Update on Shi’ite clash

BAGHDAD – Some updates on the clashes in Najaf and else­where. Whatever80’s com­ments in the pre­vi­ous post match infor­ma­tion I’ve gath­ered this morn­ing. So far: The clashes last night erupted because Moqtada’s peo­ple were demon­strat­ing at the same time and near another demon­stra­tion by res­i­dents of Najaf who were protest­ing the lack of aid in rebuild­ing their homes and city. The prin­ci­ple rea­son for the destruc­tion of Najaf was… Moq­tada al-Sadr’s insur­rec­tion last year in August. So, Najafis have no great love for the young cleric.
Words were exchanged between the two groups and the Najaf police were called in by deputy gov­er­nor Abd al-Hussein Abt­tan, a SCIRI mem­ber. The police, most of whom are Badr and who don’t par­tic­u­larly like Moq­tada either, were said to have involved them­selves in the melee and things esca­lated from there. Ear­lier reports of 20+ dead seem to be exag­ger­ated, thank­fully. Now it’s 6 – 8 peo­ple, from what I’ve heard.
The AP reports:

As word of the Najaf attack spread, clashes broke out between the two Shi­ite rival groups across cen­tral and south­ern Iraq. The vio­lence extended to the country’s sec­ond largest city, Basra, where sev­eral hard­line Shi­ite groups are com­pet­ing for influ­ence. Fight­ing was reported in at least six Basra neigh­bor­hoods as al-Sadr’s fol­low­ers attacked SCIRI offices and the head­quar­ters of SCIRI’s Badr Brigade mili­tia, set­ting it ablaze, police said. Al-Sadr’s head­quar­ters in Basra was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, accord­ing to police.
In Ama­rah, eight mor­tar shells were fired at the SCIRI office, and a dozen pro-al-Sadr offi­cials announced they were also sus­pend­ing work. Gun­men from al-Sadr’s mili­tia roamed the streets. Clashes were also reported in Kut, where a SCIRI–owned build­ing was torched, and in Nasiriyah.
On Thurs­day, rival mil­i­tant groups clashed in Diwaniya, a provin­cial cap­i­tal in south-central Iraq, using auto­matic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, police Capt. Hus­sein Hakim said. There was no imme­di­ate word on casualties.

The sit­u­a­tion across the south, how­ever, is still very tense. All of the par­ties and mili­tias are on high alert in Najaf, Nasiryah, Basra and Ama­rah. SCIRI and Badr offices in these cities are closed. Fatah al-Sheikh and his NICE coali­tion in par­lia­ment — a small block of about 20 leg­is­la­tors allied with Moq­tada —  haven’t resigned but have “sus­pended their par­tic­i­pa­tion” in par­lia­ment on the day of the vot­ing on the new con­sti­tu­tion. This will prob­a­bly have lit­tle impact on the pas­sage of the char­ter, because Sadr’s peo­ple have indi­cated they wouldn’t have voted for it any­way because of the issue of fed­er­al­ism and the belief that the issue will par­ti­tion the coun­try and hand the oil-rich south over to Iran’s prox­ies in Bagh­dad. (The al-Sadr clan has a his­tory of Iraqi nation­al­ism, and Moqtada’s father and uncle both worked to purge the hawza — the Shi’ite the­o­log­i­cal sem­i­nary — in Najaf of Iran­ian influ­ence and “Ara­bize” it.) Fatah, along with Wolf Brigade Com­man­der Abu Walid and the min­is­ter of health — a Sadr sup­porter — is cur­rently in the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf attempt­ing to “medi­ate” the sit­u­a­tion. The Wolf Brigade is an infa­mous com­mando unit attached to the min­istry of inte­rior, which is helmed by Badr loy­al­ist Bayan Jabr.
I have to cover the con­sti­tu­tion today, so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to update this, but I imag­ine the pol­i­tics of the street will intrude on the pol­i­tics of the con­sti­tu­tion today. Should be interesting.

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