ANALYSIS: Iraq crackdown strengthens radical cleric and Iran

Cairo – When Iraq’s Prime Minister launched an unprecedented offensive to assert his government’s control over southern oil-rich Basra last week, he certainly was not planning what came about.

Nuri al-Maliki, his ministers and generals vowed, and still do, to go after militias and ‘outlaws’ to the end. The main target of the offensive, though not officially declared, has been Mahdi Army of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.


But within days of the offensive, Sadrist militiamen were still keeping their turf and weapons, and giving government troops a hard time. Hundreds of people were killed and injured in the offensive.

Many say the fighting in Basra, which spread to Iraq’s southern cities and the Sadrists’ strongholds in Baghdad, exposed the fact that Iraqi security forces were not prepared for this large-scale operation.

Monsters and Critics