THE Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday offered to disband his militia if the highest Shiite religious authority demands it.
The shock announcement comes at a time when the group is the focus of an upsurge in fighting.
This is the first time Sadr has offered to dissolve his militia, the Mahdi army, whose black-masked fighters have been principle activists throughou
t Iraq's five-year-old war and the main foes of US and Iraqi forces.
The news came on the day the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, who launched a crackdown on the Mahdi army late last month, ordered it to disband, threatening Sadr's followers with exclusion from Iraqi political life.
Hassan Zargani, a senior Sadr aide, said the cleric would seek a ruling from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, as well as senior clergy based in Iran.
"If they order the Mahdi army to disband, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders," Mr Zargani said from Iran, where US officials say Sadr has spent most of the past year, apparently involved in religious study.
That puts the spotlight on the reclusive Ayatollah Sistani, 77, a cleric revered by all of Iraq's Shias and whose edicts carry the force of Islamic law.
Ayatollah Sistani, who rarely leaves his home in Najaf, has intervened in politics only a handful of times since the fall of Saddam Hussein, but each time his rulings have been decisive.
Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said he could not comment on the statement by Sadr's aide. The ayatollah's spokesman, Hamed al-Khafaf, declined to comment.
The developments come at a pivotal time, two days before Sadr has called a million followers onto the streets for anti-American demonstrations and one day before the top US officials in Iraqi are due to brief Congress on progress.
Sadr has a history of allowing his militia to show its strength, then unexpectedly pulling back from confrontation. A move to formally disband the Mahdi army could help Sadr win prestige among a public exhausted by fighting.
"Sadr's decision will gain him respect among followers as a leader who is ready to sacrifice for his supporters' safety," said Hazem al-Nuaimi, an Iraqi political science lecturer.
But it is hard to imagine the gunmen disappearing from Iraqi communities any time soon, said Joost Hiltermann, the Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group think tank.
"In a vacuum like the current one, militias thrive because they are necessary. They protect Sadr's people against sectarian attacks by Sunni insurgents and against the Shiite middle class which doesn't want Sadrists to get a share of power," he said.
Mr Maliki ordered a crackdown on the militia two weeks ago in the southern city of Basra, provoking clashes throughout Baghdad and the Shiite south that led to violent clashes.
That fighting ebbed a week ago when Sadr ordered the militia off the streets, but picked up again on Sunday, with clashes around the Mahdi army stronghold of Sadr City, a Baghdad slum.
In an interview broadcast yesterday, Mr Maliki singled out the Mahdi army by name for the first time and ordered it to disband.
"Solving the problem comes in no other way than dissolving the Mahdi army," he told the US network CNN. "They no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mahdi army."
Mr Maliki said Iraqi government troops would continue the crackdown in Sadr City. "We have opened the door for confrontation, a real confrontation with these gangs, and we will not stop until we are in full control of these areas," he said.
Sunday's fighting persisted yesterday.
Medical sources said a further nine people died and more than 60 were wounded overnight, after 25 people were killed and more than 90 were wounded in Sunday's fighting.
"The Iraqis are taking sporadic gunfire and rocket- propelled grenade fire but we haven't heard about any reports of pitched battles or casualties. They're just firing at the Iraqis and us," said Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a US spokesman.
The US military announced the deaths of two more of its soldiers, bringing Sunday's toll to seven, one of the deadliest days for Americans in months.
The casualties include two American soldiers killed by mortars or rockets in the Green Zone compound.
Who are the Mahdi Army?FORMED in April 2003, the Mahdi Army is loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a cleric who is popular among Iraq's poor, urban Shiite majority.
Sadr led rebellions against US-led forces in 2004. In August that year, the Mahdi Army took refuge in Iraq's holiest Shiite shrine, the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, during fighting with US forces. A three-week siege ended with a compromise, under which they agreed to leave the shrine and US forces quit the city. Since the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra unleashed a wave of sectarian violence in 2006, the Mahdi Army has grown more powerful. Sunni Arabs and US officials have blamed it for death-squad killings. Sadr ordered a six-month ceasefire last August after fighting among rival Shiite factions. He extended it by six months in February.
The full article contains 887 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
