Al-Shamri has found a new life in the US after spilling the beans, reports Nermeen Al-Mufti from Baghdad Despite operation imposing law, which started three months ago, Baghdad is still a city haunted by death. An average of 24 dead bodies, all killed in mysterious circumstances, are found in the capital's streets every day. According to US reports, May has been one of the worst months for the US forces -- over 115 US servicemen have been killed so far. The most important news of the week, however, was the reappearance of Moqtada Al-Sadr. The Shia leader who has been in hiding since February appeared in the Koufa Mosque during the Friday prayers. According to US authorities, Al-Sadr was in Iran, hiding with other leaders of the Mahdi Army. But Al-Sadr aides say that he was living a secluded life in Najaf and never left the country. Al-Maliki's government has not commented on the matter. A media source close to Al-Sadr told me that he used to call him from an Iraqi mobile phone during the entire period he was in hiding. As soon as he reappeared, Al-Sadr called on the occupation forces to withdraw or set a timetable for withdrawal. But, aside from his surprising reappearance, something else is likely to attract media attention to Al-Sadr. The former health minister and one- time Sadrist, Ali Al-Shamri, who withdrew from the government after Al-Sadr pulled his ministers from the cabinet, has applied for asylum in the US. Much has been said about the former health minister, including claims that he turned the Health Ministry into a haven for death squads. The accusations against Al-Shamri intensified after Ali Al-Mahdawi, health chief in Diyali, disappeared a year ago. Al-Mahdawi had come to meet Al-Shamri to discuss his nomination by the (Sunni) Reconciliation Block for the job of deputy health minister. After entering Al-Shamri's office, he was never seen again. The daily Al-Zaman claims that Al-Shamri, who is accused of leading the death squads and selling bodies from the Baghdad morgue, gave the Americans information about the Mahdi Army in return for asylum. Al-Shamri is said to have provided the US authorities in Iraq with detailed information about Iranian weapon supplies to the Mahdi Army, the connections between the Mahdi Army commanders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the safe houses in which the Mahdi army commanders meet in Baghdad, and the names of those commanders. The information he provided enticed the Americans to grant him asylum and move him aboard a helicopter from Baghdad to a US airport. In a related development, the occupation authorities conveyed to Moqtada Al-Sadr an unwritten request to help improve the situation in the country. Last Sunday, Al-Sadr met 100 of his top aides for 3 hours at his Najaf home. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Sheikh Raad Al-Sakhri, who is in charge of Al-Sadr's office in Kirkuk, said that the news about Al-Shamri's application for asylum in the US was not yet confirmed. Concerning the meeting of Moqtada and his supporters, Al-Sakhri denied that the meeting was held in response to the US request, but rather to discuss policy, internal matters, and the prospects for cooperation with the Sunnis. The daily newspaper Al-Zaman quoted Moqtada's PR officer, Sheikh Salah Al-Obeidi, as saying that the "aim of the meeting attended by Al-Sadr was to formulate mechanisms to dispose of the routines that circumstances in the country had imposed on us." In reaction to accusations that the Mahdi Army was receiving Iranian weapons and training, Al-Sakhri said that the weapons used by the Mahdi Army belonged to the disbanded Iraqi army and that the Mahdi supporters were not receiving any assistance from Iran. "Had the [Mahdi Army] been receiving Iranian support, it would have expelled the occupiers a long time ago, due to the effectiveness and sophistication of Iranian weapons." Al-Sakhri added that, "the occupation authorities and those who cooperate with them have created the death squads to spread sectarian sedition, whether those death squads were Shia or Sunni." The Mahdi Army, he said, was still committed to peaceful resistance, and was not going to attack the occupation forces unless different orders were issued by Moqtada Al-Sadr. When I asked Al-Sakhri about the searches being conducted in Al-Sadr City and Al-Basra against members of the Sadr movement, he said that those searches were not related to the reappearance of Al-Sadr, but had been ongoing since operation imposing law started. However, according to well- informed sources, the house searches followed Al-Shamri's disclosure of the names of death squad leaders and their addresses to the occupation authorities, and the occupation authorities say that they confiscated quantities of modern Iranian anti-armour weapons. A source close to Moqtada said that he has ordered an investigation into the dossiers of his supporters with a view to expelling the "traitors". Al-Sakhri added that there were certain people who used the Samaraa incident of February 2006 to kill and attack Sunni mosques in the name of the Mahdi Army, but the latter was never involved in those attacks. The Mahdi Army was not involved in sectarian violence and accusations to this effect were untrue, he said. But it is getting harder and harder to paper over the cracks. A key figure in the Sadr movement disclosed that "differences between Al-Maliki and Sadr supporters worsened last week. Those differences are no longer confined to the poor method in which ministers are selected." The differences seem to focus on the new law for the provinces as well as the deteriorating security situation, he added. Moqtada Al-Sadr told his supporters that the blood of Iraqis -- whether Muslims, Shiites, Sunnis, or Christians -- mustn't be shed. But Al-Sadr has said that in the past, a Sunni source speaking on condition of anonymity said. Last March, Al-Sadr called for a ban on the killing of Iraqis. That was only a few days after the Samaraa crime. And yet the sectarian violence continued. Thousands of Sunnis were killed and their mosques were burned. And the evidence all pointed to the Mahdi Army. The killing spree continued until operation imposing law started, the Sunni source said. Moqtada's followers consistently denied the charges, claiming that their ranks had been infiltrated or that someone else was fanning sectarian violence and blaming it on them. What is needed, the Sunni source said, is first the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and then for the sides to sit down face to face and take a real step to end the sedition and bring Iraq back from the abyss. The Sunnis have been willing, and are still willing, to extend a hand in peace to those who want to end the sedition, ban the killing of Iraqis, and expel the occupiers, he added. Political analyst Amr Al-Azzawi told me that, "certain people are definitely running the death squads with guile, using the fact that Al-Sadr City is large and densely populated. It is one of the poorest and most populated areas of Baghdad. The occupation forces said the leaders of the death squads escaped into Iran, then said that they returned. How did they learn about their departure and return? And why did they not arrest them when they came back?" He added that much was said about the link between the Mahdi Army and the death squads, but there was no evidence so far. Al-Azzawi called on Al-Maliki's government to implement the promises it made in Sharm El-Sheikh and disband the militias. "The solution is not in integrating militiamen in the security forces. The militiamen are criminals," he said.
