THE Mahdi Army, once the biggest defender of poor Shi'ites in Iraq, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighbourhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq.
It is a remarkable change from recent years, when the militia, led by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, controlled a broad swath of Baghdad, including local governments and police forces. But its use of extortion and violence began alienating
much of the Shi'ite population to the point that many quietly supported American military sweeps against the group.
Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki struck another blow this spring when he led a military operation against it in Baghdad and in several southern cities.
The shift, if it holds, would solidify a transfer of power from al-Sadr – who had lorded his once broad political support over the government – to al-Maliki, who is increasingly seen as a true national leader.
It is part of a general decline in violence that is resonating in the race to be the next American president, as well as in Iraqi politics: John McCain argues that the advances in Iraq would have been impossible without the increase in American troops known as The Surge, while Barack Obama, who opposed the increase, says the security improvements should allow a faster withdrawal of combat troops.
The Mahdi Army's decline – coupled with an al-Sadr-imposed ceasefire last year – also means that the Iraqi state, all but impotent in the early years of the war, has begun to act the part, taking over delivery of some services and control of some neighbourhoods.
"The Iraqi government broke their branches and took down their tree," said Abu Amjad, a civil servant who lives in the northern Baghdad district of Sadr City, once seen as an unbreachable stronghold of the group.
The change is showing up in the lives of ordinary people. The price of cooking gas is less than a fifth of what it was when the militia controlled local gas stations, and kerosene for heating has also become much less expensive. Shopkeepers and market traders say they no longer have to pay protection money to militiamen. In some cases, employees with allegiances to the militia have been fired or transferred.
In a further sign of weakness, Shi'ite tribes in several neighbourhoods are asking for compensation from militia members' families for past wrongs.
The changes are not irreversible. The security gains are in the hands of unseasoned Iraqi soldiers at checkpoints spread throughout Baghdad's neighbourhoods. And local government officials have barely begun to take hold of service distribution networks, potentially leaving a window for the militia to reassert itself.
The militia's roots are still in the ground, the civil servant Abu Amjad said, and "given any chance, they will grow again".
A month after al-Maliki's military operation, strange things started to happen in Shuala, a vast expanse of concrete and sand-coloured houses in northern Baghdad that was one of the Mahdi Army's main strongholds. Militia members suddenly stopped showing up to collect money from the main gas station, a worker there said.
A member of the Shuala district council said: "They used to come and order us to give them 100 gas canisters. Now it's, 'Can you please give me a gas canister?'"
Then, several weeks later, 11 workers, guards and even a director, all state employees with ties to the militia, were transferred to other areas. Employees' pictures were posted so American and Iraqi soldiers could identify impostors.
"Now they are staying inside their houses like women," said a Shuala resident who works as a policeman. "They used to brag that they were in the Mahdi Army, now they are afraid to say it out loud."
The Iraqi army now occupies the militia's old headquarters in Shuala. Soldiers set up 18 checkpoints around the neighbourhood, including at the gas station. When the militia opened a new office, soldiers put up a checkpoint there, too, said an Iraqi major from the unit based there. Iraqi soldiers recently distributed warning notices to families squatting in houses whose rent had been collected by the Mahdi Army until May.
"The Sadr office used to be the soul of the militia," said the officer, who asked that his name not be used. "We occupied that place."
The Mahdi Army might be weak, but it is not gone.
Majid, a Sadr City resident who works in a government ministry, said several Iraqi army officers in his area had to move their families to other neighbourhoods after al-Maliki's military operation because the militia threatened them. Despite the ceasefire imposed by al-Sadr last year, bombs are still wounding and killing American soldiers in the district. And early this month, one Iraqi officer's teenage son was kidnapped and killed, his body hung in a public place as a warning, said Majid, who gave only his first name because he feared reprisals.
"People are still afraid of the Mahdi Army," he said. "You still get punished if you talk bad about them."
While most of the Iraqi soldiers at the new checkpoints seem loyal to the government, others have sympathies closer to the militia. A friend of Majid's was obliged to pay a tribal settlement after telling an army patrol about his neighbour, a militia member. The patrol had been infiltrated and leaked the tip to the neighbour.
"They are still trying to influence things," said Brig Gen Jeffrey Talley, a US Army engineer rebuilding Sadr City's main market.
The power shift comes at a crucial moment: Iraqis will vote in provincial elections in December. The weakening of the Sadrists in national politics clears the stage for the group's most bitter rival – a Shi'ite party led by another cleric, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. One of the party's members, Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a sheikh and a member of parliament, is arranging state aid for Sunni families willing to move back to Topchi.
The timing was not missed by the Sadr movement's spokesman, who said the government had recently warned the group to vacate its office. He blames Hakim's party for the attempts to marginalise his movement, whose members have also been targets of a political crackdown in southern Iraq.
"Some parties are occupying large buildings in Jadriya," he said, referring indirectly to the headquarters of Hakim's party. "That's what makes us suspicious. Why only us?"
He added, "The main motive is to exclude the Sadr movement from politics."
One indicator of whether the new gains will hold is whether local governments can truly fill the gap that the militia left and deliver services effectively and consistently.
Talley said his unit had recently spent $34m (£17m) to help reconstruct a major market in Sadr City.
But the district council has become bogged down in arguments over who has the right to disburse $100m that al-Maliki promised Sadr City after the military operation.
The district council was given 90 days to come up with projects. More than 30 days have passed and not one proposal has been submitted, council members said.
Muqtada al-Sadr ready to back government but wants no deal with USCURRENTLY holed up in Iran, Muqtada al-Sadr last week called on Iraq's leaders not to sign a security deal with the US, offering to throw his support behind the government if talks were scrapped.
The Shi'ite cleric, who pulled the movement's six ministers out of the government last year when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki refused to set a timetable for US withdrawal, urged Shi'ite and Sunni Arab religious leaders in Iraq to issue fatwas against any agreement with the US.
Talks were initially for a formal Status of Forces Agreement, similar to pacts Washington has with some 80 nations. Partly because of domestic pressure in Iraq, negotiators are now working on what one US official in mid-July called a 12 to 18-month "bridging" document.
Al-Sadr last week also reiterated an earlier call that the armed fight against the US should be restricted to a select group. He also called on his followers not to attack Iraq's government or infrastructure.
Meanwhile, an internal document has given a rare look at how the Mahdi Army is assessing sustained blows to its once-mighty shadow state. Loyalists call it the "martyrs list", and it is long and growing – at least three dozen senior members have been killed in slayings or fighting since last summer and nearly 60 others detained. It underscores the twin pressures on al-Sadr's followers: Iraqi-led forces and Shi'ite rivals waging gangland-style hits.
The latest entry on the martyrs list was July 18, after gunmen ambushed Sheik Saffaa al-Lami, a midlevel al-Sadr functionary who headed the group's office in the New Baghdad neighbourhood in the eastern part of the capital.
The full article contains 1482 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
