Militias lack strength to mount Iraq uprising: US commander
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Iranian-backed "special groups" lack the strength to mount an uprising in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadr City district, having suffered heavy losses, a US brigade commander said Monday.
His on-the-ground assessment comes amid concerns over how the armed Shiite groups might respond to a US-Iraqi agreement reached over the weekend on the future US military presence in Iraq, which Iran opposed.
Colonel John Hort, commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, said leaders of the most violent groups operating in Sadr City fled to Iran and Syria after a long bout of heavy fighting from March through May.
"Part of the leadership, at least 50 percent, in my estimation, is still missing," said Hort, whose area of operations includes Sadr City.
"So the leadership itself is not completely intact yet to really affect a large-scale uprising or anything that we have seen before," he told reporters here in a video conference from Iraq.
With about 1.2 million people, Sadr City is the most important Shiite bastion in Baghdad, and possibly in the country.
Earlier this year armed militias had the run of the district, but they have receded in face of more confident Iraqi security forces, according to Hort.
He said about 800 fighters were killed or severely wounded during the fighting earlier this year. At the time, the special groups had about 2,000 full-time fighters in Sadr City, he said.
Some groups were aligned with Jaish al-Mahdi, the Shiite militia that follows radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has opposed the so-called status of forces agreement with the United States.
But Hort said the Jaish al-Mahdi appeared to be opting for political reconciliation, and turning away from violence.
"I would say the mainstream Jaish al Mahdi militia have not picked up arms, have not necessarily gone back to a violent method," he said.
Instead, they "are trying to look at themselves more in terms of the political apparatus that is within the country right now more than anything else," Hort said.