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Apocalypse Now
Iraqi forces struggle in the battle against a shadowy Shiite death cult. And that's only a small part of the problems they're facing in Iraq's south.
 Qassem Zein / AFP-Getty Images A bloody end: Corpses of fighters from the Soldiers of Heaven cult after a battle outside Najaf |
Feb. 12, 2007 issue - Dhia Abdul Zahra claimed he was the messiah. And on the eve of the holiest day in the Shiite calendar, Ashura, when believers beat themselves bloody with chains and swords, Zahra tried to deliver salvation. Hundreds of his followers, armed with heavy weapons, clashed with Iraqi and American soldiers northeast of the holy city of Najaf on Jan. 28. The Soldiers of Heaven, as the cultists called themselves, apparently planned to storm Najaf and assassinate top Shiite clerics. They fought fiercely: an American helicopter was shot down, killing two soldiers, and Iraqi forces called for reinforcements at least twice. Iraqi police say this was no ordinary enemy. Fighters repeatedly tapped into their radio frequency and repeated an ominous message, "Imam Mahdi is coming." The return of the Mahdi—the 12th and last Shiite saint, who, believers say, vanished in the ninth century—signals the end of times.
It would be easy to write off the thirtysomething Zahra, who was killed along with more than 250 others in the battle, as an Iraqi David Koresh and his followers as misguided zealots. But the Soldiers of Heaven are only one of dozens of Shiite factions, some of whom have similar millenarian ideas, that have sprung up across southern Iraq. Dominated as it is by one sect, the south has generally been thought remote from the civil war that has engulfed Baghdad and its environs. The Iraqi Army took over security in Najaf from the Americans in late December; few if any of the 20,000 new U.S. troops heading to Iraq will be sent to the region. But as the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released last week points out, the country is plagued by four overlapping battles—Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgent attacks on Americans, sectarian killings and Shia-on-Shia violence in the south. If left unchecked, that factional fighting could grow into as great a threat to Iraq's stability as the ethnic cleansing farther north. "The collapse of authority in southern Iraq could be devastating for both the United States and for Iraq," says Vali Nasr, author of "The Shia Revival."
Under Saddam Hussein, the Shiite south was viewed as a hotbed of Iranian intrigues and deliberately neglected. Its infrastructure is noticeably worse than other parts of the country: roads are full of potholes, and open sewers are common. And, despite millions of dollars pumped into projects since 2003, most recently under the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, the situation hasn't improved significantly. Unemployment in some areas is as high as 60 percent, and Iraq's five poorest provinces are all in the south. Many reconstruction projects have been abandoned because of corruption, kidnappings and killings.
The two biggest players in the region are Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, run by cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. But in Basra alone, whose oilfields account for about 90 percent of Iraq's budgetary revenue, at least half a dozen parties are competing for power—often violently. Basra's murder rate tripled in the first half of last year. "Security is bad in the Shiite south and may be getting worse," says Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan and an expert on Iraq's Shiites.
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