ISCI WORRIED ABOUT SADRISTS, RECRIMINATIONS IN FAR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 000807

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/24/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL IZ IR
SUBJECT: ISCI WORRIED ABOUT SADRISTS, RECRIMINATIONS IN FAR
SOUTH

REF: A. BAGHDAD 768

B. BAGHDAD 709

C. BAGHDAD 661

D. BAGHDAD 655

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

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Summary
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1. (C) ISCI/Badr provincial leaders in the far south (Basra,
DhiQar, Muthanna) expect Da'wa/State of Law and its coalition
partners to target ISCI/Badr members for removal from key
positions in provincial ministry offices and the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF). The potential re-entry of Sadrists
into provincial government provokes indignation, but
ISCI/Badr leaders are especially concerned that Sadrist
detainee releases will lead to legal action and/or violence
against them. Many ISCI leaders are looking to attract more
nationalist elements to their ranks, while those with strong
Badr links are more focused on protecting local interests,
especially their power within the ISF. Widespread anger
toward ISCI and especially its Badr militia will make them
vulnerable to various types of reprisals in the coming
months. End summary.

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Back Under Siege
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2. (C) In a series of mid-March meetings with Senior Advisor
Gordon Gray, ISCI and Badr leaders in the far southern
provinces lamented their inability to forge post-election
provincial alliances and expressed fears about what comes
next. In Basra, Badr Organization leader Hassan al-Rashid
said he was working to peel away the five-member
"Independents'" wing out of the State of Law coalition, which
would be enough, barring defections, to give an ISCI/Badr-led
bloc enough power to form its own ruling coalition. Rashid
was less confident than third-party sources (such as Justice
and Unity party leader Amir al-Fayez) about the chances for
pulling this off, however. Muthanna ISCI Provincial Council
(PC) member Latif Hassan al-Hassani said he had tried to use
his friendship with Da'wa members to pull together a
province-specific grand coalition, but that both the Prime
Minister and ISCI leadership in Baghdad had vetoed the idea.


3. (C) ISCI/Badr expects the new Da'wa-led PC coalitions
will work to remove their members from executive positions.
As outgoing DhiQar Governor Aziz Kadhim Alwan put it, "If a
Director General belongs to a party that they don't like,
they will remove him." Several national Da'wa contacts have
more or less confirmed Alwan's suspicions that Da'wa will use
its authority under the new Provincial Powers Law (PPL) in
this manner, although local contacts such as Basra Da'wa PC
member Dayaa Jaafar Hajam are much more circumspect when
discussing provincial executive appointments. Other ISCI
contacts predicted that Da'wa would try to install its people
in areas where their legal authority to do so is
questionable. Rashid mentioned to Gray concerns about
appointments to the Provincial Investment Commission, and
later told the Regional Embassy Office of his worries that
people with ISCI/Badr links will be removed from the Southern
Oil Company. (Note: Recent Embassy contacts with the Prime
Minister's office and the Ministry of Oil seem to confirm
that the Prime Minister's office has plans for personnel
turnover at Southern Oil. End note.) Many ISCI leaders plan
on getting out of the provinces while they can; Alwan told us
he plans to accept a ministry position in Baghdad. (ref C)

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Worried and Angry about Sadrists
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4. (C) ISCI/Badr members have an especially emotional and
angry response to reports that Sadrist militants may soon be
released from prison as part of a reconciliation package
Qreleased from prison as part of a reconciliation package
negotiated with the Prime Minister's office -- and that
Sadrist politicians may join Da'wa in government. As noted
in ref B, Alwan in DhiQar and Latif in Muthanna complained
that CoR member Baha al-Araji and newly-elected Sadrist PC
members have visited prisons in their provinces recently,
promising their followers quick releases from detention and
encouraging them to sue the prison guards, police and judges
responsible for putting them behind bars. Alwan added that,
as a means of dealing with outstanding warrants, he had heard
that Sadrists would be detained and quickly released, thereby
clearing them of charges. Latif in Muthanna told us
something similar. Few Sadrists have actually been released
in the south, however, in part due to fears by Da'wa members
at the local level. Dayaa, the leading Da'wa candidate to be

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governor in Basra, acknowledged a small number of recent
Sadrist prisoner releases and noted with obvious concern that
the ISF is keeping a close eye on them. On March 20,
Sadrists demonstrated in Nasiriyah; detainee releases were at
the top of their list of demands.


5. (C) Latif claimed that Samawah prison contains not only
garden-variety Sadrists who would be released, but members of
the Sadrist Special Group Asaib ahl al-Haq (AAH). He also
said that these AAH members have ties to Fadhil Ashura, an
advisor to the Prime Minister who formerly ran the Office of
the Martyr Sadr office in Rumaytha. Ashura, according to
Latif, is under investigation for involvement in the 2007
murder of Latif's brother, then-Governor Muhammad Ali
al-Hassani. (Latif believes that Iranian agents used Sadrist
militants to murder his brother, also an ISCI member, because
he had become too independent.) Latif said that the Prime
Minister's office had recently authorized a directive
enabling the prosecution of Ashura, but had authorized the
transfer of the ISCI-affiliated provincial criminal
investigative unit chief to Karbala in retaliation. We have
not been able to confirm Latif's story on Ashura.

6. (C) ISCI has shown some flexibility towards the Sadrists,
reaching out to them where both parties are excluded from the
ruling coalition and offering olive branches in some
provinces. In Basra, where State of Law looks set to govern
with an outright majority, the five ISCI/Badr and two Sadrist
PC members have met, according to Amir al-Fayez, and are
willing to work together. Hassan al-Rashid, in contrast to
his compatriots in Dhi Qar and Muthanna, downplayed any
possibility of tension between his Badr Organization and the
Sadrists in Basra. Contacts of the Provincial Reconstruction
Team (PRT) in Najaf also said that ISCI had offered a
potential provincial alliance to the Sadrists in the past few
days, but that talks had fallen through. (septel)

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Badr and ISCI
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7. (C) As seen in other provinces and at the national level,
ISCI members with western expatriate experience exhibited
different priorities from members with strong Badr ties and
Iranian expatriate experience. Latif, a U.K. citizen who
returned to Iraq after the murder of his brother to assume
the duties of family patriarch, emphasized that ISCI needed
to appeal more strongly to nationalist Iraqis. He singled
out the need to align strongly with Ayad Allawi and his
followers and make public ISCI's distance from Iran. Badr
affiliates such as Alwan and Rashid gave no signs of wanting
to reach out to a broader constituency and were much more
focused on protecting the positions of their members within
the ISF specifically and the ministries more broadly (ref D).
Protecting Badr members in public positions will be
difficult given local animosity toward Badr, especially from
tribal leaders and Sadrists. On several occasions recently,
tribal leaders, opposition figures, and ISF officers have
told us that they want to see the ISF "purged" of political
elements (ref A). The reference to Badr members is thinly
veiled.

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ISCI and Da'wa Reconciliation?
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8. (C) There appears to be some difference in opinion on
whether the Shi'a religious leadership in Najaf will
intervene if divisions between ISCI and Da'wa grow wider.
Latif noted the realignment in the Council of
Representatives, with ISCI, the Kurds, and the Sunni IIP on
one side, and the Prime Minister reaching out to both
Sadrists and Sunni ex-Baathists on the other. He sounded
QSadrists and Sunni ex-Baathists on the other. He sounded
confident that, if cross-sectarian alliances further
crystallize on both sides and animosity between ISCI and
Da'wa rises, the marja'iyah will intervene to bring the two
closer together before national elections. Rashid and Alwan,
however, both dismissed the idea that Najaf would play any
intermediary role. Of the two, Rashid gave the stronger
impression that the current split between ISCI and Da'wa was
temporary. Given that Da'wa has only started making its mark
on provincial governance in the south, even a temporary split
from ISCI is likely to be extended and to have a lasting
impact on power relations in the area.
BUTENIS