Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
January 14, 2007
Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr has ordered his army to temporarily lower its profile in Baghdad and avoid confrontation as more U.S. troops are expected in the city.
By Leila Fadel and Zaineb Obeid, McClatchy News Service
BAGHDAD - Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.
''We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down,'' said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. Sadr heads the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia.
Militia members say Sadr ordered them to stand down shortly after President Bush's announcement that the United States would send 17,500 more U.S. troops to Baghdad to work alongside the Iraqi security forces.
The decision by Sadr to lower his force's profile in Baghdad will likely cut violence in the city and allow American forces to show quick results from their beefed up presence. But it also is unlikely in the long term to change the balance of power in Baghdad. Mahdi Army militiamen say that while they remain undercover now, they are simply waiting for the security plan to end.
''If the Mahdi Army is attacked, they will defend themselves,'' said Sheikh Abdul Razzaq Al Nidawi, a senior Sadr official in Najaf. ``American troops are the enemy troops . . . if the Americans want armed resistance, we are ready, but we will work hard not to get involved in an armed opposition and we will work hard to endure the pressure even if we make sacrifices to keep our people and country safe.''
Mahdi Army sources said that their heavy weaponry had been moved from Sadr City or hidden since the announcement.
Across the capital residents described a changed Mahdi Army -- in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of more than two million people, in Talbiyah on the outskirts of Sadr City, and in Hurriyah, a formerly Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the north of the capital that in recent weeks has been taken over by the Mahdi Army.
Checkpoints in those locations were gone. Instead, young men in jeans and buttoned shirts directed traffic, helped the Iraqi army and wandered the streets nonchalantly.
ID checks for Sunni names like Omar have been replaced by a sort of Shiite code.
''Mawlak?'' a Mahdi Army member will inquire. ``My master?''
A Shiite will answer, ''Mawlak al Hussein'' -- ''My master is Hussein,'' referring to a revered Shiite saint. They check for the Shiite accent common in the south versus the Baghdadi accent of the Sunnis.
But Shiite residents said the weapons were nearby.
The Mahdi Army has cast itself as the people's resistance against an American occupation. They claim their role has always been to protect Shiites.
But across the capital they have pushed Sunnis from their neighborhoods with death threats. In one case, a Sunni man received a letter with a picture of a lynched man.
Over the past year, the capital has fallen into a state of civil war, divided into volatile Shiite and Sunni districts. The Mahdi Army has slowly taken control of once Sunni-dominated neighborhoods west of the Tigris River, which divides Baghdad between east and west.
Sunni neighborhood patrols, Islamist insurgent groups, and remnants of the Baath party have pushed back, attacking neighborhoods in the east. Bodies from the fray turn up daily, most showing signs of torture and gunshot wounds to the head.
Some Sunnis worry that the new Baghdad security plan will clear the way for the Mahdi Army to finally cleanse Sunnis from Baghdad. In announcing the plan, Bush said that U.S. forces would concentrate on defeating al Qaeda and the insurgency.
Obeid is a McClatchy special correspondent. Special Correspondents Laith Hammoudi, Mohammed al Awsy and a special correspondent who could not be named for security reasons contributed from Baghdad. Qassem Zein contributed from Najaf.
January 14, 2007
Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr has ordered his army to temporarily lower its profile in Baghdad and avoid confrontation as more U.S. troops are expected in the city.
By Leila Fadel and Zaineb Obeid, McClatchy News Service
BAGHDAD - Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.
''We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down,'' said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. Sadr heads the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia.
Militia members say Sadr ordered them to stand down shortly after President Bush's announcement that the United States would send 17,500 more U.S. troops to Baghdad to work alongside the Iraqi security forces.
The decision by Sadr to lower his force's profile in Baghdad will likely cut violence in the city and allow American forces to show quick results from their beefed up presence. But it also is unlikely in the long term to change the balance of power in Baghdad. Mahdi Army militiamen say that while they remain undercover now, they are simply waiting for the security plan to end.
''If the Mahdi Army is attacked, they will defend themselves,'' said Sheikh Abdul Razzaq Al Nidawi, a senior Sadr official in Najaf. ``American troops are the enemy troops . . . if the Americans want armed resistance, we are ready, but we will work hard not to get involved in an armed opposition and we will work hard to endure the pressure even if we make sacrifices to keep our people and country safe.''
Mahdi Army sources said that their heavy weaponry had been moved from Sadr City or hidden since the announcement.
Across the capital residents described a changed Mahdi Army -- in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of more than two million people, in Talbiyah on the outskirts of Sadr City, and in Hurriyah, a formerly Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the north of the capital that in recent weeks has been taken over by the Mahdi Army.
Checkpoints in those locations were gone. Instead, young men in jeans and buttoned shirts directed traffic, helped the Iraqi army and wandered the streets nonchalantly.
ID checks for Sunni names like Omar have been replaced by a sort of Shiite code.
''Mawlak?'' a Mahdi Army member will inquire. ``My master?''
A Shiite will answer, ''Mawlak al Hussein'' -- ''My master is Hussein,'' referring to a revered Shiite saint. They check for the Shiite accent common in the south versus the Baghdadi accent of the Sunnis.
But Shiite residents said the weapons were nearby.
The Mahdi Army has cast itself as the people's resistance against an American occupation. They claim their role has always been to protect Shiites.
But across the capital they have pushed Sunnis from their neighborhoods with death threats. In one case, a Sunni man received a letter with a picture of a lynched man.
Over the past year, the capital has fallen into a state of civil war, divided into volatile Shiite and Sunni districts. The Mahdi Army has slowly taken control of once Sunni-dominated neighborhoods west of the Tigris River, which divides Baghdad between east and west.
Sunni neighborhood patrols, Islamist insurgent groups, and remnants of the Baath party have pushed back, attacking neighborhoods in the east. Bodies from the fray turn up daily, most showing signs of torture and gunshot wounds to the head.
Some Sunnis worry that the new Baghdad security plan will clear the way for the Mahdi Army to finally cleanse Sunnis from Baghdad. In announcing the plan, Bush said that U.S. forces would concentrate on defeating al Qaeda and the insurgency.
Obeid is a McClatchy special correspondent. Special Correspondents Laith Hammoudi, Mohammed al Awsy and a special correspondent who could not be named for security reasons contributed from Baghdad. Qassem Zein contributed from Najaf.