US troops move to disarm Iraqi firebrand cleric's guard (Moqtada Sadr)

[NNN0LHI]

Maybe they should have tried please? Don

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030903/pl_afp/iraq_militias_shiites_sadr&cid=1521&ncid=1473

NAJAF, Iraq, Sept 3 (AFP) - US troops moved to disarm the volunteer guard of anti-US firebrand Moqtada Sadr on Wednesday but were thrice rebuffed, a spokesman for the Shiite Muslim cleric told AFP.

The volunteers, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols, have been guarding Sadr's home since the assassination of prominent Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim in a car bomb massacre in this central pilgrimage city last Friday.

"Today around 3:00 pm (1100 GMT), the Americans came up to Sadr's house in three armoured cars and demanded that the special guard hand over its weapons but they refused," spokesman Qais al-Khazali told AFP.

"The Americans left and came back with Iraqi police officers who in turn demanded that the guards disarm but they too were rebuffed," he said.

"The Americans came again but, seeing a large number of Sadr supporters around the house, they left, perhaps to get reinforcements."

more

[Maple]

1. Hoooo boy...

I sure hope they're NOT trying to do this.

Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire!

[Rollins]

2. halfway expected this

The Shiite group, whose leader got assasinated by the bombing last week, have chosen the dead leader's brother as the new Shiite leader. That is the same brother who was on the coalition backed group of new Iraqi leaders so he is pro-American.

Sadr on the other hand is anti-American. The Coalition forces and the new Islamic leader decided to try and over power Sadr as soon as possible to try and prevent further uprisings. We get to see if it's going to work in the next few weeks, isn't this a great time to be alive!?!

[starroute]

4. The al-Hakims are not exactly pro-American

I'd say they're playing more of a fence-sitting game. They keep calling for the Americans to leave while not outright opposing them. This is Iraq, after all, where nothing is simple or clear-cut.

Also, it would be far too simplistic to see the al-Hakims and al-Sadr as being on opposite sides. For one thing, Moqtadah al-Sadr's grandfather was a close ally of Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim (the one who was just killed), as indicated on what appears to be an official SCIRI website:

Al-Hakim was a co-founder of the Islamic political movement in Iraq established in the late fifties, along with the late distinguished leader Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr and other scholars. Sayed Al-Hakim maintained a close association with Ayatollah Al-Sadr up to the martyrdom of Ayatollah Al-Sadr in 1980.

http://www.sciri.btinternet.co.uk/English/About_Us/Sayed/sayed.html

[Aidoneus]

6. on the Sadrs/Hakims, etc..

the lineage of the family isn't exactly known, and contradictions are sometimes reported; the one person mentioned, Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was a major figure as both a theorist and party head of a sort of revolutionary current (which is what got him martyred in 1980 as this segment says), but Moqtada's father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr who is either a nephew or cousin of Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr and not his son as you implied, wasn't really active until the last decade and then in a distinct sense from the activity Hakim/SAIRI were.

Hakim was indeed a part of the movement Baqir al-Sadr was a figure of, and SAIRI was formed in the 80s the continuation of it after Sadr's execution, but Moqtada & his father are of a different/somewhat distinct movement. They may have some overlapping ideas, but different constituents (Moqtada, directing from his recently-damaged Najaf office near the Imam Ali mosque, most prominently in the Shia areas of Baghdad, where his father is almost exclusively revered) and different plans for their own political parties.

The Sadrist movement (that is, the legacy/followers of the father Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr) itself is split, mostly between Moqtada and an ex-associate (and former top student of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr) named Sheikh Yaqubi, who is far more obscure than Moqtada but in my opinion a more likely source of potential armed resistance than Sadr.

SAIRI isn't "pro-American", they just tolerated the occupation force slightly more just to see how things turn out.

Sadr has a shaky position despite the support he gets by playing off his family, and owes much of his current standing towards mostly being left alone by the invaders, and as long as he's left alone it doesn't occur to me that he'd be one to start trouble with the occupation force. It seems unecessarily provocative for the latter to start hassling him now...do they want to start a fight with them now or something?

Dividing people up into "pro-American"/"anti-American" seems a silly thing to me anyway, the sort of simplistic terms the Pentagon war planners and their cheerleaders think in.. :shrug:

[scarletwoman]

3. Call the NRA!

I mean, they're big fans of the 2nd Amendment -- "well-regulated militias..." and all that, right?

Friday's deadly car bombing, which also killed 82 other people, has sparked calls from several Shiite leaders for militias to take charge of security but they have been firmly rejected by the Americans.

"We believe that there is no role in the new Iraq (news - web sites) for organized militias," US civil administrator Paul Bremer told a news conference Tuesday...

Silly Iraqis, thinking that THEY ought to take their OWN security in their OWN country into their OWN hands...

sw

[NNN0LHI]

5. This story is important, so I will kick it once n/t

[Zero Gravitas]

7. lose/lose situation

Either we go in and disarm these guys which proably measn a massive firefight which would further enrage anti American feeling among the shiites, OR we leave them alone to grow their own anti-American militia foces.

But of course the world is a safer place now Saddam is out of power, right?

[saigon68]

8. THEY HAVE TO DISARM EVERYONE

Then go to a florist shop, and purchase the usual floral tribute to throw at their friends, "The Liberating Americans".

Hiring a band and dozens of pretty cheerleaders in BURQUAS to chant, "Welcome to the Brothers who freed us" is also required.!!!

</Sarcasm>