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Sadr's Army Proves Hard to Beat    [

    More Iraqis Said to Flee Since Troop Rise
    By James Glanz and Stephen Farrell
    The New York Times

    Friday 24 August 2007

    Baghdad - The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.

    Despite some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived, the studies show.

    The data track what are known as internally displaced Iraqis: those who have been driven from their neighborhoods and seek refuge elsewhere in the country rather than fleeing across the border. The effect of this vast migration is to drain religiously mixed areas in the center of Iraq, sending Shiite refugees toward the overwhelmingly Shiite areas to the south and Sunnis toward majority Sunni regions to the west and north.

    Though most displaced Iraqis say they would like to return, there is little prospect of their doing so. One Sunni Arab who had been driven out of the Baghdad neighborhood of southern Dora by Shiite snipers said she doubted that her family would ever return, buildup or no buildup.

    "There is no way we would go back," said the woman, 26, who gave her name only as Aswaidi. "It is a city of ghosts. The only people left there are terrorists."

    Statistics collected by one of the two humanitarian groups, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, indicate that the total number of internally displaced Iraqis has more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000, since the buildup started in February.

    Those figures are broadly consistent with data compiled independently by an office in the United Nations that specializes in tracking wide-scale dislocations. That office, the International Organization for Migration, found that in recent months the rate of displacement in Baghdad, where the buildup is focused, had increased by as much as a factor of 20, although part of that rise could have stemmed from improved monitoring of displaced Iraqis by the government in Baghdad, the capital.

    The new findings suggest that while sectarian attacks have declined in some neighborhoods, the influx of troops and the intense fighting they have brought are at least partly responsible for what a report by the United Nations migration office calls the worst human displacement in Iraq's modern history.

    The findings also indicate that the sectarian tension the troops were meant to defuse is still intense in many places in Iraq. Sixty-three percent of the Iraqis surveyed by the United Nations said they had fled their neighborhoods because of direct threats to their lives, and more than 25 percent because they had been forcibly removed from their homes.

    The demographic shifts could favor those who would like to see Iraq partitioned into three semi-autonomous regions: a Shiite south and a Kurdish north sandwiching a Sunni territory.

    Over all, the scale of this migration has put so much strain on Iraqi governmental and relief offices that some provinces have refused to register any more displaced people, or will accept only those whose families are originally from the area. But Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the migration office, said that in many cases, the ability of extended families to absorb displaced relatives was also stretched to the breaking point.

    "It's a bleak picture," Mr. Tschannen said. "It is just steadily continuing in a bad direction, from bad to worse."

    He also cautioned that reports of people going back to their homes were overstated. As the buildup began, the Iraqi government said that it would take measures to evict squatters from houses that were not theirs and make special efforts to bring the rightful owners back.

    "They were reporting that people went back, but they didn't report that people left again," Mr. Tschannen said. He added that Iraqis "hear things are better, go back to collect remuneration and pick up an additional suitcase and leave again. It is not a permanent return in most cases."

    American officials in Baghdad did not respond to a request for comment, but the national intelligence estimate released Thursday confirmed that Iraq continues to become more segregated through internal migration. "Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues," it found, "imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states."

    Dr. Said Hakki, director of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, said that he had been surprised when his figures revealed that roughly 100,000 people a month were fleeing their homes during the buildup. Dr. Hakki said that he did not know why the rates were so high but added that some factors were obvious.

    "It's fear," he said. "Lack of services. You see, if you have a security problem, you don't need a lot to frighten people."

    It is clear that military operations, both by American troops and the Iraqi forces working with them as part of the buildup, have something to do with the rise in displacement, said Dana Graber Ladek, Iraq displacement specialist for the migration organization's Iraq office.

    "If a surge means that soldiers are on the streets patrolling to make sure there is no violence, that is one thing," Ms. Ladek said. "If a surge means military operations where there are attacks and bombings, then obviously that is going to create displacement."

    But Ms. Ladek added that, in contrast to the first years of the conflict, when major American offensives were a main cause of displacement, the primary driving force had changed.

    "Sectarian violence is the biggest driving factor - militias coming into a neighborhood and kicking all the Sunnis out, or insurgents driving all the Shias away," Ms. Ladek said.

    Her conclusions mirrored the experiences of Iraqis who had fled their homes.

    Aswaidi and her family were driven out of the Dora section of Baghdad five months ago when Shiite snipers opened fire on their Sunni neighborhood from nearby tower blocks, shooting through their windows "at all hours of day and night."

    Returning covertly to check on the property in mid-August, she found Sunni insurgents occupying the building and neighboring homes, walking unchallenged through the deserted streets. Nearby, she claims, the same insurgents captured one of the Shiite snipers who drove the residents away, and claimed that he was a 16-year-old Iranian.

    She now fears that her entire neighborhood will be taken over by Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

    "I don't want them to take my town, but I think they will," Aswaidi said. "It will change from Sunni to Shia. The Americans can't stop it."

    Shiites face similarly overwhelming odds. In Shualah, on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, 400 Shiite families now live in a makeshift refugee camp on wasteland commandeered by Mr. Sadr's followers.

    In a sprawl of cinder block hovels and tin and bamboo-roofed shacks, families have stories of being expelled from their homes by Sunni insurgents.

    Ali Edan fled Yusifiya, a Sunni insurgent haven south of Baghdad, when his uncle was killed. He has no intention of returning, even though American commanders claim Sunni sheiks there have begun cooperating with them. "It is still an unsafe area," said Mr. Edan.

    Both humanitarian groups based their conclusions on information collected from the displaced Iraqis inside the country. The Red Crescent counted only displaced Iraqis who receive relief supplies, and the United Nations relied on data from an Iraqi ministry that closely tracks Iraqis who leave their homes and register for government services elsewhere.

    Before the troop buildup, by far the most significant event causing the displacement of Iraqis was the bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra in February 2006. The bombing set off a spasm of sectarian killing, but the rate at which Iraqis left their homes leveled off toward the end of that year before accelerating again as the buildup began, the Red Crescent figures show.

    The United Nations figures also include a little over a million people it says were displaced in the decades before the Samarra bombing, including the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The Red Crescent data does not include them.

    In Baghdad, the latest migration involves an enormously complex landscape in which some people flee one district even as others return to it.

    In Ghazaliya, a mixed but Sunni-majority district of north Baghdad, one 30-year-old Shiite said his family was driven out by Sunni insurgents a year ago with just two hours notice to leave their home.

    Five months ago, the troop buildup brought American soldiers and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army onto his street and his family returned. But even as it did, Sunni neighbors fled, knowing that the army had been infiltrated by Shiite militias.

    "They are afraid, because the army has good relations with the Mahdi Army," said the 30-year-old man, who said he was too afraid to give his name. "My area used to have a lot of Sunni. Now most are Shia, because Shias expelled from other places have moved into the empty Sunni homes."

 

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    Sadr's Army Proves Hard to Beat
    By Julian E. Barnes
    The Los Angeles Times

    Thursday 23 August 2007

US soldiers battling Al Mahdi fighters say that in the eyes of Baghdad residents, the militia offers more than they can.

    Baghdad - In the east Baghdad strongholds of the Al Mahdi militia, U.S. efforts to weaken ties between the militant Shiite Muslim group and the Shiite population are falling short, say American soldiers assigned to carry out the plan.

    The attempt to shift the loyalty of residents to the Iraqi central government is failing because the militia is far more popular than anything the Americans have to offer, many troops say.

    The campaign in Baghdad's poor Shiite neighborhoods is seen as an important part of the broader U.S. counterinsurgency campaign underway in Shiite and Sunni Arab neighborhoods across Baghdad. Although commanders say the overall strategy is bringing Baghdad increasingly under U.S. and Iraqi government control, enlisted men and noncommissioned officers say it is flawed.

    "They want to have the militia here," said one experienced noncommissioned officer who has served multiple tours in Iraq. "So, why are we here?"

    The Americans see the militia as a criminal organization engaged in racketeering and execution-style slayings of Sunni Muslims, but many Iraqis believe the militants offer the only protection against attacks by Sunni insurgents and are a reliable source for scarce fuel supplies. So many residents reject the American message of peace between Shiites and Sunnis and continue to support the militia.

    "These people are not going to change," said the noncommissioned officer in east Baghdad, who, like other troops, spoke on condition of anonymity because his views differed from those of his commander. "They should stand up to the militia, but they want to have Shiite and Sunni separated."

    The flaws underscore the difficulty of crafting a strategy that can work in an environment in which few trust the ability of U.S. forces or the central government to improve their neighborhoods.

    Many soldiers also say practices that worked against insurgencies in other wars or in other parts of Iraq may not apply to Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods.

    
The Al Mahdi militia is not a textbook insurgent group. To Iraqi Shiites, the militia offers a source for basic services and support for the political and religious work of popular anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.

    "The Mahdi militia provides services and protects the region," said a 25-year-old clothing salesman in the Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad who gave his nickname as Abu Atwar. "Militiamen do some killings from time to time, but we do not care about the crimes they commit. Only God can make them pay for that because, as you know, no law is working in Iraq now."

    Even with the additional 28,500 combat and support troops sent to Iraq in the Bush administration's buildup, there are not enough soldiers to provide the around-the-clock protection needed to erode the power of the militia.

    "I don't feel we are winning over people. They all know we are going home. Units change, but the militia is always there," said Spc. Tyrone Richardson, 24, of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry. "For the militia, this is their home. They can walk up to any house and intimidate the people. They can get results. We can't protect everybody all the time."

    Other soldiers say it is simply a matter of intimidation that prevents neighborhood residents from providing information to the Americans.

    "They are afraid they will get in trouble from us or trouble from the militia in the neighborhood," said Sgt. Chris Wilson, 24, a member of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry.

    When it comes down to it, Iraqi residents of east Baghdad would rather get in trouble with the Americans than with the militia, many soldiers believe.

    "The Iraqis think, 'The Americans may harass me. But they aren't going to kill me. The militia, however, they will kill me or kill my family,' " said the noncommissioned officer. "The people say: 'I trust the terrorists. I trust that when the terrorist says he will kill my family, he will do it.' But they say: 'I don't trust the American. He has been saying I will have water and sewer for two years.' "

    Most insurgencies are fully opposed to the central government. But though Sadr has withdrawn his ministers from the Shiite-dominated government, his Al Mahdi militia has supporters throughout the ministries and security forces. Such support, said one senior American officer, makes fighting the militia particularly difficult, as does the likelihood that some members of the Iraqi security forces are also in Sadr's Al Mahdi militia.

    "If we are spending energy figuring out who needs to be marginalized in the [Iraqi] government, that is not classic counterinsurgency," the officer said.

    Iraqi residents tell U.S. soldiers that there would be no need for the militia if the Americans left. And militia supporters claim their attacks on the Americans are justified.

    Many Iraqis who back the militia do so in part because of their continuing loyalty to Sadr's father, a revered cleric believed to have been killed by Saddam Hussein's forces.

    "People feel completely comfortable about the Sadr militia taking care of everything in Baghdad, especially in Sadr City and the neighborhoods that ally with Muqtada Sadr," said Abu Sajad Asari, a water and sewage contractor in east Baghdad.

    Not all Americans serving in Iraq hold a pessimistic view of the counterinsurgency approach.

    Lt. Col. Jeffrey Sauer, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, says U.S. intelligence on the militia has grown stronger. Sauer argues he can turn the residents of east Baghdad away from the militia, which the military calls Jaish al Mahdi, or JAM.

    "The conditions were not there two years ago to splinter people from JAM," he said. "The conditions are there now and that is what we are pursuing."

    Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said he did not believe that support for the militia was widespread. And with improvements in security, much of the support will fade, he said.

    "The truth is, there is a little bit of mythology that the people support Jaish al Mahdi," Petraeus said. "That is not our perception. Our perception is that once the Al Qaeda threat is reduced, people will reject groups like Jaish al Mahdi, that are basically criminal elements extorting money in various schemes who are jeopardizing the neighborhood by launching attacks."

    U.S. commanders have made Sunni extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq the main target of the offensive. But Petraeus alleged "extremist militia elements" were a "very serious threat to Iraq."

    A White House report last month said concerns remained about Iraqi political interference hindering U.S. and Iraqi military operations against extremists.

    U.S. officials estimate that only about 5% of the Shiite militia members are hard-core fighters behind attacks on American patrols and bases, and say these "secret cells" are supplied by Iranian agents.

    "These are the ones trained, armed, funded and in some cases directed by the Iranian Quds Force," Petraeus said in a recent interview. "They represent more than just street thugs. Those are a very serious threat to Iraq to the longer term security and stability."

    U.S. officials believe that Sadr is not in control of the "secret cells" and is almost as worried about the influence of the Iranian agents as Americans are. Some military and administration officials have speculated that Sadr wants the U.S. to eliminate elements of his militia that are under Iranian influence.

    "The Sadr militia is a complex organization. There are some parts you can live with and some parts you can't," said a senior military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing defense strategy. "The art of this is to figure out how to maximize the first and minimize the latter."

    Some U.S. soldiers in east Baghdad are unsure that even a string of arrests of militia members would do much good. One junior officer compared the fight to the drug war in the United States, saying he believed that for every "high value" militia member they detained, another one took his place.

    "The only way to change their attitudes is over generations," the officer said. "They don't want our democracy, but we keep saying, 'Take it, take it, take it.' "

    Soldiers say they would like nothing better than for the militia to leave the shadows and confront them directly.

    "That would be any tanker's dream if they came out of Sadr City in tanks. For once, we could see the enemy," said Staff Sgt. Patrick Bussell, 36, of Charlie Company.

    But the soldiers know that won't happen.

    "It is like we're fighting ghosts," said Wilson of Alpha Company. "It's a little unnerving."

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    julian.barnes@latimes.com

    Times staff writers Zeena Kareem and Wail Alhafith in Baghdad contributed to this report.