Moqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite cleric who promised to disband his militia after clashing with US forces last April, proved this week that he remains a potent threat to both coalition troops and Iraq's fledgling government.

In a dramatic battle against British forces in Basra, Mr. Sadr quickly mobilized scores of supporters to descend on tanks, setting at least one alight and injuring three British soldiers on Monday.

While the British Army's strategy of appeasement has brought quiet to the Shiite-dominated south for some time, it has allowed militias such as Sadr's Mahdi Army to quietly regroup and flourish. Consequently, Sadr's followers - who have close ties to the city police - have more control of Basra's streets than British troops.

This control has also created a climate of fear among many residents not unlike that under Saddam Hussein. There are whispers that Sadr has established his own sharia courts, which issue rulings based on Islamic law. The Mahdi Army enforces its decisions, Basra residents say.

To build his network of loyal followers, Sadr offers payments to the families of his militia members who died in the fighting in August. Some 3,000 families are dependent on money or other help from the Sadr movement.

When an Iraqi is in poor health in Baghdad, more often than not it's a Sadr movement member who provides aid. Sadr movement officials run the Health Ministry, extending influence from the hospitals to the ambulance service. Posters, stickers, and other memorabilia of Sadr are plastered on Ministry of Health checkpoints, hospitals, and the walls of Baghdad's main ambulance center.

Despite years of community outreach, British forces had no better recourse Monday to free two soldiers arrested by police loyal to Sadr than to ram the jail where they were initially held with tanks. When the British discovered the soldiers were not there, they raided a nearby house where the two were being kept by militia members, according to the British.

"I have no doubt that there was an institutional desire on the part of the British military to have good relations with as many Iraqis as possible," says Robert Springborg, director of the London Middle East Institute that gave Iraq-bound British solders cultural sensitivity training. "It's much less a military problem than a political problem. [But] the resolution of the problems is beyond the control of the British government ... no one really is in control of this [political] process now and that's worrying."

The spark that caused the violence in Basra was the arrest Sunday of leading Sadr cleric Ahmed al-Fertusi and his assistant by British troops. The British claimed they were responsible for planning attacks on their forces. With tension already high between Sadr followers and British troops, Sadr demonstrators poured into the streets to demand Mr. Fertusi's release.

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