Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 22, 2007
Iran is training and financing up to 3,000 gunmen who are no longer loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, two commanders say.
By Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups. Up to 3,000 gunmen are now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even deadlier element to Iraq's violent mix.
Two senior militia commanders told the Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While Sadr's forces have fought the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they have mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.
The U.S. military has asserted in recent months that Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force have been providing Shiite militias with weapons and parts for sophisticated armor-piercing bombs.
At the Pentagon, a military official confirmed there were signs the Mahdi Army was splintering. Some members were breaking away to attempt a more conciliatory approach to the Americans and the Iraqi government, others moving in a more extremist direction, the official said.
However, the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name on the topic, was not aware of direct Iranian recruitment and financing of Mahdi Army members.
The outlines of the fracture inside the Mahdi Army were confirmed by senior Iraqi government officials with access to intelligence reports prepared for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The information indicates a disintegrating organization yet a potentially even more dangerous foe, they said, on condition that their names not be used.
The militia commanders and Maliki's reports identify the leader of the breakaway faction as Qais al-Khazaali, a young Iraqi cleric who was a close Sadr aide in 2003 and 2004.
Khazaali was Sadr's chief spokesman for most of 2004, when he made nearly daily appearances on Arabic satellite news channels. He has not been seen in public since late that year.
According to the U.S. military, Sadr has been in Iran since early February, apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive. He is not known to be close to Iran's leadership or Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
While Sadr's strategy appears to be to wait out the government offensive and preserve his force, his absence has left loyal fighters unsure of his future and pondering whether they have been abandoned by their leader, the commanders said.
The Mahdi Army commanders, who said they would be endangered if their names were revealed, said that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were funding and arming the defectors from their force, and that several hundred over the last 18 months had slipped across the Iranian border for training by the Quds Force.
In recent weeks, Mahdi Army fighters who escaped possible arrest in the Baghdad security push have received $600 each upon reaching Iran. The former Mahdi Army militiamen working for the Revolutionary Guards operate under the cover of a relief agency for Iraqi refugees, the commanders said.
Once fighters defect, they receive a monthly stipend of $200, the commanders said.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for an Iranian dissident group, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that Iraqi Shiite guerrillas and death squads were being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran government leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures.
Inside Iraq, the breakaway troops are using the cover of the Mahdi Army itself, the commanders said. The defectors are in secret, small, but well-funded cells. Little else has emerged about the structure of their organization, but most of their cadres are thought to have maintained the pretense of continued Mahdi Army membership, possibly to escape reprisals.
Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters vary wildly, with some putting the figure at 10,000 and others as many as 60,000.
March 22, 2007
Iran is training and financing up to 3,000 gunmen who are no longer loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, two commanders say.
By Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups. Up to 3,000 gunmen are now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even deadlier element to Iraq's violent mix.
Two senior militia commanders told the Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While Sadr's forces have fought the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they have mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.
The U.S. military has asserted in recent months that Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force have been providing Shiite militias with weapons and parts for sophisticated armor-piercing bombs.
At the Pentagon, a military official confirmed there were signs the Mahdi Army was splintering. Some members were breaking away to attempt a more conciliatory approach to the Americans and the Iraqi government, others moving in a more extremist direction, the official said.
However, the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name on the topic, was not aware of direct Iranian recruitment and financing of Mahdi Army members.
The outlines of the fracture inside the Mahdi Army were confirmed by senior Iraqi government officials with access to intelligence reports prepared for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The information indicates a disintegrating organization yet a potentially even more dangerous foe, they said, on condition that their names not be used.
The militia commanders and Maliki's reports identify the leader of the breakaway faction as Qais al-Khazaali, a young Iraqi cleric who was a close Sadr aide in 2003 and 2004.
Khazaali was Sadr's chief spokesman for most of 2004, when he made nearly daily appearances on Arabic satellite news channels. He has not been seen in public since late that year.
According to the U.S. military, Sadr has been in Iran since early February, apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive. He is not known to be close to Iran's leadership or Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
While Sadr's strategy appears to be to wait out the government offensive and preserve his force, his absence has left loyal fighters unsure of his future and pondering whether they have been abandoned by their leader, the commanders said.
The Mahdi Army commanders, who said they would be endangered if their names were revealed, said that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were funding and arming the defectors from their force, and that several hundred over the last 18 months had slipped across the Iranian border for training by the Quds Force.
In recent weeks, Mahdi Army fighters who escaped possible arrest in the Baghdad security push have received $600 each upon reaching Iran. The former Mahdi Army militiamen working for the Revolutionary Guards operate under the cover of a relief agency for Iraqi refugees, the commanders said.
Once fighters defect, they receive a monthly stipend of $200, the commanders said.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for an Iranian dissident group, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that Iraqi Shiite guerrillas and death squads were being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran government leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures.
Inside Iraq, the breakaway troops are using the cover of the Mahdi Army itself, the commanders said. The defectors are in secret, small, but well-funded cells. Little else has emerged about the structure of their organization, but most of their cadres are thought to have maintained the pretense of continued Mahdi Army membership, possibly to escape reprisals.
Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters vary wildly, with some putting the figure at 10,000 and others as many as 60,000.
