Nir Rosen - Aftermath

Jafar’s family had been trying to sell their house since 2003, because each brother wanted to have his own house near his work. But it was very old, and they did not get the price they wanted. Jafar and his brothers were shocked on September 4, 2005, when they found an envelope in their garage containing a letter with printed script threatening their lives if they did not leave their home within forty-eight hours. The text said: “In the name of God, do not think God is unaware of what the oppressors are doing. To Anwar, Shubbar, Mueisar, and Jafar: We are watching your movements step after step, and we know that you have betrayed God and his messenger, for that we give you forty-eight hours to leave Amriya forever, and you should thank God that you are still alive. And there will be no excuse after this warning.”

The writer was not very well versed in the Koran. The letter had no header or signature to reveal its origins, and there was no hint suggesting which jihadi group had issued it. It seemed more like a threat from somebody angry at the family than from someone involved in jihadist activities. Despite this, the family did not want to risk ignoring the letter.

Jafar’s family was one of four Shiite families living on a street that had twelve Sunni homes, but his became the third Shiite family on that street to flee Amriya within a month. One of the families had a son working as a translator with the U.S. Army; they fled the area after he was murdered at the gate of his home. The other had a son working in the Iraqi police; they also fled after receiving a threat. Jafar’s family took their threat seriously and started calling relatives and seeking help to find another house to live in before the forty-eight-hour deadline ran out. They also rushed to tell all the neighbors that they were leaving in order to send the message to whoever had made the threat.

More refugees from the siege of Falluja settled in western Baghdad neighborhoods such as Ghazaliya, Amriya, and Khadra, as well as in the villages just west of Baghdad such as Abu Ghraib. These were majority-Sunni strongholds where both insurgents and Salafis had a formidable presence. Soon after, more Shiite families in Amriya received threats urging them to leave. Those who ignored the threats had their homes attacked or their men murdered by Sunni militias. Shiites began to take these threats more seriously, and the process of sectarian cleansing began. Homes vacated by Shiites were seized by displaced Sunnis. These operations were conducted by insurgents as well as relatives of the displaced who wanted to house them somewhere. Shiites, in turn, fled to areas controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters.

“And speed the appearance of the Mahdi, and damn his enemies and make victorious his son Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!”

In Baghdad’s Kadhim Mosque, in the northern district of Kadhimiya, in the spring of 2004, the Shiite faithful began the traditional chorus of “Our God prays for Muhammad and Muhammad’s family.” But they continued with a strange innovation: “And speed the appearance of the Mahdi, and damn his enemies and make victorious his son Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!” This had never been heard before, but Turkmen Shiites were shouting it at demonstrations in front of the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters and repeating it in their daily prayers. Thousands of Muqtada’s followers, including two thousand members of his militia, demonstrated at a February 27 show of force in Kirkuk.

I first met Muqtada al-Sadr in May 2003, when he was just beginning to outrage the Shiite establishment embodied in the hawza . Each marja (cleric) had his own office and received a tithe from his followers. Muqtada came out of nowhere, with no experience or education, but he commanded thousands of young men almost immediately. He spoke in the name of his revered father and of the mustad’afin (the poor and downtrodden masses), and he spoke in their language, Iraqi dialect and its slang, much as his father had. He alone was known by his first name, because Iraq’s Shiite masses felt a personal bond with him. While Iranian-born Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was the most respected religious authority for Iraq’s Shiites, Muqtada represented them, he spoke for them, he led them politically and spiritually. Tens of thousands would die for him. He was the most important person in Iraq after the war, and his power has only grown. Chubby, with an unkempt beard, he was awkward and unsure of himself back then, coming across more like an arrogant street punk with a lisp than a religious leader among Najaf ’s refined and somewhat snobbish clerical aristocracy.

He rejected all other Shiite clerics and scoffed at America, but it would be nearly a year before his men would openly fight the occupation. Still, he warned that the time would come. His men had already taken over much of Shiite Iraq, providing social services and security and imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on women and more liberal Muslims. His network of clerics coordinated their sermons, and his bayanat (statements) were posted on mosque walls throughout Iraq.

On June 23, 2003, Muqtada, having just returned from a trip to Iran—where he had met with government officials and Ayatollah Haeri, his father’s official successor and intellectual heir, and commemorated the death of Ayatollah Khomeini—visited Baghdad for the first time since his father’s death in 1999. He visited the neighborhoods of Kadhimiya and Shula before arriving in Sadr City, where tens of thousands greeted him with Iraqi flags as well as flags from the Bahadal, Msaare, Al Jazair, and Fawawda tribes. Before Muqtada took the stage, a speaker read the victory verse from the Koran: “If you receive God’s victory and you witness people joining Islam in great numbers, thank your God and ask him to forgive you, for God is very merciful.” People chanted: “Muqtada, don’t worry! We will sacrifice our blood for the hawza !” A melody for a song that had once praised Saddam now carried a song praising Muqtada. There was a lot of clapping, and a speaker asked the people to make way for Muqtada, but they would not move, each wanting to get closer to their revered leader. “I visited this city when my father was alive, and I will visit this city on this day every year,” Muqtada cried. “People should join the hawza and the marjas and support them . . . do not believe in rumors, verify them with the hawza first . . . a humanitarian office will be established for Sadr City.” Muqtada spoke of the memory of the martyrs and promised the Iraqi people that the unemployment problem would soon be solved because companies would return to Iraq. He spoke for seven minutes, after which the crowds of adulators would not let him leave.

That month the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council proposed including Muqtada as a member, but other Shiite members on the council rejected the idea. Muqtada and his constituency were radicalized by the exclusion, and he was pushed further into the arms of Haeri, who was living in exile in Iran. Though Muqtada’s politics were inchoate, lacking ideology and seeking only inclusion and power, Haeri was a rigid Khomeinist, with a clearly defined political program aimed at establishing a theocracy in Iraq, just as Khomeini had established his in Iran twenty-five years ago when he ousted the monarch.

The next month, on July 20, Muqtada claimed that American soldiers had surrounded his home and were planning to arrest him. Thousands of protesters descended upon Najaf, heeding their leader’s call. Many were bused or trucked in from Baghdad or Basra. Some even came in ambulances. They confronted American soldiers and marines. Demonstrators chanted, “No Americans after today,” echoing the motto of Saddam’s storm troopers in the 1991 intifada, who had ransacked southern Iraq warning that there would be “no Shiites after today.” Demonstrators also chanted against America, colonialism, tyranny, and the devil. Some carried swords and flags. Clerics bellowed condemnations of the Americans, comparing them to Saddam. Their protest in Najaf opened with a message from Haeri, read aloud to the crowd. Haeri condemned the “American agents” of the Iraqi Governing Council and called on the clerics to rule Iraq. Meeting outside the shrine of Ali, they walked past Najaf ’s cemetery in rows and columns, like soldiers. Marching to the American base in Najaf, Sheikh Aws al-Khafaji spoke out against the Americans and the IGC, accusing them of spreading corruption and defiling the holy city of Najaf. The leaders of the protest handed a list of demands to an American colonel, demanding that Americans leave Najaf immediately.