Iran infiltrating Mahdi Army, backing al-Hakim

No wonder Moqtada al-Sadr is losing control of his own political movement and militia. AP reports that, after Sadr called a freeze on fighting against U.S. troops more than six months ago, Iran deliberately started infiltrating his organization:

Iran has shunned the Mahdi Army, but has continued sending arms, fighters and money into Iraq. The leaders of these groups of fighters take orders from Iran and are known as the Ettelaat, shorthand for Iranian intelligence.

The Iraqi officials who spoke to the AP said that after al-Sadr announced a freeze on his militia in August, the Iranians sent in seven Ettelaat commanders — Iraqis loyal to Iran who had been training and handling elite Mahdi Army groups in Iran. These at the time had broken with the mainstream militia over the freeze.

The commanders were said to have slowly infiltrated with more than 1,000 men armed and trained by Iran, with orders to continue harassing the Americans with roadside bombings, mortar and rocket attacks — a one-year high of 12 on the Army’s 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division in January alone, the military said.

The Ettelaat force in Iraq is recruiting more fighters from among disaffected Mahdi Army foot soldiers and commanders of the so-called “special groups,” not only to keep American forces off balance but also as a sleeper brigade that would open all-out warfare should the United States attack Iran, a real fear in Tehran, the Iraqi officials said.

Along with that, Iran has made the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim its prime Iraqi stalking horse, despite al-Hakim’s more moderate approach to both the U.S. and Iraqi Sunnis.

Bottom line? Tehran holds the keys to just how much, or how little, political fissuring there is in Iraq.