Shiite Militia May Be Disintegrating

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr delivers a Friday sermon, in a Mosque, in Kufa, Iraq, Friday Sept. 22, 2006. The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is splintering, with up to 3,000 gunmen now funded directly by Iran and no longer loyal to al-Sadr. Two commanders tell The Associated Press that hundreds have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds commandos _ an ominous development at a time when U.S. forces and the Iraqi government are struggling to get sectarian groups to lay down their arms. By Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra. (AP Photo/Alaa Al-Marjani) (Alaa Al-marjani - AP)

Al-Sadr has been in Iran since early February, apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive, according to the U.S. military. He is not known to be close to Iran's leadership or Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

While Al-Sadr's strategy appears to be to wait out the government offensive and preserve his force, his absence has left loyal fighters unsure of his future and pondering whether they had been abandoned by their leader, the commanders said.

Al-Sadr tried to return to Iraq last month but turned back before he reached the Iraqi border upon learning of U.S. checkpoints on the road to Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad where he lives.

"Conditions are not suitable for him to return," said an al-Sadr aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "His safety will not be guaranteed if he returns."

The Mahdi Army commanders, who said they would be endangered if their names were revealed, said Iran's Revolutionary Guards were funding and arming the defectors from their force, and that several hundred over the last 18 months had slipped across the Iranian border for training by the Quds force.

In recent weeks, Mahdi Army fighters who escaped possible arrest in the Baghdad security push have received $600 each upon reaching Iran. The former Mahdi Army militiamen working for the Revolutionary Guards operate under the cover a relief agency for Iraqi refugees, they said.

Once fighters defect, they receive a monthly stipend of $200, said the commanders.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for an Iranian dissident group, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that Iraqi Shiite guerrillas and death squads were being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran government leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures.

Inside Iraq, the breakaway troops are using the cover of the Mahdi Army itself, the commanders said.

The defectors are in secret, small, but well-funded cells. Little else has emerged about the structure of their organization, but most of their cadres are thought to have maintained the pretense of continued Mahdi Army membership, possibly to escape reprisals.

Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters vary wildly, with some putting the figure at 10,000 and others as many as 60,000.

The extent of al-Sadr's control over his militia has never been clear. Like many of Iraq's warring parties, it's a loosely knit force. The fiery cleric inspires loyalty with his speeches and edicts, and the Shiite gunmen are also bonded by the goal of maintaining Shiite dominance in a country long controlled by the rival Sunni Muslims, most recently Saddam Hussein.