Shiite Cleric's Militia Seizes Control of Baghdad Slum
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 10, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, May 9 -- Gunmen and commanders loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr took over the giant Sadr City slum in Baghdad on Sunday, seizing control of police forces, municipal administration and schools and blocking freedom of movement in an area just five miles east of U.S. administration headquarters.
Teenagers wielding rocket-propelled grenade launchers commanded entrances to the slum, home to about a third of Baghdad's 5 million residents. The youths waved commands to visitors with one hand and slung rifles around with the other.
With the quick takeover, which was completed at dawn, Sadr City joined two southern towns, Najaf and Kufa, as bastions of Sadr's militia support.
The immediate trigger for the uprising in Sadr City was a U.S. raid Saturday night on a former office of Sadr's organization and the detention of two of Sadr's lieutenants, Amr Husseini and Amjad Saedi . U.S. officials said the men were responsible for Sadr's finances and operations in eastern Baghdad.
Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the decision to raid the building was "based on intelligence suggesting that a large group of armed Moqtada militia were attempting to reestablish operations and reoccupy the building."
"After the arrests and following the call of the leader . . . we decided to rise up with him and stop the Americans from coming into Sadr City again," said Sheikh Latif Moqtadai, commander of a small militia unit. His group manned an intersection on Orfali Street on the western edge of Sadr City, which was named for Sadr's father, Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, a revered grand ayatollah who was assassinated in 1999.
A cluster of young men surrounding Moqtadai nodded. The men, with scarves wrapped around their heads and wearing sandals, brandished AK-47 rifles, while others in the area carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers, their pointed projectiles locked in place.
Sadr, 30, has defied a U.S. arrest warrant for involvement in the murder of a Shiite cleric, Abdel-Majid Khoei, who was killed last year. Sadr has taken refuge around Najaf, home to the shrine of Ali, a cousin of the prophet Muhammad and the first Shiite imam, a development that has complicated the U.S. drive against him because commanders say they want to avoid storming the holy city.
The commanders say they are chipping away at Sadr's forces by hitting them in several other southern cities, including Diwaniyah, Karbala, Kut and Kufa, just east of Najaf. U.S. tanks roared deep into Kufa for the first time Sunday.
In less than eight weeks, the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority is supposed to transfer at least nominal authority to a new Iraqi government. Sadr's rebellion against the American-led occupation, which started more than a month ago, has dimmed prospects for a smooth transfer.
A rebellion also continues in central Iraq, spearheaded by Sunni Muslims. Shiite religious and political factions have grown nervous about a U.S. decision to reach out to members of Hussein's former army and Baath Party to pacify the Sunni revolt in the western city of Fallujah. Hundreds of opponents of the Baathist revival demonstrated peacefully Sunday in downtown Baghdad.
Sadr's Shiite rivals also fear they might have to deal with the radical cleric and risk intra-Shiite fighting. Sadr has rejected proposed political transition plans, which, so far have excluded him.
"This problem cannot be left to hang there unsolved," said Sabeeh Jasim, a former political prisoner who runs a relief charity in Baghdad. "The turmoil can only grow."
Sadr City's warren of alleys had already proved to be volatile territory. The suburb erupted in violence on April 4, a few days after the chief U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, closed Sadr's newspaper, al-Hawza, and a day after the arrest of one of Sadr's chief aides. But the violence had subsided after a U.S. counterattack, and until Sunday, Mahdi Army forces had withdrawn from the streets.
Members of the Mahdi Army, which numbers in the thousands, blocked streets with all manner of debris: fruit crates, stones, cinder block, automobile bumpers and iron grating. They set tires aflame and also burned the abundant street-side trash in the neighborhood. Heavy cranes and bulldozers were placed on main thoroughfares, available to block any American approach.
Owners of the few open businesses and shops kept assault rifles by their counters. Posters of Sadr, an index finger jutting at an angle, covered walls around one-story houses, shops and mosques.
Around midday, masked men shot rocket-propelled grenades at the Karameh police station, which was guarded by a pair of tan Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a lone police guard. The Bradleys rattled side streets with heavy fire and 10 others soon rumbled into Sadr City to escort them out. U.S. military officials said the Americans killed 18 insurgents at Karameh and at another police station. U.S. officials also said they had secured the sites, but the Karameh station stood abandoned. Other municipal buildings were vacant as well.
Clutches of young men formed an inner cordon of checkpoints deep in Sadr City near Sadr's abandoned main offices. They ushered autos onto side streets, where suspicious eyes gazed into the passing vehicles, particularly four-wheel-drive vehicles, which many Iraqis view as the cars of foreigners. Checkpoints popped up where none had existed. New flocks of youths, some armed, diverted traffic onto narrow streets to face lines of cars herded there from the opposite direction.
On Orfali Street, Moqtadai tried to reorganize the watch. "You will not be able to shoot from here," he told his underlings. "The civilian cars are in the way. Let's move from here."
A youth in a black scarf arrived and asked about a jeep that, he said, had been circling nearby. A visitor assured him it was only his awaiting transportation. "We have to be sure," he said. "We're afraid of spies who will tell the Americans where we are gathering."
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