Iraq: Nine hurt in Shiite infighting assault ~ Sadr's troops attack others....

Rare evidence of simmering tensions between Shiite factions boiled into public view today when followers of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr stormed the office of a rival Shiite political party in southern Iraq, wounding nine people and prompting a city-wide daytime curfew, according to police and hospital officials.

The assault seems to have been prompted by a dispute between Sadr followers and a member of the Fadhila political party within the Electricity Ministry that serves the area. The governor's house was also attacked.

It came just one day after three alleged Sadr followers in the southern city of Kut stopped the mayor's car at a fake road block and shot him to death, with the help of six members of the local police force.

There is a struggle for control of the government in the area, which is run by affiliates of the largest Shiite bloc in parliament, although it is being challenged by supporters of Sadr.

The three Sadr followers involved in the assassination were killed and the six police officers have been arrested, according to local police. Kut was also under a full curfew today.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced it had captured several members of a group responsible for a brazen January attack on a troop station in Kerbala in which four soldiers were kidnapped and later killed, including a top aide to Sadr.

From the Captain's Quarters:

March 22, 2007
Mahdis Fracturing, US Trying To Heal Them?

*************************************EXCERPT**************************************

The Mahdi Army, once a large structure ready to do Moqtada al-Sadr's bidding, has fractured under the weight of the US surge strategy. Hundreds of Mahdi commanders now take orders directly from Iran, where they have gone to train while the US and Iraqi security plan makes the kind of progress that threatens their political stranglehold on Baghdad:

The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups, with up to 3,000 gunmen now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even more deadly element to Iraq's violent mix.
Two senior militia commanders told The Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While al-Sadr's forces have battled the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they've mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.

The dissolution of the Mahdis should give cause for celebration. After all, they have always had the support of Iran in one form or another. Sadr himself fled to Iran for consultations with the Iranian mullahcracy when General David Petraeus prepared the troops for the new security plan, and he hasn't been seen in Iraq since. Even a larger splinter group of 3,000 gunmen taking operational orders from Iran represents a much lower threat than the estimated 60,000 Sadr had under his control, with high morale and a free hand to kill and intimidate Baghdadis.

All the more reason for those that are supporting Allawi to take over, should get off their flying carpets and convince more parties to join in, so that the parliment can kick Maliki out and install Allawi and let him charge a new set of ministers and high apppointees to get serious with closing down all the militias, not just the two or three larger ones we hear about. The really need a mid-term correction so to speak.

It came just one day after three alleged Sadr followers in the southern city of Kut stopped the mayor's car at a fake road block and shot him to death, with the help of six members of the local police force.

Sadr should be under indictment right now, and this should continue each time one of his hellhounds pulls off something. Then, when he's sacrificed by the mullahcracy to save its own neck (and not coincidentally, undermining its ability to make allies from then on), he can be hanged for the crimes.

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