Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and his chief rival, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, reached a truce Saturday to end bloodshed between their loyalists that has killed scores of Iraqis and raised fears of a new front in the Iraq war.
Officials of al-Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said the deal was hammered out during a 4 1/2 -hour meeting between the Shiite leaders, whose militias have been vying for control of oil-rich southern Iraq. Both sides said they would disclose details Sunday.
Britain is decreasing its troop strength in the mostly Shiite south, and there are concerns that in the absence of foreign forces, all-out war will break out between Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization militia of Hakim’s party. More than 50 Iraqis, most of them Shiite pilgrims, died in August in militia clashes in the southern city of Karbala.
An announcement of the truce, broadcast on the satellite station controlled by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, said it would include the forming of committees in each province to work out problems before they explode in violence.
Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite politics at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the pact is significant. “The two have the largest militias and the most extensive political networks and bases of support. The deal, if it sticks, can bring stability to southern Iraq,” he said.
A spokesman for Sadr said the deal was aimed at calming tensions on the streets but would have no effect on the cleric’s decision to leave the Shiite political alliance of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in parliament. Sadr’s decision in September to pull his 30 lawmakers from the bloc left al-Maliki’s alliance with only 83 seats in the 275-member parliament.
Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert with the International Crisis Group, said the new truce with al-Hakim serves both sides well because neither is capable of winning a military victory, and it could be part of Sadr’s long-term political strategy.
As for Sadr, analysts say, the more time he has to cast himself as a peacemaker, the better it will serve him once the extra U.S. troops begin to leave.
In violence Saturday, Baghdad provincial Gov. Hussein al-Tahan escaped unharmed when his convoy came under attack in a predominantly Sunni district in the southwest of the capital, The Associated Press reported. No one in the convoy was known to be wounded.
Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded three others Saturday, the military said.
