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Old May 31st, 2007, 11:57 AM        Baghdad District Is a Model, but Only for Shiites
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/wo...pagewanted=all

Ice cream shops in the Shiite stronghold of Kadhimiya are flush with sweet-toothed customers. Hospitals have new supplies. Rents have tripled as displaced Shiites flock to the historic district's spacious homes, while pilgrims stream to the golden-domed shrine at its heart.
Here on the volatile Sunni-dominated west bank of the Tigris River, religious Shiite leaders and their militias have unquestionably consolidated control, transforming Kadhimiya into what could be a model for much of Baghdad if the Shiites have their way.
''This experience in Kadhimiya, you might find it in the future in every neighborhood throughout Iraq,'' said Sheik Muhammad Bakr Khamis al-Suhail, the white-robed leader of the neighborhood council.
But the future that Kadhimiya points to may not be democratic, inclusive or just, at least by Western standards. Residents and American commanders describe the area as a nerve center for benign and malignant elements of Shiite power, the raw embodiment of the Shiite revival that has swept Iraq in the last four years.
It is a place, they say, where militia leaders, Iraqi politicians, criminals and clerics intersect and compete; a place where the Iraqi soldier protecting residents on Monday may be collecting bribes for a militia on Tuesday, praying at the mosque on Friday and firing at American troops over the weekend.
For the average Iraqi, the tradeoff for relative safety is living with a certain level of extortion, political corruption and religious militancy.
Loyalties in Kadhimiya can change block by block as rival militias vie for turf. Clerics post guards with Kalashnikov rifles in winding alleyways, and some factions scorn mosques where others worship. There is even a gas station controlled by a different armed group every few days.
''The militia influence undermines the rule of law,'' said Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska, deputy commander of the Second Brigade, First Infantry Division, charged with controlling northwest Baghdad. He added that the militia fighters who had joined the Iraqi security forces ''are basically militia eyes and ears that respond to politicians, as opposed to a legitimate chain of command.''
Sheik Suhail said that the militia members in largely middle-class Kadhimiya were more educated and orderly than those in Sadr City and elsewhere, but that their presence was ''like a time bomb that's ticking, and one day it'll explode.''
The economic boom, religious fervor and force of arms seem to go hand in hand here.
The Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the rebellious Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, helps keep security in central Kadhimiya, watching for Sunni Arab insurgents intent on bombing the main shrine, the market or an ayatollah's home. A Sadr loyalist was recently nominated to lead the Iraqi Army battalion in the neighborhood, and 300 of his men are already in uniform on the streets. Some Mahdi members also do social work, dispensing food and medical aid.
''We're providing a public service,'' said Karim Naji, a Sadr spokesman whose family has lived in Kadhimiya for 130 years. ''We act as the connection between the government and the families.''
The militias' intimidating form of street justice, complete with underground Islamic courts, has helped prevent the catastrophic bomb attacks all too common in other Shiite neighborhoods. The militias have created a Shiite-friendly ring around Kadhimiya -- many Sunni Arab families on its southern fringes were driven out last year, and the militias have taken the fight to outlying neighborhoods.
American commanders say they suspect that militia leaders are using Kadhimiya as a base to plan operations to clear out mixed and predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods throughout western Baghdad.
''Any Sunni may face death in Kadhimiya unless he's under the protection of a resident here,'' Sheik Suhail said.
But for fearful Shiites, Kadhimiya is a sanctuary. At least 2,000 families have fled here. Hundreds live in several warehouses by the hospital, the sheik said.
His sister Asmaa moved here with her husband and three college-age children after three of her husband's brothers were shot dead in their old neighborhood, Abu Ghraib.
''I can say it's 98 percent different here,'' she said. ''In Abu Ghraib, we couldn't sleep, night or day.''
Kadhimiya is one of Baghdad's most venerable areas, designated as a cemetery in the eighth century during the height of the Abbasid caliphate. It became a Shiite pilgrimage center after the seventh Shiite imam, Musa al-Kadhim, and his grandson, Muhammad al-Taqi, the ninth imam, were buried here. The shrine is said to have been built atop their graves.
Powerful Shiite leaders make the neighborhood their home. They include Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr, an elderly moderate cleric related to Moktada al-Sadr; Ahmad Chalabi, the favorite of American neoconservatives; and Bahaa al-Aaraji, the leader of the parliamentary bloc loyal to the young Mr. Sadr. Some of Kadhimiya's armed groups answer to these men.
The militia presence even extends deep into Camp Justice, the main Iraqi and American base in Kadhimiya. It was here, in an execution chamber on the Iraqi compound, where Saddam Hussein was hanged in December to chants of ''Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.''
The area is not entirely free of sectarian violence. Militants in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, just across the Tigris, launch mortar rounds or fire shots into Kadhimiya.
The occasional violence has not dampened the influx of prominent Shiite figures and displaced families. Rents have tripled, Sheik Suhail said. A fifth of the shops are newly opened or renovated. The famous gold market is bustling, as are cafes, furniture stores and religious souvenir shops.
But with the benefits of Shiite rule also come the dysfunctions.
Territory has been carved up by the armed factions, an affliction common to Shiite areas throughout Iraq. Mahdi Army cells dominate most of the district, but a southern area is controlled by the militia's archrival, the powerful Shiite political party with strong ties to Iran formerly known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It recently renamed itself the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
The council's main house of worship, the Baratha Mosque, is guarded by the party's militia. Scores of worshipers were killed there last year in a series of suicide bombings by Sunni Arab insurgents. Mr. Sadr's loyalists despise the mosque as much as the Sunnis do. ''It's the headquarters of Iranian intelligence,'' said Mr. Naji, Mr. Sadr's spokesman.
The mosque's imam, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a powerful legislator, blamed the Sadrists for tensions in Kadhimiya, but he criticized the Americans even more. ''Most of their actions are provocative,'' he said. ''There's no need for them to be in the area.''
The Sadr militia is itself fractured. Some Iraqis and American commanders report that leaders from rival Mahdi Army cells have moved into Kadhimiya and are vying for power. Four bodies recently surfaced in a single day, and residents told American troops that the victims were Shiite militiamen who had been battling other Shiites.
Civilians live in relative peace, at a cost.
On a recent afternoon, Colonel Miska, the American deputy commander, visited a gas station in Kadhimiya that seemed to highlight the neighborhood's contradictions.
Many of the drivers waiting in line had come from all over Baghdad because the neighborhood was more likely to have fuel. But who could buy it was often determined by which armed men stood near the pumps.
Some days, the station's private guards controlled access, accepting bribes for those looking to cut ahead in line. Other days, the Iraqi Army managed the station -- letting militia leaders slide in without waiting. And one day earlier this month, Mahdi Army members stood by the pumps.
Whenever a driver tried to cheat to get ahead in the line, the gunmen shattered the car's headlights, said Amar Juad al-Kadhimi, 28.
''After that,'' Mr. Kadhimi said, ''everything went smoothly.''
Some Mahdi members extort protection money from business owners and doctors, American officers said. Militias take a cut of construction contracts and real estate transactions, typically 25 percent, Sheik Suhail said.
''The Mahdi Army acts as a tax office in all Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad,'' he said.
The militias sometimes try to enforce a strict interpretation of law based on the Koran, raiding gambling dens or attacking alcohol vendors, the sheik said. Last month, American soldiers said they found two drunken men bound and beaten in a house with blood-splattered walls. It appeared to have been a makeshift Islamic court or torture center, the Americans said.
Kadhimiya's concentration of militia power has fueled distrust of the Iraqi forces in the area, according to residents, American commanders and Iraqi security officers.
The Americans seem especially frustrated with what they describe as the Iraqi government's approval of militia control. The Sadr loyalist nominated to be a battalion commander here worked for the guard detail of Mr. Aaraji, the senior Sadr legislator who lives in the area, American officers said. The loyalist had been in the army only a few weeks, the Americans said.
''He's been over at the militia headquarters,'' said a company commander, Capt. Douglas Rogers.
Now, ''There are Americans doing patrols with Iraqis who a week before were supportive of, or actually engaged in, fighting against them,'' he said in another interview.
Militia infiltration in the Iraqi Army crystallized during a firefight on April 29 between Captain Rogers's soldiers and the Mahdi Army.
A platoon of Americans, acting on a tip that a torture cell was operating from the main Sadr mosque, surrounded it, only to come under withering gunfire from nearby buildings.
When the firefight ended, at least eight gunmen lay dead, including an Iraqi soldier, American soldiers said. Iraqi informants and overhead surveillance pictures showed that other Iraqi soldiers had been passing weapons to the Sadr fighters, the Americans said.
The next day, the Shiite-led Iraqi Parliament voted to bar American troops from approaching within 1,000 meters of the Kadhimiya Shrine, a few blocks from the Sadr mosque. But Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki did not sign the resolution, so Colonel Miska said his soldiers would continue their operations.
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