Vol. 71/No. 17      April 30, 2007

Meanwhile, Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who heads the Mahdi militia, ordered six members of his parliamentary bloc holding cabinet posts in the administration of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to resign, according to an April 16 Reuters dispatch. The resignations are to protest Maliki's refusal to set a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw. They are another sign of deepening divisions in the Shiite-dominated government under pressure from Washington's escalating imperialist war in Iraq.

In a related development, Sunni-led militias are taking their distance from al-Qaeda in Iraq, accusing the latter of killing, kidnapping, and torturing dozens of their members and followers.

According to the Independent, the new counterinsurgency measure would gate off 30 of Baghdad's 89 districts. Gen. David Petraeus, Washington's top general in Iraq, drew on the experience of comparable measures in Tal Afar, where U.S. and Iraqi government troops drove out Sunni-led militias in 2005.

Similar measures failed during the U.S. war against Vietnam and the French colonial occupation of Algeria.

The new step is part of the overall crackdown in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province being led by an additional 21,500 U.S. troops. It includes placing five mechanized brigades south and east of the capital, three of which are to be positioned between Baghdad and the Iranian border as a threat to Tehran.

Sadr's supporters hold six cabinet posts and 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament. He also heads a militia estimated at between 10,000 and 60,000 members. Quitting the cabinet is his latest maneuver against competing capitalist forces in Iraq. After U.S. president George Bush announced the crackdown in Baghdad, Sadr ended a two-month boycott of parliament over Maliki's December meeting with Bush.

Maliki welcomed the resignations saying he would appoint replacements "not based on their sectarian affiliation."

Sunni-led militias are also showing signs of fracturing under the pressure of U.S. military escalation. The Islamic Army, which operates in the largely Sunni Anbar province, posted a letter on the internet to Osama bin Laden demanding that he rein in al-Qaeda in Iraq.
 
 
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