-line Shi'ite regime in Iraq modeled after Tehran's government. Military sources said Sheik al-Sadr is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which plays a large role in running that country, and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon. One of the sources said these two organizations are supplying the cleric with money, spiritual support and possibly weapons. "Iran does not want a success in Iraq," the source said. "A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the mullahs." Sheik al-Sadr upped the ante during the weekend by calling for his 3,000-strong militia, the Army of the Mahdi, to begin attacking coalition forces. His fiery words touched off attacks throughout southern Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad announced on Monday that an Iraqi judge months ago had issued an arrest warrant for Sheik al-Sadr on a charge of murdering a moderate Shi'ite cleric. The question for U.S. commanders is how to arrest Sheik al-Sadr without further enraging his small but violent group of followers. "Let the Iraqis kill him," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney. "We should not kill him, but we may have to. He's trying to create an uprising. This is their Tet offensive. We're going to kill a lot of them just like we did at Tet." John Hillen, a former Army captain who fought in Operation Desert Storm during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said the first step should be to try to discredit the cleric, using the condemnation of moderate Shi'ite leaders, before arresting him. "You need to defuse the situation," Mr. Hillen said. "You need to make it Iraqi versus Iraqi. You've got to discredit him by his own people and find legitimate sources on our side. Make this as much a Shi'ite-to-Shi'ite issue as opposed to the Americans versus Sadr." The U.S. military is trying new tactics to try to quell insurgents in Fallujah, avoiding time-consuming house-to-house sweeps in favor of targeted raids based on hard intelligence. When the 82nd Airborne Division first tried to subdue Fallujah in the summer, units went block by block to locate insurgents. Now, in the second intense battle for the city of Saddam Hussein loyalists, intelligence collection has improved and U.S. Marines can target specific dwellings. "The plan is not to go house to house, street to street. We are trying to get insurgents," Capt. Ed Sullivan told Agence France-Presse. Mr. Hillen said such precision operations mean that the Marines are getting good intelligence. "If you have good intelligence beforehand, which is the key to the whole Fallujah-type operations, you can at the same time be precise and overwhelming. We've been in and around Fallujah for quite some time, and I'm sure we have some pretty good intelligence sources there." "They have photographs of a good many people who were involved in the attacks against the individuals, and they have been conducting raids in the city against high-value targets," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "They've captured a number of people over the past 36 hours. The city is isolated. A number of people have resisted and been killed. And it will be a methodical effort to find the individuals who were involved." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 It is very important to understand how much of a threat the Shia are in Iraq to the Shia in Iran. The two religious cities of the Shia: Qom in Iran and Najaf in Iraq are controlled by different schools of thought. Qom sees the direct involvement of clerics in state ruling and executive affairs as their legitimate right and moral obligation while Najaf seminary's view of the Velayat-e-Faqih is that of a supervisor and adviser. Senior Iraqi Sh'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei was assassinated at the Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf by Sadr's goons. His father Ayatollah Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr was assassinated here in 1999. According to Shia doctrine if you are buried in Najaf you will enter paradise; as a result, the tombs of several prophets are found in Najaf. Is is well known that Sadr is very young and not a true cleric. He gets his support from his lineage, another important factor in the Shia version of Islam. He can be considered a direct proxy of Iran because he is directly backed by the clerics in Qom. So by forcing Sadr's hand now with shuting down his newspaper and then arresting his aid, the US forced him to ack now instead of later. Doing so allows us to consolidate power to Sistani and his view of Velayat-e-Faqih. I wasn't surprised that Sadr left his fortress and went to Najaf to 'console' with Sistani. If he is going to be martyred this is the place to be. |
| Posted by: ZoGg 2004-04-08 12:11:36 AM |
| #6 As long as the borders of both Iran & Syria are not totally closed, which may be an impossible task, fanatical jihadists will continue filtering into Iraq and organizing murderous attacks on Coalition troops. If Iran & Syria were stuck with numerous domestic 'problems' with the end result goal of overthrowing both rouge terrorist promoting states, this Iraq problem shall not become stable. The OPEC oil profits of Iran & Saudi Arabia among other Muslim oil producers are fueling the Iraqi, Afghan and all other Muslim rebellions against the civilized world. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-04-07 12:13:48 PM |
| #5 This example of "on the scene" reporting gives info that tells me that this is more than a little bit of irans hand: http://slate.msn.com/id/2093154/entry/2098336/ Qotes: In the courtyard I saw a man in an "Iran" tracksuit. The head of the Badr Organization in Najaf, Hassan al-Battan, said he was worried, very worried. The Badr Organization, formerly the Badr Brigade, formerly based in Iran, also favors an informal uniform of black shirts and black trousers. It is the militia wing of SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq), it seems to me that the people with the most to lose with a free iraq is iran. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2004-04-07 11:51:50 AM |
| #4 It's interesting that this uprising comes at a time that pressure is increasing on Iran about its nuclear weapons programs. It seems somewhat inopportune for Sadr, as his chances of success would have been much higher sometime in the future after our troop rotations were completed and possible troop level drawdowns went into affect. My bet is the Iranians pushed this up so they can distract the coalition from their final push to a nuke. The Iranians will have nuke weapons within the next year or two unless they are attacked. It's too late for any sanctions to work. |
| Posted by: Anony-mouse 2004-04-07 11:28:57 AM |
| #3 looks like I was onto something yesterday! |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2004-04-07 10:11:11 AM |
| #2 I would not be suprised to see many of Sadr's 'army' are members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Didn't we warn Iran about meddling? Time to bitchslap them. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-07 9:33:25 AM |
| #1 Time to strike Irainian RG bases and supply depots.Then bounce the rubble. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-04-07 8:34:16 AM |