Al-Sadr backs down as Iraq is pushed to brink of chaos

JEDDAH: Moqtada Al-Sadr on Tuesday backed away from a deadly confrontation on the streets of Baghdad that pushed Iraq to the brink of chaos.

The powerful Shiite cleric ordered his followers to end their protests in the fortified Green Zone after at least 30 of them died in clashes with the Iran-backed Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi militia and Coordination Framework political bloc.

Al-Sadr gave his supporters one hour to disperse. “This is not a revolution because it has lost its peaceful character,” he said. “The spilling of Iraqi blood is forbidden.”

As the deadline passed, Al-Sadr’s followers began leaving the area in central Baghdad where they had occupied parliament for weeks. Municipal workers began cleaning up shells and bullet casings left behind after the violence.

The army lifted a nationwide curfew, concrete barriers were removed from main thoroughfares and traffic slowly returned to normal.

The new protests began on Monday after Al-Sadr said he was quitting politics because of the failure of Iraqi leaders to reform a corrupt and decaying governing system.

Early on Tuesday militants fired rockets at the Green Zone and gunmen cruised in pickup trucks carrying machineguns and brandishing grenade launchers.

The clashes followed 10 months of political deadlock since a parliamentary election in October.

Al-Sadr’s bloc was the main winner in the election, while the Iran-backed parties suffered a humiliating defeat, but the Coordination Framework refused to accept the result and blocked the cleric’s attempts to form a government that excluded them.

Al-Sadr actions follow the pattern of confrontation and de-escalation he has deployed since 2003, said Hamdi Malik, a specialist on Iraqi Shiite militias at the Washington Institute. He said the cleric had recently tried to avoid violence in order to bolster his credentials as a leader of Iraq’s oppressed masses, but had in practice threatened violent disorder to get what he wants.

“He has always put himself and his followers in a situation where violence and bloodshed seem inevitable, but then he always turns round and rejects the violence,” Malik said.

Renad Mansour of the British think tank Chatham House said that by sending supporters in and then asking them to withdraw, Moqtada was “showing the social power he has and the base that he has, particularly to his opponents.”

Mansour said: “I think this strategy of violence and destabilisation is part of Sadr’s negotiation and bargaining tactics.”