Interesting Article On Iraq

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Militias on rise in Iraq

Burst of splinter groups stiffens challenge for US

 

By Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | January 31, 2007

 

WASHINGTON -- The messianic Soldiers of Heaven militia that fought US and Iraqi troops in one of the fiercest battles of the war Sunday is among the more than two dozen extremist militias operating across Iraq that are fast becoming a powerful, and hidden, new enemy.

 

US officials this week expressed concern about the explosion of splinter groups in Iraq, noting that their sheer number makes a political resolution to the ongoing violence in Iraq increasingly difficult. One Defense Department official said in an interview yesterday that the military is tracking at least 28 militias, many of them Shi'ite splinter groups, but knows little about their leadership or command structure.

 

Paul Pillar , who served as the CIA's chief intelligence analyst for the Middle East before leaving in 2005 for a teaching position, said the number of groups continues to expand almost daily.

 

"It is very difficult to get a handle on all of the contours of the current situation in Iraq," he said. "This is a civil war on top of an insurgency on top of other conflicts. There is no one simple split between side A and side B. There are numerous subgroups and splinter groups that make it difficult to say any one leader is in charge of those who come under one label."

 

The weekend battle against the heavily armed Soldiers of Heaven killed at least 200 people, according to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The intensity of the battle, and the sophistication of the group's weapons, surprised US and Iraqi forces.

 

Several US military and diplomatic officials said they had never heard of the group. The battle underscored the divisions that exist in Iraq, not just between Sunni Muslims and Shi'ite Muslims, but within the dominant Shi'ite community. Some of the groups are even more extreme in their views than the powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been considered one of the more radical figures in Iraqi politics.

 

"The whole idea of a monolithic, unified Shi'ite community is profoundly wrong, and any calculation that uses that assumption will get into trouble," said Reidar Visser, a historian of southern Iraq who edits the Iraq-focused website, historiae.org . "There is a belief that by inviting one or two select leaders to Washington, you may gain the confidence of the entire Shi'ite community, but that is not realistic."

 

Visser added that while Americans have had interactions with a few of the lesser-known groups, "they hardly have any contacts at all with a large majority."

 

The Shi'ite splinter groups illustrate the extent to which the US enemies in Iraq have multiplied, from Sunni insurgents who were the prime focus of the war in 2003 and 2004 to the Shi'ite militias affiliated with powerful political parties that emerged in late 2005 and 2006 to today's obscure religious militias such as the Soldiers of Heaven, which was so heavily armed that it was able to down a US helicopter.

 

"It's symptomatic of the current chaos that prevails, that small groups can emerge and become large" forces, said Joost Hiltermann , an analyst for International Crisis Group , which is based in Jordan.

 

Most press reports suggest that members of Soldiers of Heaven were followers of Ahmad bin al-Hassan, also referred to in some reports as Ahmad al-Hassaani , a prominent Shi'ite in Basra who said he was in direct communication with the Madhi, a messiah-like figure in Shi'ite Islam.

 

But an early report from the Arabic-language daily Al Hayat stated that the followers were led by the radical cleric Mahmud al-Hassani al-Sarkhi , who is considered even more anti-American than his former ally, Sadr. Sarkhi broke with Sadr when Sadr chose to field candidates for the new Iraqi Parliament.

 

Sarkhi's name first appeared in the Western press this summer when his supporters burned the Iranian Consulate in Basra and replaced its flag with an Iraqi flag.

 

After Sunday's battle against the Soldiers of Heaven, specialists on Iraq cited another group as a possible combatant: the Fadila party, led by cleric Muhammad al-Yaqubi, who has his own militia. Yaqubi studied under Sadr's father, but is now Sadr's rival.

 

The Shi'ite bloc of political parties that controls Parliament has downplayed divisions among Shi'ites. But more than a dozen Shi'ite factions command their own armed followings in southern Iraq, including two competing groups that both call themselves "Hezbollah," a family-run private army of the Garamsha tribe and armed fighters loyal to the Prince of the Marshes, an autocratic leader of Iraq's marsh Arabs, said Juan Cole , a Shi'ite specialist and University of Michigan professor.

 

Another little-known group, Usbat Al-Huda, or Daughter of Guidance, identifies itself as a group of female fighters loyal to Sadr who are willing to carry out suicide attacks.

 

Cole said that even the grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani , a moderate Shi'ite cleric, controls a team of tribal bodyguards similar to a militia that calls itself Ansar Sistani.

 

"There are a lot of these groups," Cole said. "Shi'ite Islam is hard to get one's mind around. . . . It's not a hierarchy like Roman Catholicism. There is nothing to prevent someone from striking off in their own direction."

 

In addition to armed Shi'ite factions in the south are Sunni groups that form the backbone of the insurgency in Anbar Province, as well as extremist Islamic militias operating in Kurdistan.

 

"It goes without saying that the universe of insurgent groups in Iraq is both dynamic and fluid," according to a recent analysis by the government-funded Rand Corp. "Groups appear, change, merge, divide, and disappear, operate under different names and sometimes under no name at all."

 

The 2006 Rand study, prepared under a contract with the Air Force, counted 28 different groups that had formed since the US-led invasion and acknowledged that there were probably many others. A Defense Department official yesterday confirmed that the government is tracking at least 28 groups, many of them Shi'ite.

 

Intelligence officials also are drafting a new National Intelligence Estimate assessing all the known groups that could threaten Iraq's security. Officials said they hoped to deliver the report to President Bush and Congress in the coming weeks.

 

The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the formation of militias. Iraq's government officially recognized seven militia groups linked to mainstream political parties, with the proviso that they disarm and join the political process.

 

Yet, the universe of rogue forces has only expanded, as more obscure groups compete for loyalty and power in cities and towns.

 

"Despite these legal and political prohibitions, militias and other small, armed groups operate openly, often with popular support, but outside formal public security structures," said a Pentagon report on the security situation delivered to Congress in late 2006. "Controlling and eventually eliminating militias is essential to meeting Iraq's near- and long-term security requirements."