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19 Tense Hours in Sadr City Alongside the Mahdi Army
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Thahabi, slim and gaunt-faced, said that this time the Mahdi Army was not fighting only the Americans. The militiamen were also fighting their Shiite rivals -- the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Dawa party, which run Iraq's government.
Thahabi said he believes the government launched an offensive in the southern port city of Basra last Monday to weaken the Sadrist forces ahead of provincial elections scheduled for this year. He added that he thought Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who leads the Dawa party, was taking advantage of a cease-fire imposed by Sadr last August.
Iraq's government said it began the offensive to wipe out Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra. In recent days, however, the fighting has spread to other parts of Iraq.
"They know the Sadrists will win the elections," Thahabi said of the government. "So they are using the Americans against the Mahdi Army. People have reached a point that they will sell their refrigerator to buy a rocket launcher to shoot and kill the Americans."
'If We Die, We Win'
Three solemn-faced Mahdi Army fighters entered the living room at around 2 p.m., fresh from battle. "Akeel, son of Riad, just got killed," said Abu Zainab al-Kabi. The room fell silent.
Kabi, 34, said Akeel had been planting a roadside bomb when he was shot multiple times by an American soldier. Akeel was 22 and had followed his father and uncle into the Mahdi Army when he was 17. The fighters took his body to the hospital morgue. If they could break away from the battle, they planned to carry Akeel's body on Friday to the southern holy city of Najaf, where the Mahdi Army has built a cemetery for their dead, whom they call martyrs.
"We are proud that he died," said Abu Moussa al-Sadr, 31, another militiaman. "Whenever one of us dies, it raises our morale. It intensifies our fighting."
"If we defeat them, we win," Kabi said. "And if we die, we win."
Any sorrow they felt for Akeel soon appeared to vanish. They wanted to eat lunch. Over a spare meal of bread, tomato paste and vegetables, they said they had woken before dawn to make sure all their fighters were in position. They ordered their men to check all the IEDs they had set and shared intelligence with commanders in other sections of Sadr City.
Suddenly, they heard mortar rounds being launched outside with a boom like the sound of a wrecking ball.
"This is to the Green Zone," said Kabi. "These are gifts to Maliki's government."
He and Abu Moussa al-Sadr both work for Iraq's Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and is widely viewed as infiltrated by the Mahdi Army. They said that many police officers had defected from the government and were now fighting with the Mahdi Army.
