: Iraq Pot Boils Over, US Tries To Keep The Lid On

A yearlong test of wills between Coalition forces in Iraq and the mostly young followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr began to boil over during the weekend, with militia members and allied soldiers battling in the streets, leaving 9 soldiers and 25 Iraqis dead. Al-Sadr, a vocal opponent of the US-led occupation (as opposed to the more prominent Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has grudgingly accomodated it) has spent the last several months building his “Jaysh al-Mahdi” militia from a few hundred to 10,000 troops. Previously thought to command only a fringe of Iraqi public opinion, authorities assumed that there would be little reaction to shutting down the newspaper Al Hawza, which was seen as a “mouthpiece” for Sadr. Another irritant was the arrest (in hindsight, done with extremely bad timing) of Mustafa Yaqoubi, one of Sadr’s top aides, on suspicion of involvement with the killing of a pro-US imam the day after the fall of Baghdad over a year ago. “We are here to show the world our might, this army can be a striking force at any moment,” said Sadiq al-Hashimi, a cleric associated with Sadr. “It’s a time bomb that will go off at a time and place it chooses.” Sistani, who has more stature among the Iraqi Shi’a, has been asked by US authorities to help counter Sadr’s growing popularity with little success. “We’re watching him and some of the big [ayatollahs] are watching us, and we’re both hoping the other does something,” said one senior US official.

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.