NAJAF, 8 April 2008 — Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr offered yesterday to disband his militia if the highest Shiite religious authority demands it, a shock announcement at a time when the group is the focus of an upsurge in fighting. It was the first time Sadr has offered to dissolve the Mehdi Army militia.
The news came on the day Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who launched a crackdown on the militia late last month, ordered the Mehdi Army to disband or Sadr’s followers would be excluded from Iraqi political life.
Senior Sadr aide Hassan Zargani said Sadr would seek rulings from Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, as well as senior Shiite clergy based in Iran, on whether to dissolve the Mehdi Army, and would obey their orders.
“If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders,” Zargani told Reuters from neighboring Iran, where US officials say Sadr has spent most of the past year.
That puts the spotlight on the reclusive Sistani, 77, a cleric revered by all of Iraq’s Shiite factions and whose edicts carry the force of Islamic law.
Sistani, who almost never leaves his house in Najaf, has intervened in Iraqi politics only a handful of times but on each occasion his rulings have been decisive.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said he could not comment on the statement by Sadr’s aide. Sistani’s spokesman Hamed Al-Khafaf declined to comment.
The developments come at a pivotal time, two days before Sadr called a million followers onto the streets for anti-American demonstrations.
Unpredictable Cleric
Sadr has a history of allowing his militia to show its strength, then pulling back unexpectedly from confrontation. A move to formally disband the Mehdi Army could help Sadr win prestige among a public exhausted by fighting.
Al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on the militia two weeks ago in the southern city of Basra, provoking clashes throughout Baghdad and the Shiite south that led to the country’s worst fighting since at least the first half of 2007.
That fighting ebbed a week ago when Sadr ordered the militia off the streets, but picked up again on Sunday with clashes around the Mehdi Army stronghold of Sadr City.
In an interview broadcast yesterday, Al-Maliki singled out the Mehdi Army by name for the first time and ordered it to disband. “Solving the problem comes in no other way than dissolving the Mehdi Army,” Al-Maliki told US network CNN. “They no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mehdi Army.”
He said government troops would continue the Sadr City crackdown: “We have opened the door for confrontation, a real confrontation with these gangs, and we will not stop until we are in full control of these areas.”
