Months of political tensions over stalled attempts to form a government in Iraq have spilled over into violence, with at least 15 people killed and hundreds hurt in clashes between militias in Baghdad’s Green Zone and a nationwide curfew imposed.
The gunfire followed an announcement by the powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that he was quitting politics and an earlier decision by his spiritual mentor to retire and attempt to persuade Sadr to transfer his fealty to Iran.
Sadr’s supporters, who had been staging a weeks-long sit-in at parliament in the Green Zone, breached the entrance of the Republican Palace, where cabinet meetings are usually held.
By nightfall, forces loyal to Sadr had been deployed across Baghdad, where many were vandalising posters of Iranian-backed Shia leaders, including the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.
At least seven shells fell in the Green Zone on Monday night, according to a security source cited by Agence-France Presse. It was not immediately clear who was behind the shelling, which was followed by automatic gunfire in the heavily fortified area.
The developments cast a new pall over Iraq, where a political deadlock and a bitter tussle for influence between Iranian-backed interests and parties loyal to Baghdad have festered for the past 10 months.
The resignation of Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri, in particular, has added a new dynamic to the imbroglio, leading some observers to claim that Iraq’s fate will be determined not in a sovereign capital, but in one of the two spiritual centres of Shia Islam: Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran.
The spectre of the most powerful militias in the country being drawn into a wider confrontation appeared likely as night closed in, with sporadic clashes erupting near the Iraqi parliament between Iranian-backed militias and forces loyal to Sadr, who can command the loyalty of up to 7 million Shia Iraqis.
The UN chief, António Guterres, on Monday called for “restraint” in Iraq and asked all parties to “take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation”, according to his spokesperson, as Baghdad’s Green Zone descended into chaos.
Inside the opulent palace, protesters lounged in armchairs in a meeting room, as some waved Iraqi flags and took photographs of themselves, while others entered a swimming pool in the garden.
Protests also broke out in the Shia-majority southern provinces, with Sadr’s supporters burning tyres and blocking roads in the oil-rich province of Basra and hundreds demonstrating outside the governorate building in Missan. Iraq’s acting prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, imposed a curfew across most towns and cities, except the Kurdish north, from 7.30pm.
In July, Sadr had sent his followers to occupy parliament, while calling for wholesale changes to a political system that has carved Iraq into sectarian fiefdoms and been widely accused of supplanting the national good with vested interests.
Sadr had been a main beneficiary of the post-2003 system, enshrined under the US occupation of Iraq, and had used it to consolidate his authority over his followers and impact on political life.
He had also transferred his popularity into electoral success, winning the largest number of seats in elections held last October, but later ordering his members to resign in protest after failed attempts to form a government.
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Though nominally friendly with Iran throughout the two decades since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, Sadr had increasingly contested the influence of the country’s eastern neighbour.
The Iraqi cleric had long deferred to Haeri on spiritual and even political issues. However, Haeri appeared to directly challenge Sadr’s right to act as the heir of his late father, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr – a serious blow to the 46-year-old cleric’s legitimacy.
“You cannot lead by their names. In reality you are not a Sadrist even if you are from the family of Sadrists,” Haeri, 83, said in a statement that Sadrist supporters claimed was coerced. The statement sent shock waves around Iraq and the region, which has been bracing for a flare-up between Shia groups. Some had even raised the spectre of a Shia civil war.
“It’s basically an excommunication. Moqtadr al-Sadr isn’t his father’s – or his father-in-law’s – legitimate heir. [Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is,” said a former British ambassador to Iraq, Sir John Jenkins, of Haeri’s statement. “This from someone who claims to have been his father’s closest religious associate. I assume Iran has put massive pressure on him. Which means they must be seriously worried this time. So the question is: will the Sadrists listen?”
Entifadh Qanbar, a former senior Iraqi official, said Haeri’s resignation and challenge to Sadr marked a seminal moment in Iraq’s post-Saddam history.
“Before Moqtada’s father died, he told the Sadrists to follow al-Haeri as their ultimate religious leader. So today what happened was a coup d’etat to deprive himself and to deprive Moqtada as leader of the Sadrist movement. This is a very big deal.”
Some observers fear protracted clashes will test the loyalty of the Iraqi military, which contains large numbers of followers of Sadr within its ranks.
“Our brothers in the army will follow if the Sayed [Sadr] asks them to,” said a Sadrist loyalist, Houssam al-Badr, in east Baghdad. “For now, we are all waiting for instructions.”