Confrontations between coalition troops and radical followers of fiery anti-Western Islamic cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday created what mainstream Shi’ite leaders called the most volatile situation since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
The battle with Sheik al-Sadr and his supporters marks the first instance of Shi’ites who were brutally repressed by Saddam violently confronting coalition forces.
“I think it is a very dangerous development, the most serious development since the fall of Saddam’s regime,” said Hamid al-Bayati, spokesman for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which has a seat on the Iraqi Governing Council.
Battles erupted in the Shi’ite areas of Basra, Amarah, Nasiriyah, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Kut and Najaf, and tensions remained high around Baghdad as U.S. troops battled street to street against anti-American Sunni forces in Fallujah and Ramadi.
The two-front military campaign to quash radical Shi’ite and Sunni forces bent on grabbing power in Iraq left a string of dead and wounded.
The fear is that moderate Shi’ites will join Sheik al-Sadr’s movement despite calls from other Shi’ite clerics for peace and restraint, presenting the United States with a much wider and aggressive resistance than they have faced to date.
“I’ve already seen some people who are not his followers who say they will stand behind him,” said Mr. al-Bayati, speaking from Baghdad. He said militant Sunnis also were trying to join forces with Sheik al-Sadr’s black-clad al-Mahdi Army.
The spokesman said SCIRI had tried but failed to mediate between Sheik al-Sadr and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which has declared the firebrand cleric an “outlaw” and charged him with the murder of a rival cleric.
“I think mediation is out of the question, to be honest, because I think the coalition forces are determined to take him and finish his army,” he said.
Tensions were high throughout the country as people waited to see how leading moderate Shi’ites such as Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who until now have tolerated Sheik al-Sadr much as a troublesome younger brother, reacted to the situation.
A representative of Ayatollah al-Sistani yesterday made a fresh call for calm in the wake of the bloody clashes.
“We appeal for calm and restoration of public order and we hope to settle this problem peacefully,” said Sheik Abdel Mahdi al-Karbalai. He added that “dialogue was possible,” but said U.S. forces’ “firing without any reason was not justified.”
Some fear that the more Iraqi casualties there are, and the more damage there is, and the longer the confrontations persist, the greater the risk of a wider Shi’ite mobilization against the occupation.
Yesterday, Iraqis in Lebanon marched through the streets of southern Beirut, chanting anti-U.S. slogans and carrying pictures of Sheik al-Sadr as well as leaders of the Palestinian militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas. But experts said a wider Shi’ite conflagration was unlikely.
“As long as major clerics hold the line, I don’t think we are going to see a regionwide explosion,” said Jeffrey White, an associate with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“For sure, we can deal with al-Sadr, it may be messy, it may be prolonged. The real issue is: if it leads to a general Shi’ite revolt, can we deal with that? Probably not,” Mr. White said.
The bulk of the international forces that joined the United States were stationed in southern Iraq in the expectation that they would not see any serious fighting.
The recent killing of Salvadoran, Ukrainian and Polish soldiers and frontal attacks on Italian and Spanish forces could strain the coalition.
“Now the real test is coming,” Mr. White said.
Poland’s ambassador to the United States, Przemyslaw Grudzinski, said his country would not waver in its commitment to a peaceful and stable Iraq.
“If we want this original, optimistic scenario to hold water, we need to be flexible and approach current events realistically,” he said.
In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also ruled out troop pullouts, saying “it is unthinkable to flee the mission we have started.”
Mr. Grudzinski called on coalition leaders to consider sending as many troops as needed to regain control on the ground, and on the international community to become more engaged in Iraq.
“We are confronted with a very strong, direct and bold challenge to the overall goals of Operation Iraqi Freedom. How we cope with it will determine the overall results,” he said in a telephone interview.
Meanwhile, Sheik al-Sadr, surrounded by a contingent of armed supporters willing to die for him, said he would fight on and called on all Iraqis to join him in expelling occupying troops.
“This insurrection shows that the Iraqi people are not satisfied with the occupation and they will not accept oppression,” the 30-year-old cleric said in a statement issued by his office in the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, where he moved yesterday from the nearby town of Kufa.
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