Militia storms Iraq city - Police stations burn as Shiite factions battle

Militia storms Iraq city - Police stations burn as Shiite factions battle
By Aamer Madhani, Tribune staff reporter. Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 21, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr took control of the city of Amarah for several hours Friday in a brazen revolt that pitted his Shiite faction against a rival Shiite faction that controls the city government.

The black-clad fighters of Sadr's Mahdi Army, armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, stormed three city police stations in an act of defiance that raised more questions about the government's ability to keep the militias under control. The militiamen retreated hours later.

Arabic satellite networks showed pictures of fires raging in the police compounds and militiamen running through the city with weapons drawn. At least 15 people were killed, including five militiamen, a policeman and two bystanders, according to Iraqi government officials.

The startling Shiite versus Shiite fighting, coming a day after U.S. military officials conceded that their plan to battle violence in Baghdad has not succeeded, added to growing concerns in Washington about the course of the war against insurgents and efforts to stanch sectarian attacks between Shiites and Sunnis.

The White House announced that President Bush would meet over the weekend with Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, head of the coalition forces in Iraq, to consult over war plans.

The unrest in Amarah comes just days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited with Sadr, the Shiite cleric, to discuss the country's security situation, a meeting that underscored the renegade cleric's immense power despite entreaties by the U.S. military for al-Maliki to act more aggressively to control Sadr's militia.

The latest flare-up will add fuel to U.S. commanders' contention that al-Maliki needs to act swiftly against the militias, and particularly the Mahdi Army, or risk losing control of large swaths of the country.

The fierce fighting in Amarah was triggered by animosity between Sadr loyalists and members of the city's police department who are aligned with the rival Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political party. It was preceded by clashes between those police and officials from Sadr's Amarah office earlier this week.

Nasser al-Saedi, a parliament member aligned with the Sadr movement, said police raided the Sadr office Thursday after four Iraqi police officers, including a top commander, Qassim al-Tamimi, were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Amarah. Al-Tamimi was aligned with the Badr Organization.


Action called spontaneous

The Sadr allies resisted the police search and several of them were detained, al-Saedi said.

"This caused a strong feeling of anger among the Sadr followers in Amarah and they acted up in response to this," said al-Saedi, who insisted that the uprising was not a coordinated response by the Mahdi Army but a spontaneous reaction of Sadr's followers. "The situation is back under control."

The Associated Press reported that, in retaliation for the killing of the police commander, al-Tamimi's family had kidnapped the teenage brother of the Mahdi Army commander in Amarah before Friday's revolt. The Badr Organization once maintained its own militia but disbanded it. Many of the group's members, however, have been implicated in sectarian killings and are rivals of the Mahdi Army, with whom they have had running gun battles in the past in several cities.

"The situation that happened in Amarah today is mostly a political one," al-Saedi said. "The tensions between these two groups are widely known."

It was not clear why the violence subsided and the Mahdi fighters withdrew. Al-Maliki dispatched top aides to the city Friday afternoon to meet with Badr and Sadr officers as well as Amarah government officials, said Brig. Qassim al-Musawi, the Iraqi armed forces general command spokesman. Sadr also called for calm, al-Saedi said.

Amarah, a city of more than 300,000 people on the Tigris River about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, is under the control of Iraqi security services. British troops are stationed just outside the city but were not asked to intervene in the fighting Friday.

More than 600 Iraqi soldiers were called in from outside the city to bring calm, al-Musawi said. He said the fact that coalition forces did not have to be called in to quell the uprising was a sign that Iraqi forces are making progress.

It was the second time in a little more than a week that strife has broken out in areas that coalition troops have turned back over to Iraqi forces. Over a four-day stretch, as many as 100 people were killed in sectarian fighting in Balad, a city north of Baghdad that was turned over to the Iraqis a month ago.


Influential cleric

Sadr, who is believed to be in his early 30s, has become one of the most influential figures in Iraqi politics despite U.S. commanders' desire to undermine his authority.

The cleric has a large following in the slums of eastern Baghdad, called Sadr City in honor of his father, a revered Shiite leader who was assassinated in 1999. In 2004, Sadr twice summoned his Mahdi Army to rise up against the Americans in what were some of the fiercest battles of the war.

He also has developed close ties with top Iranian leaders and reportedly has vowed to his allies in Tehran that he will galvanize his followers to fight on their behalf if the U.S. ever takes military action there.

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amadhani@tribune.com