(Filed: 06/08/2003)
A militia of mostly Shia men is growing in response to a call to arms made by a maverick young cleric. Harry de Quetteville in Baghdad reports on Muqtader al-Sadr's army against US occupation.
As evening falls in the poor Shia suburb of Baghdad once known as Saddam City, dozens of volunteers queue under the watchful gaze of a local imam to sign up for the army.But this is not the new Iraqi army sponsored and approved by the American-led administration. These soldiers will receive no monthly salary of £40. Here, prospective warriors are ready to serve, and die, for nothing.
Call to arms: volunteers sign-up at the Al-Ahrar Mosque
This is "Mahdi's army", a growing militia of mostly Shia men who have responded to the fiery call to arms made by a maverick young cleric, Muqtader al-Sadr, two weeks ago in the Shia holy city of Najaf.Since then al-Sadr has led anti-US demonstrations and encouraged worshippers to resist the US "invaders" and Iraq's "Zionist" governing council, appointed by the coalition.Now the ranks of this religious army, named after an ancient imam who Shias believe will return to save the world, have swollen into tens of thousands, perhaps more."On the very first day after the call, up to 1 million people signed," claimed Sheikh Hassan al-Zurgani, a Baghdad representative of the Hawza, a Shia seminary based in Najaf."The official Iraqi army is the puppet of the USA," he added. "Now our people are willing to be martyrs and the USA must fear us."For the moment Muqtader al-Sadr, the son of a revered Shia ayatollah murdered four years ago by Saddam Hussein, has not issued any order for mobilisation against the United States.But there is no doubt that Mahdi's army has the potential to be a heavily armed force. "We do not need to issue weapons," said Sheikh Qais al-Kaza'ali, who oversees Baghdad's main rallying point for signatures from a religious centre in Saddam City. "Everybody has their own gun."The US administration has dismissed al-Sadr and his Mahdi army as nothing more than a nuisance. But on the rundown streets of Saddam City, Shia who were despised and oppressed by the former regime believe they have found a new oppressor.From their crumbling concrete tenements, they have come in droves to Sheikh al-Kaza'ali's office every night between 6 and 8 pm since al-Sadr's Najaf sermon."We are not scared of the Americans," said Ali Hadi, a 13-year-old boy who signed up yesterday evening. "Iraq is our country and we must fight to protect it and our religion."Everyone in this district of Baghdad claims to have signed up for the army, encouraged by their friends and by community leaders."My friends told me about this 10 days ago," said Salah Hassan. "They have all signed, so I came down this evening to sign up too."The process of volunteering is simple. A signature on a neatly printed form is enough to commit a volunteer to service.As pen is repeatedly put to paper outside his office, Sheikh al-Kaza'ali insisted that it did amount to a real army."Most of the former Iraqi army were Shias," he said. "They have enormous experience of battle. And we are already sorting the names we have into army divisions. This is not a symbolic army. You would be astonished how ready people are to die."One man came with his five-year-old son to put both their names on the list and we said that his son was too young. The man said, 'No, I am ready to sacrifice him for this army'."Such is the fervour boiling in this shabby neighbourhood that some may be willing to carry out their boastful threats of self-sacrifice and take an American life too.But for the moment the only army patrolling the streets around what was once called Saddam City is under the control of President George W Bush, not Muqtader al-Sadr.Even the Americans admit however, that this poor Shia district will never be known again as Saddam City. Now it is known to one and all as Sadr City instead.
