NAJAF SADRISTS DISORGANIZED BUT STILL HAVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 003679

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/21/2018
TAGS: PGOV PINR KISL IZ
SUBJECT: NAJAF SADRISTS DISORGANIZED BUT STILL HAVE
INFLUENCE

Classified By: Senior Advisor Gordon Gray for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

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Summary
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1. (C) Security in Najaf Province remains stable, but recent
IED attacks suggest that the province's Sadrist militants are
still active, albeit weakened. In a series of meetings with
Senior Advisor Gordon Gray on November 17-18, local Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF),politicians, and tribal sheikhs
dismissed the Sadrists as a political force and expressed
confidence in their ability to control Sadrist activity. BG
Karim, the Badr-affiliated provincial police chief, argued
that the Office of the Martyr Sadr (OMS) leadership in Najaf
-- not the Baghdad branch -- still calls the shots in Muqtada
al-Sadr's absence. Key provincial leaders such as Governor
Abu Assad Gelal (ISCI) and Sheikh Fayed al-Shimmeri (Da'wa)
dismissed the Sadrist leadership, saying they were too
disorganized, fractured and indecisive to be appropriate
negotiating partners for any potential reconciliation
negotiations with the Iraqi Government. End summary.

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Keeping The Peace
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2. (C) Najaf's improving security situation has been
challenged recently by a series of incidents in the rural
southeastern parts of the province, where Sadrist militants
are still active. On November 9, a Coalition Forces convoy
hit an IED three kilometers from the Provincial
Reconstruction Team, causing injuries and potentially
delaying the start of operations at nearby Najaf
International Airport. (Note: The airport went ahead with its
first outbound international flight, a hajj flight to Jeddah,
on November 18. End note.) In a meeting with Border Guard
General MG Ghazali and sheikhs representing the al-Yasir,
al-Ibrahim, and al-Fareeq tribes, Ghazali claimed that the
ISF have strong relationships with tribesmen in the troubled
areas, and have the situation under control. Sheikh Shafeq
al-Yasiri revealed that he is the leader of the Southeastern
branch of the province's Security Council (SC). He said that
his SC works informally within each tribe to discourage
militants, and turns in to the ISF key details about tribe
member militants when they fail to heed warnings to cease and
desist. (Note: In August, these same tribal sheikhs
threatened armed action against the ISCI-led provincial
government due to various grievances. End note.)


3. (C) Police Chief BG Karim emphasized that security in the
key urban centers had improved to the point where Sadrists
were invisible in Najaf and inactive in Kufah. He touted his
initiative to replace soldiers at the checkpoints with
cameras, and praised the improved performance of his SWAT
team in targeting militants. Karim offered multiple ways in
which the U.S. could help support his continued efforts to
upgrade security, including the need for a forensics lab and
an "information center" to infiltrate militias. Karim was
nevertheless proud of how much additional training and
equipment had improved police performance and weakened the
Sadrists. As evidence, he contrasted the previous week's
anniversary of the death of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr,
commemorated by approximately 1,000 young, unarmed marchers
under heavy police presence, with the same event two years
earlier, which featured 20,000 armed men who marched in front
of a police force that often was not carrying weapons for
fear of becoming a target.

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Who Runs OMS in Najaf?
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4. (C) While boasting about his success against the Sadrists,
Karim emphasized that OMS/Najaf still poses a threat, opposes
the SOFA, and remains the decision-making nexus for most
Sadrists in Muqtada's absence. He advised that the power of
Sadrist leaders should be viewed in inverse proportion to
their public profile. To illustrate his point, Karim
described a Sadrist iftar dinner he attended this September,
in which the people least likely to talk were in his opinion
the most influential. He dismissed the power of OMS
spokesmen in Baghdad such as Salah al-Obeidi and identified
Imam Jabar al-Khafaji, Ahmed Shebani, and Abu Hassan
al-Sarkhiy (who is just across the Euphrates in Shamiyah,
Diwaniyah Province) as main local OMS leaders. Karim viewed
Khafaji as particularly important, saying that "75 percent of
the execution orders have come from him," including the
execution of Sadrist cleric Sahib al-Ameri in late 2006. He
believes that Khafaji has had and continues to have influence
on Muqtada's decision-making.


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Sadrist Negotiating Partners?
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5. (C) While other contacts were less specific in their
assessment, local opinion unanimously held that Sadrists
were too fractured and disorganized to be effectively
reconciled and brought into the political process. Sheikh
Fayed, a former Provincial Council Chairman with ISCI who has
recently switched to Da'wa, noted that Sadrists had
recently contacted the Maliki government to discuss
reconciliation. Fayed said that this is not unusual, in the
sense that individual Sadrists often communicate with his
party to provide unspoken support on issues in Parliament.
He was not optimistic about broader reconciliation
negotiations, however, because he believes it is not possible
to negotiate with Sadrists as a bloc, either in Najaf or
Baghdad.


6. (C) Outgoing ISCI Governor Abu Gelal acknowledged that
the Sadrists needed to be brought into the political process
(and advised sternly that ISCI had attempted to do so years
earlier when Maliki and Ibrahim Jaafari were opposed to the
idea),but believed the Sadrists offered no appropriate
negotiating partner. In a blanket dismissal of Muqtada
specifically and negotiations with Sadrists generally, Gelal
quipped: "Imam Ali said, "when I discuss with a wise man, I
always win. When I discuss with an unwise man, I always
lose."
CROCKER