Call it the civil war within the civil war. On Monday, the governor of Muthanna province, Mohammed Ali al Hassani, was killed by a roadside IED, along with a bodyguard. It was the second assassination of a prominent Shia governor in less than two weeks. On Aug. 11, the governor of Qadisiya province, Khalil Hamza, was also killed by a roadside IED attack. Both men were members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), the dominant Shia party in Iraqi politics. And the prime suspect in both murders? Rival Shiites from cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s movement.
Violence between Shia groups in southern Iraq, although less publicized, is nothing new. Basra has been torn apart by intra-Shiite fighting for months. But the targeted assassination of the governors is a clear sign that the rivalries are spilling out beyond Basra and may lead to an escalation of violence across the south. “Many killings have taken place in the city,” says Amir Ali, a doctor at the central hospital in Samawa, the capital of Muthanna province. “The Supreme Council and the Mahdi Army are involved. But the government in the city hides the news about these killings.”
A curfew was declared in the area after the attack today but many residents were preparing themselves for a backlash. For their part, the Sadrists quickly denied any links to the assassination. Ahmad Sheibani, one of Sadr’s senior reps in Najaf, put out a statement denying any involvement. Mahdi Army fighters in the region even say it wasn’t them. “We had problems with the governor and the police chief,” Abu Abdullah, a Mahdi fighter in Muthanna province, told one of our Iraqi reporters. “But this does not mean that the Mahdi Army is involved in the attack.”
These assassinations could be part of a larger power play in the lead-up to provincial elections scheduled next year. SIIC holds more political posts in southern Iraq, and the Sadrists, or splinter groups tied to the movement, could be jockeying to get a bigger piece of the pie. If the situation in Basra is any indication, the fighting could get messy. The conflict there is not only between SIIC and the Sadrists but also a third Shiite party, Fadhila, which controls the governorship as well as the security force that protects the vast oil fields. The Sadrists run the police force. And SIIC runs the intelligence and the border police. The whole city is a volatile mix of groups whose members are killing each other for greater political power as well as a share of the lucrative oil smuggling in the region. How bad can it get? Stephen Biddle, a military analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised U.S. military commanders, predicted that the coalition withdrawal from southern Iraq is going to be “ugly and embarrassing” in an interview with the London Sunday Times. “I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history,” he said. “The insurgents are calling the shots ... and in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of southern Iraq.”
