Sadrists Threaten to End Freeze of Jaysh al-Mahdi

Arabic News From Iraq: Sadrists Threaten to End Cease-Fire Agreement

by Nathaniel Rabkin

Sadrist Spokesmen Threaten to End Truce

The six month “freeze” or unilateral stand down of the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia announced last August is set to expire this Friday. According to Sadrist spokesman Salah al-Ubaydi, the freeze will end unless Sadrist leader Muqtada al-Sadr publicly announces an extension of it in the coming days. Ubaydi did not indicate whether he considered such an announcement likely or not.

However, the leader of the Sadrist Bloc in parliament, Nasar Rubaei, said in a newspaper interview that the truce agreement signed in October between the Sadrist Current and its main Shi’ite rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), has been “a failure.” Although the Sadr-ISCI truce is distinct from the freeze of Jaysh al-Mahdi, continued fighting between the two groups in southern Iraq has led many Sadrists to criticize the freeze of their group’s militia.

Nasar Rubaei noted that although the truce agreement calls for the creation of regional committees to resolve local conflicts, these committees have been ineffective at preventing violent clashes between ISCI and Sadrists, especially in the volatile area of Diwaniya in southern Iraq. He blamed ISCI for this failure, saying that:

“The Sadrist Current has done all that it can to facilitate the work of these committees, but the Council [ISCI] has not made any effort, and therefore this document is currently suspended. . . . This agreement has not stopped the assault on followers of the Sadrist Current. The unrest in Karbala and Diwaniya has been caused by the repeated assaults by security forces on al-Sadr’s followers, and by the lack of representation in the provincial councils of a number of political currents in these cities.”

Mana Zalzala, a member of parliament for ISCI denied Rubaei’s accusations, and noted that the truce agreement required both sides to cease making public accusations against each other

. Muqtada al-Sadr declared his freeze of Jaysh al-Mahdi in August of 2007, after the militia was implicated in fierce gun battles that erupted at a pilgrimage festival in Karbala. The threat of an end to this freeze comes just a week before another major pilgrimage festival at Karbala, the Arbain pilgrimage. Thousands of extra troops and police have been deployed to guard the pilgrimage, in an operation planned for months in advance.

Sources: al-Hurra TV interview with Salah al-Ubaydi, conducted by Raji Naseer in Najaf, February 20th.

Available at: http://www.radiosawa.com/arabic_news.aspx?id=2011434&cid=24 Jawdat Kazem, al-Hayat, “Sadr Holds The “Supreme Council” Responsible for the Escalation of the Dispute Between Them.” February 18, 2008.