Iraq’s Sadr Threatens Civil Revolt After Deadly Clashes

BASRA, 26 March 2008 — Iraq’s Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr yesterday threatened a countrywide campaign of civil revolt as security forces battled his militiamen in the southern city of Basra. Fighting raged from early yesterday morning in areas of Basra controlled by Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia as troops and police launched a major crackdown on armed groups in the oil hub, considered the nerve center of Iraq’s national economy.

At least 12 people were killed and 48 wounded, among them dozens of members of the Iraqi security forces, according to police and medical officials.

Fighting also erupted in Baghdad when Mehdi militiamen attacked offices of the rival Badr militia. In the west of the capital hundreds of Sadr supporters took to the streets to protest the arrests of Mehdi Army members.

Sadr, in a statement read by his representative Hazam Al-Aaraji in Najaf, warned he would launch protests and a nationwide strike if attacks against members of his movement and “poor people” are not halted. “We demand that religious and political leaders intervene to stop the attacks on poor people. We call on all Iraqis to launch protests across all the provinces. If the government does not respect these demands, the second step will be general civil disobedience in Baghdad and the Iraqi provinces.”

Security Forces Swoop Down

British military officials said Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was in Basra to personally oversee major security forces swoop down in Iraq’s second largest city, but that British troops were not taking part.

Fighting involving mortars, machine guns and assault weapons erupted soon after the security forces entered the Al-Tamiyah neighborhood, a bastion of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia, at around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT). The fighting quickly spread to five other Mehdi Army neighborhoods.

In the wake of the fighting, police also imposed curfews in four central-southern Shiite cities — Kut, Samawa, Nasiriyah and Hilla.

Basra province was handed over to Iraqi control by British forces in mid-December. It has since become the theater of a bitter turf war between the Mehdi Army, the Badr organization allied to the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) of powerful politician Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, and the smaller Shiite party, Fadhila, ahead of provincial elections in October.