AL SARKHI BECOMES AN APPEALING ALTERNATIVE TO AL SADR FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000137

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/10/2016
TAGS: PGOV PINR PINS PREL IZ
SUBJECT: AL SARKHI BECOMES AN APPEALING ALTERNATIVE TO AL SADR FOR
VIOLENT, DISAFFECTED YOUNG MEN

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CLASSIFIED BY: Charles Hunter, Regional Coordinator, REO Al
Hillah, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b)

CLASSIFIED BY: Charles Hunter, Regional Coordinator, REO Al
Hillah, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b)


1. (C) Summary: Mahmud Al Hassani Al Sarkhi has begun
challenging Muqtada Al Sadr for the allegiance of violent,
disaffected young men in south-central Iraq, many of them culled
from Sadr's own legions. Sarkhi's willingness to do violence and
his lack of political ambition make him an ideal leader of a
Shia militia; his Army of the Guardians has grown steadily since
his 2004 split from Muqtada Al Sadr. However, Al Sarkhi's
eccentricities - he claims to speak to the 12th Imam - have
earned him the suspicion of legitimate religious organizations
and are likely to thwart any ambition he may harbor to succeed
Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Al Sadr as a spiritual figure. End
summary.

2. (C) As Muqtada Al Sadr moves farther towards legitimate
political power, a vacuum is being created among anti-Iraqi
forces. Al Sadr appears to be looking towards electoral politics
as the future of his Office of the Martyr Sadr (OMS) part. The
young, uneducated and unemployed men who have become the
backbone of Al Sadr's Jaysh Al Mahdi (JAM),on the other hand,
have always been more interested in giving coalition forces a
"black eye" than in helping their leader garner political clout.
This disconnect, while not portending the end of Al Sadr or
JAM's campaign of violence against Coalition and Iraqi security
forces, does provide opportunity for more radical and violent
groups to coalesce and gather momentum.

3. (C) One group taking advantage of the opportunity is the Army
of Guardians (AOG). Led by Mahmud Al Hassani Al Sarkhi, a former
student of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Al Sadr (father of Muqtada)
and a former Muqtada Al Sadr lieutenant. AOG seems to embrace
violent opposition to Coalition Forces and the Iraqi National
Government as its sole purpose. The Karbala-headquartered AOG is
composed of four mail subgroups directed by Al Sarkhi. Jaysh Al
Sarkhi operates in Maysan (Amarah) province, the Al Hassani
group is based and conducts its activity in Basrah, the Al
Sarkhi Group is located in Dhi Qar province, and the Army of
Guardians (not to be confused with the umbrella organization it
falls under) is active in the south-central provinces of
Diwaniyah, Najaf and Karbala.

4. (C) The relationship between Al Sarkhi and Muqtada Al Sadr
formed in 2003 as Coalition Forces deposed the Saddam Hussein
regime and began the Coalition Provisional Authority. Al Sarkhi
returned from exile in Jordan shortly after Saddam's fall, by
which time Al Sadr had begun leading the group that would come
to be known as Jaysh Al Mahdi (AKA-Mahdi Militia and Mahdi Army
Militia). Al Sarkhi, seeing an opportunity to join in the fight,
became subordinate to Al Sadr. This phase of the relationship
was short lived, however: following fighting in Najaf in April
and August of 2003, Al Sarkhi left JAM, taking with him only a
handful of supporters. In early 2005, operating out of Karbala,
they numbered some 500 men and began attacks on Iraqi and
Coalition forces mainly in the south of Iraq. Since then AOG has
continued to gain adherents, with it's membership estimated at
some 1500-2000 today.

5. (C) Many AOG members, though no following Al Sarkhi, continue
their involvement in Jaysh Al Mahdi, and for this reason it
remains difficult to ascertain whether AOG or JAM is behind a
given violent act. JAM is more a confederation of smaller groups
than a monolith controlled by Al Sadr, whose direction of these
groups grows more tenuous as he makes his foray into Iraqi
politics. Al Sarkhi, for his part, appears to have no political
agenda and has proven willing to do whatever is necessary to
fight the Iraqi government (i.e. Iraqi Police, Iraqi Army and
the Council of Representatives) and Coalition Forces. His
single-minded goal, violence and disruption, is particularly
attractive to disenchanted JAM members.

6. (C) Though Al Sarkhi's reach continues to grow among those
ready to use violence, his insistence that he is in direct
contact with Imam Al Mahdi (see below) has alienated the Shia
religious community. His claim to be the most prominent Shia
cleric in Iraq has led some religious leaders to disavow him
publicly. In a June 14 appearance on Iranian TV Islamic scholar
Sheikh Ali Al Korani called Al Sarkhi "fraudulent (for) claiming
to be in constant contact with the hidden Imam." Al Sarkhi
followers immediately laid siege to the Iranian consulate in
Basrah, raising the Iraqi flag in the compound and demanding
that Iran censure Al Korani. (Note: Al Korani is not, as the
protestors believed, Iranian. He is Lebanese. End note.)

7. (C) Comment: It is likely that a legitimate heir to Muqtada
Al Sadr's militia activities will emerge, and Al Sarkhi may
ultimately take up that mantle. There are those within JAM who
have been baffled by Al Sadr's bids for political power;
becoming an "insider" reduces his standing with JAM members who
believe the entire political process in Iraq to be illegitimate.
But if Al Sarkhi has been able to build an organization thanks

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to Al Sadr's political aspirations, the AOG leader's
pronouncements about his relationship with the 12th Imam, are
liable to limit any significant expansion of the organization's
scope. It must be recalled that Al Sadr, in 204, was intimating
that he too was closely related to the 12th Imam, if not the
embodiment of the Imam himself. That was not a winning strategy
then, alienating legitimate religious interests and the
faithful, and would not be so today. Al Sarkhi claims to be the
successor to Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Al Sadr. His incomplete
studies and his frosty relationship with Iraq's clergy, however,
mean that while he may wield power with his militia, he is
unlikely ever to rise to prominence as a religious or political
force. At this point, it seems that he has no such desire. End
comment.
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BIO NOTE
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8. (C) Mahmud Al Hassani Al Sarkhi was born in Baghdad circa.

1969. His father, Abdul Ridha Al Hassani Al Sarkhi, was a
politically moderate attorney. The elder Sarkhi neither worked
with the Saddam Hussein regime nor challenged it. Mahmud Al
Sarkhi attended Baghdad University and received a degree in
civil engineering in 1987. Seven years later, in 1994, he joined
the Hawza in Najaf, studying with the Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq
Al Sadr, Muqtada's father. Prior to the Ayatollah's death in
1999, Al Sarkhi was dismissed from his studies for making
fantastic claims to regular conversations - over tea, in fact -
with the 12th Imam, Al Mahdi. (Note: The 12th Imam will,
according to Shia teachings arrive on earth to claim the souls
of "true believers." End note.) Al Sarkhi is not recognized as a
cleric and is considered an embarrassment by legitimate Shia
leaders. Following the assassination of the Ayatollah Al Sadr,
however, it was Al Sarkhi who performed the Friday sermon the
next week at Kufa mosque. The sermon, a tribute to his former
teacher, was an attack on those Sarkhi held responsible for the
killing, specifically Saddam Hussein. For this, Al Sarkhi was
arrested and spent one year in prison.HUNTER