As U.S. Targets Al-Sadr, Cleric Gains Followers

by Aaron Glantz

(IPS) BAGHDAD -- As the U.S. military continues to clash with Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in the holy city Najaf, the mid-day call to prayer sounds in the poor, Shia neighborhood Showle in Baghdad.

A group of residents crowd around a cigarette stand to explain to the U.S. army reporter what happened when the Army came into their neighborhood with tanks and military vehicles last week.

Seventeen-year-old Ali Hakim says the U.S. troops came for his poster of Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery cleric currently holed up in Najaf and declared an outlaw by occupation authorities.

"They used their machine guns to lift the picture," he says.

Ali says the soldiers carried out the raid without an interpreter. "They didn't talk to me. There were 15 of them. They closed the road first. What can we do for them? What can we do when they take the pictures?"

Speaking to the Army News Service correspondent, the captain in charge of the raid on Sadr's posters said it was "important because al-Sadr stands for all things that are, quote, anti-coalition."

The captain told the reporter "it's important to show the people that we can deal with the propaganda in a non-threatening way, rather than coming in hard and forcefully."

But the raid was not well received. "I came here with five of my friends and we threw stones at the soldiers," 17-year-old Narah Habi told IPS. "We just picked up any rocks we could. Then the Americans left."

An older man speaks up. "They're an army of cowards. They're from a country of cowards. They cannot stop Muqtada al-Sadr so they take the picture of the man."

This confrontation in Showle is just one of many between the U.S. military and the posters of Muqtada al-Sadr. Two weeks ago an Iraqi civilian was beaten to death by U.S. soldiers in the primarily Shia city of Kut. The Iraqi reportedly refused to take down a photograph of Muqtada al-Sadr from the window of his car.

A raid on Baghdad's Mustansuriye University was similar. Troops smashed every window that held a picture of al-Sadr. Then the Army sent tanks into the middle-class neighborhood around the university, blasting out a message.

"First the soldiers said you are a very good neighborhood and you have to stand with us, not against us," recalls Mustansuriye resident Salahadul Karim. He says the message was delivered by a U.S. military interpreter who sat on top of the tank, his head covered with a hood to hide his identity.

"The translator told us 'we will crush al-Sadr's Mehdi Army and if this neighborhood stands with them we will crush you too'," Karim says.

Like many middle-class Sunnis, Salahadul Karim does not much like Muqtada al-Sadr. The cleric's followers, who are mostly young and poor, are a source either of crime or of vigilante justice on the streets.

But Karim has been thrown in prison twice by the U.S. Army in the last month, and he is not happy with the way they are keeping the peace.

"Really I hate Muqtada," he says. "But now with the Americans going after him so strongly and Muqtada speaking out, I begin to respect him somehow."

Foreigners from the United States or other countries like Britain and France are welcome in Iraq, he says. "But if the Army comes and puts itself in our face, we will oppose it every time."

The confrontation between the U.S. Army and the Mehdi Army erupted after the occupation Coalition Provisional Authority shut down the newspaper of Sadr's newspaper al-Hawza.

The reason for that, according to a statement from U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer, was publication of "fake articles" that incite violence against occupying troops and Iraqi citizens supporting them.

Among the articles mentioned by the U.S. Administrator was one under the headline "Bremer Follows in the Steps of Saddam Hussein"