BASRA IS QUIET

In late March and early April, the main news story was fierce fighting between the Shi'a "Army of Mahdi" - supporters of the radical Shi'a politician Muqtada As-Sadr - and government troops supported by the Americans and British. The fighting claimed at least 200 lives.

At least 30,000 soldiers and policemen fought As-Sadr, while the operation was observed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who is also Shi'a. The prime minister offered a reward and amnesty for residents of Basra to lay down their weapons.

The appeal, valid until 8 April 2008, was announced by Iraqi government adviser Sadiq Ar-Riqabi. He pointed out that this proposal was a personal one and was not related to the ultimatum issued earlier by the government.

In response, Muqtada As-Sadr tried to move the fighting to the capital, Baghdad. As a result of armed clashes between militants and Iraqi military personnel in a Shi'a suburb of the Iraqi capital, 14 people were killed and 61 were wounded. The fighting broke out in the north-eastern district of Madinat Sadr - the bastion of the "Mahdi Army". Journalists call this district Sadr City.

Government troops were supported by US military personnel and helicopters. Members of the Iraqi parliament tried to call an emergency session in order to discuss the situation in the country. However, due to mortar and missile strikes, only 54 of the 274 deputies managed to make it into the fortified "green zone" of Baghdad where the parliament is based. One of the missiles hit the office of Vice-President Tariq Al-Hashimi and killed a guard.

US President George Bush described the offensive by the Iraqi government troops as "a turning point in the history of free Iraq". According to Bush, the actions of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki show that he is even-handed in dealing with Shi'a and Sunnis who break the law.

In turn, observers link the launching of the operation against the "Mahdi Army" to Al-Maliki's desire to weaken the group ahead of elections in Southern Iraq scheduled for October. Nuri Al-Maliki does not have his own militants, but he maintains close links with a number of groups, specifically the "Badr Corps", whose members serve in the Iraqi security forces, which are formally under Al-Maliki's command.

Current indications are that the situation in Iraq is normalizing. After As-Sadr urged his armed supporters in the "Mahdi Army" to halt their clashes with the Iraqi regular army, life in a number of districts of Basra returned to normal. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is still unable to work out who won the week-long fighting in Southern Iraq - Nuri Al-Maliki's government forces or the radical elements. "It seems to me that it is too early to talk about the outcome of the current fighting… I am not ready to draw a conclusion as to who won and who lost," Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said at a news conference in the Pentagon. Iraqi military representatives admitted that they were not ready to confront the well-trained "Mahdi Army". Major-General Abdul Aziz Muhammad, who ran the operation, said at a news conference that the special services had planned to fight only the criminal gangs and killers which had flooded into the city, not the "Mahdi Army". 

It is too early to talk about a lasting peace. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki welcomed the imam's initiative, calling it "a step in the right direction". The Iraqi government decided not to prosecute militants who laid down their weapons and left Basra. However, Al-Maliki denied that the government forces would cease their operation in Basra. It was not targeted on any party and its purpose was to clear the city of "criminal and destructive elements", he said. In turn, As-Sadr set a condition to which the Iraqi authorities have not yet responded. The leader of the "Mahdi Army" promised to remove his armed formations from the streets in exchange for the release from prison of his supporters and a general amnesty. Many observers say that Muqtada As-Sadr is not a politician with whom you can sign a gentlemen's agreement. For example, his "record" includes a botched revolt in the holy Shi'a city of An-Najaf. It proved possible to avoid great bloodshed then and As-Sadr promised to give up the armed fight. But it turned out later that he is not one to keep his word. One way or another, when the US air force bombed Basra several days after As-Sadr's peace initiatives, very few people were surprised.

There is another, much more important, factor. The action against the "Mahdi Army" implies not just a new, tougher stage in the confrontation within the Shi'a community of Iraq, but also extreme tension in relations between Baghdad and Tehran. Iran was pretty sure until recently that, after the redistribution of influence in the country between the Shi'a and Sunnis, Iraq would in fact be "privatized". Now Tehran's recent plans to open a "second front" against the USA in Iraq seem to be backfiring - its influence on the Iraqi Shi'a is eroding. For example, until recently it was impossible to imagine overtly anti-Iranian hostilities within the Shi'a community of Iraq.

The fighting in Basra proved once again that Iraq, even five years after the overthrow of Saddam Huseyn, remains a classical "mine field". According to the latest calculations, 4,000 Americans have already been killed in Iraq since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq in March 2003. In any case, far more Iraqis have been killed by the so-called "Iraqi Resistance" - often passers-by who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, a double explosion in Baghdad's Karrada district recently killed more than 50 people and wounded 130. The 17 March terrorist attack in Karbala killed more than 40 people and wounded 100. On 18 March, six children were killed and ten wounded in mortar strikes in Baghdad. On 22 March, two American soldiers and two civilians were killed in a land mine explosion in Iraq. Analysts link the new outbreak of violence in Iraq to the fifth anniversary of the occupation.

As a result of the continuing violence in Iraq, the number of people urging an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq is growing in many countries, including the USA.

However, experts are now talking about a possible change in public opinion. It is not just that Washington has managed to win over the Kurds and Shi'a, along with many influential Sunni leaders. In this context, the Iraqis' war against the Americans (called until recently the "Iraqi Resistance") is now in fact a terrorist war against the Iraqis themselves in which "volunteers" from other countries are often fighting on opposite sides of the barricades. The growth in the number of Iraqi casualties in terrorist attacks slowly but surely leads to a noticeable shift in public opinion, and not just in Iraq. The "Iraqi Resistance" no longer enjoys unconditional moral support, even among Arabs. On one Islamist website, Ayman Az-Zawahiri is already trying to prove that his organization is not responsible for civilian deaths in Iraq, Morocco and other countries where Al-Qaeda terrorists are operating. So it cannot be ruled out that the situation in Iraq is on the threshold of a strategic shift.