Wednesday, Aug 25, 2004

Salaam al-Daraji, a 21-year-old fighter in the Mahdi Army, waits for a haircut in a barbershop off Sadr City's "Vietnam Street", so-called after it became a battleground for local US forces and the radical Shia militia.

For now, he says, the AK47 rifle with which he has fought Americans over the past two weeks in this north-east Baghdad slum has been stashed away. He claims he will pull it out again when his religious leaders call on him to do so.

"If the clerics ask, I will fight to the last drop of my blood," he declares, as the other barber shop clients look on approvingly.

Asked if he would ever turn in his rifle to Iraqi police - a demand made by Iraq's interim government - Mr Daraji's face breaks into a grin at what he clearly thinks is a stupid question. "Weapons are our honour - we cannot give them up," he says.

Iyad Allawi, interim Iraqi prime minister, has made the dissolution of the Mahdi Army a precondition for ending the siege of the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, where the militia's leader Moqtada al-Sadr has been holed up for more than two weeks.

Mr Allawi has said militias have no place in a modern Iraqi state, and that Mr Sadr - who staged one insurrection in April and has embarked another this month - must pledge not to resort again to violence.

In Sadr City such suggestions appear laughable.

This sprawling slum is a daily battle zone for US forces in Iraq. The area is becoming increasingly divorced from the rest of Baghdad.

The wide streets, which have always been laced with rubbish and are frequently sunk under black sewage, are now also pocked with scorch marks where Mr Sadr's fighters have attacked US military convoys. At a roundabout near the town council building a solitary tank track is all that is left of one armoured vehicle.

Sadr City takes its name from Mr Sadr's father, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who was killed by suspected agents of Saddam Hussein in 1999. Before his assassination, the elder Sadr presided over a Shia renaissance, nurturing a network of activist clerics who reached out into neighbourhoods such as this to revitalise communal prayer and other rituals that had been suppressed by the Ba'athists.

Many members of the Mahdi Army, which was set up in the summer of 2003, say they remain loyal to the Sadr family for having "reacquainted" them with their religion.

The Sadrists maintain that their militia is not a military structure, merely a group of pious youths pledged to support their religion and their clergy. "The Mahdi Army is not an organised army. The honoured Moqtada (al-Sadr) is not our commander but our spiritual guide," says Mr Daraji.

But the Sadrists are not entirely decentralised. Naim al-Kaabi, one of the movement's spokesmen in Sadr City, says that, while fighters use their own weapons and are not paid a salary, they do answer to a district-wide leadership.

Witnesses say the Mahdi Army appears to have upgraded its training and communications, reportedly holding weapons courses in the main mosque in Najaf's sister city of Kufa and passing out mobile phones in Sadr City for residents to monitor US troop movements.

Moreover, it has in the past staged complicated offensive operations, such as city-wide insurrections kicked off by multiple attacks on police stations.

Sadr City fighters sometimes claim to belong to units such as the "Mualem al-Sadr Squadron", named after Moqtada's elder brother, who was killed alongside his father.

In practice, residents say that the Mahdi Army often fights in small squads without the benefit of small-unit leadership. The fighters take turns to dash out in the street to unleash a round at a passing convoy and then run away.

Though a military liability, this amorphous organisation has a political advantage. The Mahdi Army can easily reassemble should the Sadrist leadership call on it. Rearmament is not a problem. Most Iraqi homes contain at least one AK47 rifle and heavier weapons are easily found on the black market.

Sabah Kadhim, spokesman for Iraqi interior minister Falah al-Nakib, says there is no guarantee that the Sadrists, even if they receive the word to stand down, cannot be summoned back to the fight.

For Mr Kadhim, the solution to the Sadrist challenge is to find Mahdi Army members jobs. not least in the police. "They are misled young men, desperately in need of work," he says.

To achieve that aim, he suggests, all that is required is a "brief period of stability". But obtaining such a breathing space is proving elusive. www.ft.com/iraq

By STEVE NEGUS

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