For Sadr, a Fracturing Militia-Divides Helping U.S. in Iraq Now but Could Cause Harm Later

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802173_pf.html?reload=true

For Sadr, a Fracturing Militia
Divides Helping U.S. in Iraq Now but Could Cause Harm Later

By Ann Scott Tyson and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 29, 2007; A14

Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia is increasingly splintering as radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- now believed to be in Iran -- faces fresh challenges to his leadership, according to senior Pentagon and administration officials.

In the near term, the deepening divides in Sadr's movement have contributed to a lull in fighting that is benefiting U.S. and Iraqi operations to secure Baghdad, where Shiite militia and death squads fomenting sectarian violence are considered the greatest threat to Iraq's stability, the officials said.

Yet the group's fracturing in the long run could make it harder to defeat militarily and could also complicate political reconciliation, they said.

"It's much more difficult to go after small, violent splinter groups than if you can get one organization to come in from the cold and reconcile," said a senior Pentagon official. "You have to fight with more people and kill more people, and it's much harder to bring them over to our side. The bright side is that, at least for the near term, they are keeping kind of quiet."

At least two Shiite rivals, with some internal support, have been jockeying to take over parts of Sadr's powerful Mahdi Army since he left for Iran earlier this year, officials say. Sadr has had trouble both leading and controlling his movement from afar, they said, as his absence has encouraged subordinates and earlier rivals to move in on his turf.

"It's clear that he does not control all the organization. There are splinter groups that don't answer and won't answer to him, particularly since he is in Tehran now," the senior Pentagon official said. While some officials think that Sadr -- who is the son of a famous ayatollah who was killed during Saddam Hussein's rule -- is in Tehran, others said he is in Qom, a center of religious learning with many ties to Iraqi clerics.

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