IRAQ:DISSIDENT IRAQI cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is today set to order members of his Mahdi Army militia to put aside their arms, engage in non-violent resistance to the US occupation, and join his social welfare organisation which serves poor members of the Shia community.
According to a leaked text of a sermon due to be read in Sadrist mosques during weekly communal prayers, militiamen are to be told that they "may not use their arms at all". However, militia spokesman Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi said that the arms would not be handed over to the authorities or destroyed until the US occupation ends.
At the height of its power, the Mahdi Army numbered tens of thousands of men, who took over Baghdad's Sadr City district and Iraq's southern cities and towns.
But attacks on Sunnis, sectarian cleansing during 2006 and the criminal activities of many Mahdi Army elements discredited both the militia and the Sadrist political movement.
Analysts say the Mahdi Army has become a burden for Mr Sadr, who is trying to recoup lost popularity by suspending armed operations ahead of overdue provincial elections. These elections are now, however, unlikely to take place before next year. On Wednesday, the Iraqi parliament recessed for the summer holiday without adopting a Bill that would have set terms for the poll.
Although the assembly was under strong pressure from the US and UN to pass the proposed legislation, differences between Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen could not be bridged. Until the law is passed, relations between these three communities will remain severely strained.
Arabs and Turkomen, who favour three-way power-sharing, reject the Kurdish demand that the provincial poll should empower the Kurdish population of oil-rich Kirkuk to prepare the way for its annexation by the three autonomous Kurdish provinces.
Arab tribal chiefs have threatened violence to "defend the Arab character of the city", while Turkomen have appealed to Ankara to intervene militarily if the Kurds attempt to take over Kirkuk, where 25 people were killed in bombings and clashes recently.
Furthermore, relations between fundamentalist Shias and Sunnis, on the one hand, and urban secularists and rural Sunni and Shia tribesmen, on the other, have also deteriorated due the postponement of the polls.
But by dragging their feet, the ruling parties are creating a highly volatile situation since the fundamentalist parties now in power were formed by exiles who returned to Iraq after the 2003 war.
This means ethnic and sectarian rivalries are being exacerbated by an overarching competition between "insiders", Iraqis who remained at home during the Baathist reign, and "outsiders", those who were abroad."
