Rice sees Iraqi unity emerging in battle against Sadr

Secretary of State Rice arrived in Baghdad on Sunday as Iraqi, US, and British forces continued to clash with the Mahdi Army.

from the April 21, 2008 edition

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But some Sadr supporters say they believe Sadr's principal fight is likely to remain political. They claim Maliki's split with Sadr is really over carving up Shiite support in provincial elections set for this fall. But they also say that Sadr's supporters will rally to him, especially if he is perceived to be under attack from the American-backed Maliki.

"We say that Maliki's troops are Iraqis but they have grown the tail of the occupation," says Sadr supporter Sadek Jaffer, interviewed inside Sadr City on Sunday. "We will not turn away from Sadr just because Maliki tells us to."

Inside the Shiite district, many residents say they are tired of the Iraqi and US military operations carried out nightly over the past week. But some young men faulted the government for pushing Sadr into a corner and said any all-out war between Sadr supporters and the government would be Maliki's responsibility.

"His eminence Sadr has kicked the ball back to the government's side of the field with his statement yesterday," says Settar Abu Ali, an unemployed driver for a food wholesale company. "If the government answers with more attacks on the people, we will join a ground war to liberate our cities."

The Iraqi Army and US forces closed main checkpoints in and out of the vast slum Sunday, slowing activity and leaving the streets unusually quiet. Some shops were open and a section of the enclave that is home to rows of flour distributors was operating, but in most areas residents stayed behind closed doors.

In a no mans land near the local offices of Sadr's movement, Mr. Ali and his neighbors pointed out destroyed houses, a broken water main spewing precious clean water in the dusty street, and bullet holes in nearby shops, all the result of Iraqi Army and American attacks, they claimed.

As gunfire rang out from a main thoroughfare a block away, the men spoke of how that morning Iraqi soldiers had shot and killed two young men pushing a wheelbarrow of cement. A third young man was wounded and died as he was carried away. It was the three men the US military reported were killed by the Iraqis because they were planting bombs.

"Maybe they thought they were planting [roadside] bombs, but that is not true, they were just transporting cement," says Mahmoud Haran, who runs a small candlemaking shop that was destroyed recently when American helicopters attacked the street.

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