On Tuesday, Sadrist Bloc leader Moqtada Al Sadr uttered regret because Iran did not expel Al Mahdi Army separatist known as Abi Der’ from Iran and criticized Teheran for lodging Iraq opponents while it bids to empty Iraq from Iran’s opponents.
While answering about his opinion as to `the non …

إقرأ هذا المقال باللغة بالعربية

Muqtada al-Sadr

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Since recent developments have rocked the region, leaders are realizing that popular support is now necessary to remain in power. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is among those who seem to be aware of this change as he consolidates his rule over Iraq.

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On the security level a source in Al Anbar Province Police Station said that 26 people were killed and wounded in a twin explosion that aimed the house of a police officier in the middle of Ramadi. The same source told Alsumarianews that a roadside bomb planted near the house of Lieutenant Hamid Al …

Source  http://bit.ly/rreML3

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Global Information Network    ”English IPS News ”

WASHINGTON , Oct. 25, 2010 (IPS/GIN) – A newly released Wikileaks document on Iraq and the new political alignment between Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki both provide fresh evidence that Gen. David Petraeus’s war against Shi’a militias in 2007-2008 was a futile exercise.

The Wikileaks document is an intelligence report identifying the Shi’a commander who Petraeus said was the Iranian-backed rogue militia leader behind the kidnapping and killing of five U.S. troops in Karbala in January 2007 . In fact, according to the leaked document, it was a Mahdi Army commander.

That new information about the Karbala operation confirms earlier evidence that in 2007 a political axis linking Iran , Sadr and Maliki was working to foil Petraeus’s assault on the Mahdi Army and to hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq .

That political alignment is not a reflection of Iranian dominance over Iraqi politics but of a convergence of interests among Shi’a actors in the Iraq conflict.

The same political alignment has now resurfaced as a pivotal development in the formation of a new Iraqi government. Maliki and Sadr have agreed to form a new Shi’a-dominated government, and Maliki traveled to Iran last week to meet Sadr and publicly thanked Iran for its help in bringing Sadr into his bloc of deputies.

The Maliki bloc now has two more votes than the Sunni-based al-Iraqiya bloc and hopes to bring in the Kurds to collect enough votes to form a new government.

The December 2006 intelligence report in the Wikileaks collection details a plan to kidnap U.S. soldiers in Baghdad . The report reveals that the militia commander in charge of the operation, Ashar al-Dulaimi , was a subordinate to a “senior Jaysh al-Mahdi [ Mahdi Army ] commander” named “Hasan” or “Salim”.

Dulaimi was a key commander of the Mahdi Army’s “secret cells”, which had been trained by Hezbollah officers working in cooperation with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps .

Sadr had never hidden his military cooperation with Hezbollah . Despite Sadr’s open criticism of Iranian policy toward Iraq for its backing of the rival Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), he also sent troops to be trained in Iran .

The Mahdi Army plan to kidnap U.S. troops did not unfold in Baghdad but in Karbala , where five U.S. troops were abducted in a raid on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center Jan. 20, 2007 and later found dead. The U.S. military tracked Dulaimi to Sadr City and killed him in May 2007 .

Petraeus’s spokesman, Gen. Kevin Bergner , later accused Iran of having directed the Karbala attack though it control of networks of “Special Groups” armed and trained by Iran . Petraeus maintained consistently that Iran was backing “rogue” units that had left the Mahdi Army .

The Wikileaks documents show, however, that Petraeus and his command in Iraq were well aware that al-Dulaimi was a Mahdi Army commander in charge of secret operations. The Petraeus “Special Groups” line was aimed at hiding the fact that the U.S. command was determined to destroy as much of the Mahdi Army as possible by claiming that it was actually attacking rogue Shi’a militias.

The New York Times story on Iran -related Wikileaks documents by Michael Gordon , which portrays the documents as reconfirming the Petraeus line on Iran -backed “Special Groups”, highlighted the intelligence report on Dulaimi but omitted the central fact that it clearly identifies him as a Mahdi Army commander.

The evidence also indicates that the Mahdi Army Karbala operation was done with the full knowledge of the Maliki government.

Col. Michael X. Garrett , then commander of the Fourth Brigade combat team in Karbala , confirmed to this writer in December 2008 that the Karbala attack “was definitely an inside operation”. Both the provincial governor and police chief were suspected of having collaborated in the operation, Garrett said.

Gov. Aqil al-Khazali was not a Sadrist but a member of Maliki’s own Dawa Party and was presumably acting in line with a policy that came from Baghdad .

That was a sign that Maliki, Sadr and Iran were still cooperating secretly, even as Maliki was ostensibly cooperating with the U.S. military against Sadr.

Maliki maintained ties with Sadr, because he needed his support. Sadr, who had 30 members in the Iraqi parliament, had supplied the key votes that installed Maliki as prime minister at an April 2006 meeting in the Green Zone over which Iranian Quds Force commander Brig. Gen. Qasem Soleimani presided, according to a story by McClatchy newspapers.

The Mahdi Army had also played the key role in 2006 and early 2007 on behalf of the entire Shia Alliance in the pivotal battle of Baghdad against Sunni insurgents by carrying out an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Sunnis in a number of neighbourhoods.

Sadrist deputies had left the government parliamentary bloc in September 2006 , and Sadr attacked Maliki’s renewal of the United Nations mandate for the foreign military presence in November 2006 .

In early 2007, however, Maliki’s national security adviser, Nassar al-Rubaei , told Reuters that they were negotiating on a proposal for a timetable for withdrawal to heal the rift with Sadr. He also expressed dismay at the U.S. military desire to “lure Sadr into direct confrontation”.

The Sadrists worked out an arrangement with Maliki under which U.S. troops could be kept out of Sadr City. Iraqi troops would take the lead in establishing security in the Sadrist enclave, and U.S. troops would not intervene unless there was resistance by the Mahdi Army .

But the U.S. military refused to honour the agreement and carried out large-scale sweeps and even airstrikes in Sadr City beginning in early 2007, claiming that they were only targeting those “Special Groups”.

The Mahdi Army command for secret military operations apparently planned their counter-attack in Karbala in the hope of having some leverage over the U.S. military in Iraq .

Even as Maliki was ostensibly agreeing to U.S. attacks on Mahdi Army commanders in Sadr City, Petraeus told author Bing West in September 2007 that the political link between Maliki and Sadr was far from being broken. “JAM [Jaysh al- Mahdi] has its hooks into the ministries,” Petraeus told him. “It took years to get this point, and it will take some time to get rid of it. Maliki is working his way through it.”

A series of moves from September 2007 to mid-2008 marked the unfolding of a strategy by Maliki, supported by Iran , to get Sadr to curb the Mahdi Army’s role in order to maneuver the George W. Bush administration into negotiating a timetable for total withdrawal.

Iran prevailed on Sadr to agree to a unilateral ceasefire in September 2007 and to end fighting in Basra and Sadr City in late March and early May 2008 . The latter two agreements prevented U.S. troops from carrying out major offensives in both cases.

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Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, the head of the Sadr Movement, will not travel to Syria to meet Ayad Allawi, the head of the al-Iraqiya Alliance, said a ranking member of the movement.

Iraqi sources in Najaf and Beirut confirmed the validity of information published by Asharq al-Awsat yesterday, which detailed the intention of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist movement, to leave Iran and resettle in Lebanon. This…

The followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, who form a king-making bloc in the next Iraqi government, have confirmed they will not accept Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki’s candidacy for a second term as leader.

There are no information about the announced visit by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to Kurdistan to tackel the current political impasse in the country, two official sources from the two main Kurdish parties said on Thursday.

The meeting between the Head of al-Iraqiya list, Iyad Allawi, and the Head of Sadr Movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, in Damascus has helped in resolving the Iraqi government formation,” a member in al-Iraqiya list said on Tuesday.

Anti-American Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took a rare, public step into the political arena Monday, meeting in neighboring Syria with the man directly challenging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his office.

Chairman of the Iraqi National List Ayad Allawi met on Monday the Leader of al-Sadr Movement in Iraq Muqtada al-Sadr in Damascus.

Head of al-Iraqiya List, Iyad Allawi, will hold a meeting on Monday evening with Muqtada al-Sadr on the current political situation in the country, a media director of the al-Iraqiya List, Rahim al-Shemri said.

The head of the Al-Iraqiya Alliance, Ayad Allawi, will hold a combined press conference on Monday in Damascus – Syria with the head of the Sadr Movement, Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr.

An agreement between the head of the Al-Iraqiya Alliance, Ayad Allawi, and the head of the Sadr Movement, Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, could change the ongoing political process in Iraq, said Jamal al-Bateekh, a member of the Al-Iraqiya.

President Bashar al Assad on Saturday reviewed with Leader of al-Sadr Movement in Iraq Muqtada al-Sadr the latest developments in Iraqi, particularly the formation of the Iraqi government.

Al-Iraqiya bloc leader Iyad Allawi is scheduled to meet Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Damascus as the two were officially invited by President Bashar al-Assad for a visit to Syria, according to the bloc spokesman on Sunday.

President Bashar al Assad on Saturday reviewed with Leader of al-Sadr Movement in Iraq Muqtada al-Sadr the latest developments in Iraqi, particularly the formation of the Iraqi government.

Al-Iraqiya bloc leader Iyad Allawi is scheduled to meet Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Damascus as the two were officially invited by President Bashar al-Assad for a visit to Syria, according to the bloc spokesman on Sunday.

The Head of the Sadr Movement Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday arrived in Damascus following an official visit from the Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.