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). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶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. -------------- Back Under Siege -------------- ¶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) -------------- Worried and Angry about Sadrists -------------- ¶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 BAGHDAD 00000807 002 OF 002 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) -------------- Badr and ISCI -------------- ¶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. -------------- ISCI and Da'wa Reconciliation? -------------- ¶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