IRAQ - Resurgence In The Shi'ite World - Part 15 - Iraq Fighting Extremists.

US forces in Iraq now are focusing in their war on extremists from both the Sunni and Shi'ite communities. Their main targets are the Neo-Salafi jihadis on the Sunni side and the death squads of radical militia forces on the Shi'ite side.

At the same time, the US Pentagon and intelligence networks are leaking information that there would be a war on Iran if the Shi'ite theocracy there does not reverse its nuclear ambitions, with Tehran suspected of trying to develop atomic weapons (see news10-Iran-NukeIssueMar5-07).

Neo-Salafis mainly attack Shi'ites. A Neo-Salafi suicide bomber with a vest of explosives on Feb. 25 blew himself up at the predominantly Shi'ite campus of Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, killing at least 40 people and strewing fingers, pens, purses and bloody textbooks all over the ground. The blast was one of several bombs and explosions to hit Baghdad on Feb. 25, making it one of the worst days of violence since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a new security crackdown.

An hour later a new challenge emerged for Maliki's Baghdad security plan. The renegade Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr condemned the plan in a signed statement saying it had no hope of success as long as US troops were involved. Read aloud to 1,000 shouting supporters in Sadr City, a huge Shi'ite slum near the site of the university blast, the statement called on the Iraqi security forces to stop co-operating with the US military. The statement said: "There is no good that comes from a security plan controlled by our enemies, the occupiers. If you stay away from them, God will protect you from horror and harm".

Sadr has long maintained public opposition to the American presence in Iraq, yet through intermediaries he has expressed support for the security plan, ordering his Jaysh al-Mahdi militia not to fight when US troops enter their areas and disavowing some his most sadistic commanders.

His latest comments come after weeks of co-operation with the plan and seem aimed at distancing himself from a joint US-Iraqi effort which relies on thousands of US troops and has yet to bring calm to the city. MP Saleh al-Igaili, from the Sadr bloc, said Sadr was renewing his demand for the withdrawal of US troops and for a security plan wholly run by Iraqis. He said: "He is criticising the plan because it is run by the occupiers and not by the Iraqi government".

US military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl said the denunciation from Sadr - who controls 30 seats in pParliament on which Maliki relies - would not deter the plan's implementation. He said Iraqis backed the effort, adding: "The coalition is committed to working together with our Iraqi partners to reduce the violence and help protect the population. All...our operations are...done with full co-operation with the Baghdad operational command and the duly elected Iraqi government".

Sadr's statement was undated and did not reveal his whereabouts, a subject of recent debate. US military officials maintain he has fled to Iran; his aides claim he is still in Iraq. But with his comments, Sadr seemed to tap into spreading frustration among Baghdad residents whose hopes for security remain unfulfilled as the thud of explosions greets them every morning.

The bomb at Mustansiriya University's college of economy and administration wounded at least 55 people, most of them students, many of them women. It was the second recent assault at a branch of the university, one of Iraq's elite institutes of higher learning where most students are Shi'ite. Two car bombs and a suicide bomber killed at least 70 people at another campus nearby on Jan. 16. Other colleges throughout Iraq have been struck over the past year, reflecting a Neo-Salafi attempt to drive out Iraq's middle class, the secular and the educated.

The suicide bomber at Mustansiriya on Feb. 25 arrived at the busiest time of day, at about 12:40 pm, minutes before the start of afternoon exams. Officials said he approached the campus between separate canopied entrances for men and women. When guards saw him trying to enter and questioned him, he moved quickly towards the building where female students pass through a security checkpoint. The blast shattered glass all the way through the surrounding academic buildings, from front to back.

An hour and a half later, blood, body parts, skirts, veils, bloody textbooks and steel ball bearings littered the walkway where the explosion occurred. About 10 US Humvees, along with Iraqi Army vehicles, were deployed about 200 metres on either side of the blast site. Iraqi police scoured the scene, after initially hearing reports that a second suicide bomber might be on his way. Many of the surviving students expressed defiance, saying that Iraqis would not give up.

Sadr recently found two of his Jaysh al-Mahdi commanders had created DVDs of their men killing Sunnis in Baghdad. Documents suggested they had received money from Iran. He suspended them and stripped them of power because they had taken orders from Iran, whose support he values but whose control he fights.

Sadr has been the great destabiliser in Iraq since 2003, wielding power on the streets and in the ruling Shi'ite bloc, thwarting the Americans and playing out at least a temporary alliance with Iran. With the security plan under way, every question about Sadr's motives touches on a different facet of Ira's future.

Sadr now finds himself under pressure from several sources. One is his popular Shi'ite base, which demands that he protect it from devastating Sunni attacks. Another is Iran, with which he has had long but difficult ties. Then there are renegade factions of his own militia that resent his attempts to move into the political mainstream.

The Americans, who have accused Iran of supplying Shi'ite militias, including Sadr's, with an especially deadly roadside bomb known as an explosively formed projectile (EFP), which has killed an increasing number of US soldiers. It is not clear whether the Americans will move directly against Sadr.

The US has demanded that the government act forcefully against Jaysh al-Mahdi. But Maliki owes much of his political strength in the ruling Shi'ite coalition to Sadr's backing. For now, US and Iraqi officials say Sadr, despite his anti-US statement, seems to be co-operating with the effort to pacify Baghdad, ordering his men not to fight even as US armoured vehicles roll into his strongholds in eastern Baghdad.

Sadr's aides say he has called for a sectarian truce. Hazem al-A'raji, head of the Sadr office in western Baghdad, has explained: "Muqtada al-Sadr said to protect your clerics, protect your shrines and co-operate with the government. So no actions have been taken".

Sadr is said to have "frozen" more than 40 Jaysh al-Mahdi commanders, including about 20 with links to Iran. The the moves were part of an organisational overhaul. A new Jaysh al-Mahdi general for all of Baghdad has been named for the first time.

Sadr has also selected new commanders for east and west Baghdad. One of his aides was last week quoted as saying: "He wants to prove to the people that he has full control of his militia. He wants to show he's in charge".

What Sadr's organisation receives from Iran, how much and how consistently, remains a mystery. Some support comes through ties to Hizbullah, the Shi'ite militia in Lebanon which is sponsored by the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran. Beirut has a Sadr office, and Jaysh al-Mahdi commanders say they have been sending fighters to Hizbullah at least since July/August 2006, when Hizbullah battled Israel. Iran also provides institutional assistance to Iraq, mainly to the Iraqi Health Ministry, which is run by Sadr's political bloc.

Three days after bombs killed more than 140 people in Sadr City last autumn, for example, 50 Iraqi ambulances carried some of the wounded to the Iranian border. They were transferred to Iranian ambulances and taken to Iranian hospitals, with much of the cost covered by organisations in Iran.

Iran's more potent forms of aid are direct - and some goes not to Sadr, but to underlings. An aide was quoted as saying: "Sometimes the aid comes for the leadership and they get to decide where it goes. Sometimes it goes to the local leadership, and this encourages them to rebel. Iran puts Muqtada...between two pressing sides. On one hand, they are helping him and they have the ability to take that away. At the same time, they're undermining him by helping people below him".

US and Iraqi efforts against Jaysh al-Mahdi have focused on rogue elements. The 30 MP associated with Sadr have not been arrested, keeping Sadr's legitimate influence intact. At the same time, US, Iraqi and British officials are engaged in classified negotiations with his envoys over how to address Jaysh al-Mahdi and its Sadr City stronghold, the neighbourhood named for Sadr's father.

When asked about the talks, top US military spokesman in Iraq Maj Gen William Caldwell recently said the meetings represented a reasonable and appropriate attempt to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, adding: "Anytime you can find a political solution instead of a military solution, it's always better".

But some US military officers are sceptical. Major Kevin Hosier, an intelligence officer with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, says: "You know what their intent is. They want Baghdad. They want to make Baghdad a Shi'ite city".

On Feb. 26, the Sadrist bloc clarified its stance on the new security plan, saying Sadr still supported the plan despite a statement attributed to him on Feb. 25. MP Ugaili said the statement was meant to emphasise a need for more Iraqi control.

Shi'ite Vice-President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Shi'ite Public Works Minister Riad Ghareeb were on Feb. 26 wounded in an assassination attempt as a bomb hidden at the ministry's meeting hall in Baghdad exploded, killing six people. The officials were attending an official ceremony at the ministry. Minister Ghareeb was seriously wounded. Aides to Abdul-Mahdi said he escaped with light wounds caused by shrapnel.

Abdul-Mahdi, deputy head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which is the largest Shi'ite party in Iraq, was later discharged from a US military hospital in the Green Zone, a vast government compound which also houses the US Embassy, and he returned to his office. The other Vice-President, Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, on Feb. 26 told the Associated Press the Baghdad security plan had failed to respect human rights and treat all groups equally.

About 100,000 US and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad, the epicentre of Iraq's violence, to carry out the plan launched on Feb. 14. Despite the bomb attacks, however, the US military said the security crackdown had cut sectarian killings in Baghdad to their lowest level in nearly a year.