Over the weekend, renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr (who has been hiding in Iran for the past year) and the Iraqi Government, signed a peace agreement to end the violence in the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City. The agreement was yet another capitulation by Sadr.
The truce signed Monday stipulates that Iraqi forces have the right to "impose the law and to pursue illegal situations."
"No one and no side has the right to interfere in the work of these forces," it says, adding that the government retains the right to pursue "those who carried out armed attacks against the government."
But even at this point there was some disagreement on what the "preace agreement" entailed.
Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, an aide to Sadr, stressed that the cleric had rejected conditions set by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to disband the Mahdi army and hand over its weapons. "We have agreed on a cease-fire and to end displaying arms in public," Obeidi said. "But we did not agree on disbanding the Mahdi army to hand over its weapons."
Well, that depends
The Sadrist movement, he said, does not have any "medium or heavy weapons" and added that "the government forces were free to raid and search any suspected place."
Yes, the people in Sadr City, militiaman or not, were allowed to keep their small arms, so in a sense, technically, the truce was not disarming anyone who had such weapons. But the truce did permit US and Iraqi forces to take any medium or heavy weapon: Including IEDs, EFPs, mortars, rockets, machine guns, etc.
And even though the media wants to portray Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki as the loser in this confrontation that began in Basrah, or that the clash is some sort of political fight with the US "caught" in the middle, it is clear to any objective observer, it is yet another retreat in a long string of surrender proposals for Moqtada al-Sadr.
And worse for the Iranian lackey, further indication of his growing irrelevance.
US soldiers used tanks and aircraft to "suppress enemy fire'' in four other clashes, the military said.
The military said that fighters had staged several attacks on US forces in Sadr City and elsewhere.
Lieutenant Colonel Steve Stover, a US military spokesman, said on Tuesday: "They are obviously not listening to any agreement."
He accused so called "special groups" of launching attacks on US and Iraqi troops.
The US military says that most Shia fighters in Sadr City have splintered away from the Mahdi Army and al-Sadr's influence on the groups is unclear. He added that the "special groups'' were responsible for a failed missile attack on a US helicopter gunship in Sadr City on Saturday, a day before the four-day ceasefire went into effect.
Because no one in Sadr City is surrendering anything.
The cease-fire signed yesterday between the Sadrist movement, which runs the Mahdi Army, and the government of Iraq will not hinder the building of the concrete barrier or operations against the Mahdi Army, US military officials have stated.
"Seeing as how the Special Groups never listened to [Sadr] to begin with, I don't see how things will change," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad, told The Long War Journal on May 10. "We're not stopping [construction on the barrier]," Stover said. "The barrier emplacement is ongoing and about 80 percent complete."
Sadr City has been the base of operation for continued rocket attacks into Baghdad, including the Green Zone, and has caused at least 269 casualties.
The reason that al-Sadr is suing for surrender is clear as well
US Army air assets have relentlessly pursued the Mahdi Army in and around Sadr City. "To date, 57 rocket rails and mortars have been destroyed and 150 Special Groups Criminals killed," Milano said.
The Mahdi Army has taken heavy casualties in Sadr City and the surrounding neighborhoods since the fighting began on March 25. A total of 579 Mahdi Army fighters have been confirmed killed in and around Sadr City since March 25, according to numbers compiled by The Long War Journal. More than one-quarter of the Mahdi Army fighters killed have been killed via the air....
Nine of the Mahdi Army fighters were killed in Sadr City: four Mahdi fighters were killed by an air weapons team as they planted an explosively formed penetrator roadside bomb; three were killed as they attacked the barrier emplacement teams along Qods Street; and two were killed as they fired rockets. Five more Mahdi Army fighters were killed by air weapons teams in New Baghdad as they grouped for an attack, and three more were killed as they conducted attacks in Adhamiyah.
That was Saturday. Overnight
Iraqi officials say 11 militiamen have been killed and at least 19 wounded in clashes overnight with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Sadr City.
The U.S. military has only confirmed Tuesday that troops killed three gunmen in separate incidents after being attacked multiple times.
al-Sadr may want to quit. But Iran is not yet willing to give up the only remaining armed force they have in Iraq. And while they may may be having success in near-by Lebanon with Hezbollah destabilizing the government there, in Iraq, they are facing the US Army, not the ineffective Lebanese Army. And in Lebanon, we can see the future of Iraq if the US were to give up the fight.
