Letter from Najaf: Shia Stalingrad

They call it Wadi us-Salam or the Valley of Peace. It is the largest cemetery in the Muslim world, perhaps in the entire world. It is every devout Shia's dream to be buried here; on Judgment Day, it is believed, they may be raised from the dead with Imam Ali.

Occupying several square miles of the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, Wadi us-Salam is adjacent to the great Imam Ali shrine with its resplendent golden dome and sprawling complex of seminaries and prayer chambers.

Not far from Wadi us-Salam, on its eastern flank, is a much smaller patch of land which contains no more than 1,000 graves. Hundreds of flapping banners and flags decorate the graves, which bear religious or political slogans and names and descriptions of the men buried there. This is the Martyrs' Cemetery and these are the fallen soldiers of the Jaish ul-Mahdi, better known as the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Many of these young men have died fighting the American army. Some were killed by the Takfiris - anti-Shia Sunni extremist groups - and a few were felled by the bullets of fellow-Shia. 

He usually comes to the Martyrs' Cemetery alone, but on this particular Friday, Mohammad (he prefers not to use his last name) is accompanied by his entire family - parents, younger brother, wife and three small children. The men are in black shirts and trousers. The women are clad in black body-length hijabs. (Black is the signature color of Mahdi Army soldiers, but this is also Moharram, the month of mourning and remembrance.)

"My cousin died a martyr's death," Mohammad says animatedly. "The circumstances of his death are very special - you could say that he is doubly blessed because he died fighting the infidels and he died right outside the gates of the Imam Ali shrine."

In 2004, a fierce fight broke out in the holy city of Najaf between Mahdi Army fighters and US forces. This was perhaps the first instance of an organized resistance to US forces in post-invasion Iraq. Nobody had expected the ragtag militia to hold out more than a day or so. Instead, the young fighters turned the Imam Ali shrine into an armed fortress and put up a vigorous resistance for eight straight days.

The Americans, who were not able to storm the sacred compound for fear of inflaming Muslim sensibilities, had no choice but to call for a truce. Instantly, the Mahdi Army's war became the stuff of legend. It had stood up to the mighty US military and survived. The war was a major setback for Washington and a boon to its foes. Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose country was then threatened with regime change by the Bush administration, dubbed the eight-day war the "Shia's Stalingrad."

Mohammad's family washes the tombstone tenderly with rosewater, say their fateha - a special prayer for the dead - and leave for their home in neighboring Kuffa.

Mohammad and his brother, who has decided to linger at the site a bit longer, walk a few yards away from the cemetery, past a sentry, to a small chamber housing three other graves. There, the brothers start to pray and say their fateha once more.

Here in this chamber are interned Mohammad Sadigh al-Sadr and his two sons, Moamel and Mostafa. Sadigh al-Sadr is the much-revered father of Moqtada. In 1999, Ayatollah Sadigh al-Sadr and his two elder sons died in a car accident under mysterious circumstances. Many Iraqis saw the hand of Saddam's assassins behind the killings. Inadvertently, the multiple deaths, or murders, elevated the al-Sadr clan to the status of near-sainthood.

Today, everyone in Iraq recognizes Sadigh al-Sadr from his pictures. From the Sadr City section of Baghdad to the poor areas of Basra near the Persian Gulf to the remotest villages in the south, his oversize pictures adorn the movement's ubiquitous banners and posters.       

Mohammad refuses to divulge what role he has played in the 2004 uprising or what he is currently doing for the movement. But he leaves no doubt as to his political stance.

"They call us rebels and trouble-makers," he says angrily. "But if it weren't for Jaish ul-Mahdi, the Takfiris would have massacred thousands more defenseless Shia. Where was [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri) Maliki? Where was Majlis A'ala [the rival party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq]?"

In 2005, Sunni extremist groups led by al-Qaida-in-Iraq embarked on a murderous rampage through Shia communities with indiscriminate killings and bombings that left thousands of Shia civilians dead in its wake.

A subsequent anti-Sunni counterattack by the Mahdi Army succeeded in slowing down the massacres of Shia but led to the killing and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Sunnis throughout Iraq. The mini-civil war lasted well into 2007.

While many Iraqi Shia were initially grateful to Mahdi Army fighters for repulsing attacks on their communities, they soon came to resent the Sadrists for their violent and bullying ways. Late 2007-early 2008 was perhaps the zenith of the Sadr Movement's power and prestige. However, in the spring 2008, the al-Maliki government, with direct US backing, finally took on the Sadr forces in their Basra and Baghdad strongholds. The attacks were followed by months of arrest and harassment. Al-Sadr, who has reportedly fled to Iran, subsequently called for an indefinite ceasefire and partial disengagement of his force.

Mohammad is understandably aghast at what he perceives as al-Maliki's "treachery."

"I don't believe for one moment any of this propaganda about Maliki being a nationalist," he said. "Everything he does, he does it at the behest of Americans. He doesn't take his breakfast without their permission." 

In contrast to what Mohammad and his fellow-Sadrists feel and say about the government, the official Sadrist line in the last few months has been quite different.

Shaikh Ayad Mayahi, a Sadrist leader in Basra, recently said of the al-Maliki government: "We are with our national leaders that call on uniting Iraq and having a central government and national security force to protect Iraq from inside or outside, no matter if it's a political party, Sunni, Shiite, Christian, Arab or Kurd."

According to Reidar Visser, a top Iraq expert at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, the Sadrist political leadership in the parliament and provinces "is taking a pragmatic approach towards the government, signaling a desire for political participation instead of violence and vengeance."

Four years ago, Sadrists for the most part boycotted the local election. In this year's provincial vote, however, al-Sadr urged his followers to participate in the democratic process by voting for two nominally independent but pro-Sadr slates.

The overall result was better than expected. They came in second after al-Maliki's State of Law coalition in Baghdad and two other provinces; in Najaf, they came in third. They were also able to beat their arch-rival, the ISCI, in several provinces.

"The same strategy is on track to help form alliances with Maliki in some areas," Visser told ISN Security Watch. The website Sawt ul-Iraq reports that intense negotiations are currently underway for forming local alliances between al-Maliki and Sadr forces.

The two sides may be talking officially about partnership and alliance-making for now, but mutual suspicion runs deep among their followers. Does the new political reality have any staying power? Not very much, if you take Mohammad's words: "The Americans will not stay here for ever," he said. "Once they leave Iraq, Jaish ul-Mahdi will be back defending Islam and the ummah [nation]."