Anxious Moments in Grip of an Outlaw Iraqi Militia

April 7, 2004
ORDEAL
By JOHN F. BURNS

UFA, Iraq, April 6 — If Moktada al-Sadr has chosen a grand mosque in this Euphrates River town for a last stand against American troops, as many of his militiamen have claimed in recent days, he appears to be relying more on the will of God than anything like military discipline to protect him.

Many hundreds of militiamen in the black outfits of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army were visible on Tuesday on roads approaching the golden-domed mosque and inside the sprawling compound leading to the inner sanctuary. But they seemed unmarshaled, at least to the layman's eye — more milling about than militant.

A reporter and photographer for The New York Times had a rare — and unplanned — opportunity to see Mr. Sadr's battle troops up close on Tuesday. A 100-mile drive from Baghdad for a supposed news conference by Mr. Sadr ended up with no news conference, and a handful of the newspaper's Baghdad staff, including drivers, security guards and an interpreter, detained for nearly eight hours. They were suspected, their captors said, of being Special Forces operatives or intelligence agents for the United States, Spain or Israel.

But before and after being driven away blindfolded to a makeshift prison deep in the semidesert landscape outside Kufa, the visitors were left under loose guard at the mosque's main entrance and, for about an hour, inside the courtyard. There, seething antagonism for Westerners blended with a haphazard, almost chaotic approach to maintaining control. Hundreds of worshipers made their way into the mosque past groups of men toting Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and a variety of bayonets and knives.

Along with weapons, the constants among the men were religious fervor and loyalty to Mr. Sadr. Many wore black headbands inscribed in yellow with Shiite religious tenets, black turbans or common red and black checkered kuffiya headdresses.

Some of the militiamen were in their 50's and 60's, but most were young, some no more than 12 or 13. Weapons training among them appeared virtually nonexistent; Kalashnikovs with loaded magazines and safety catches off were nonchalantly waved in the air.

Pinned to their robes were photographs of Mr. Sadr, a 31-year-old bushy-bearded cleric, and of his father, assassinated by agents of Saddam Hussein in 1999.

Hatred for America was pervasive. One man of about 25 thrust a long-bladed knife into an imaginary belly, telling his companions, "This is what I will do to the American infidels when they enter here." Another man approached a reporter, asked his citizenship, and turned away to spit and grind his boot on the courtyard floor. "This is our message to Bush and Blair," he said.

If Mr. Sadr was anywhere around, there was no sign of any special protection for him, and little attempt to control the wanderings of the worshipers who came and went. But there were signs of preparations for a siege. In the early afternoon, vehicles pulled up to the mosque and unloaded cardboard boxes full of food. Later, several ambulances unloaded boxes of medical supplies, labeled in English as containing bandages, cotton balls and syringes. Some were marked with Christian inscriptions in English, suggesting that they originally came from Christian medical charities operating in Iraq.

Vehicles came and went, among them white and blue patrol cars and pickup trucks supplied by the United States to Iraq's new American-trained police force, filled with some of the heavily armed militiamen who took control of Kufa on Sunday.

In the end, Mr. Sadr's security officials returned most of the equipment they had seized from the visiting newspapermen, minus several flak jackets, two satellite telephones and the weapons used by armed escorts who sometimes accompany reporters for The Times on trips outside Baghdad, where drive-by shootings and ambushes are common.

But the farewell handshakes at midnight outside the great wooden doors of the mosque followed an alarming journey out into the arid flatlands northwest of Kufa, during which the visitors were blindfolded and warned not to try to see where they were being taken. After an hour, and numerous stops along deserted tracts linking impoverished villages, the vehicle drew up beside a stark cinder block building.

There, for nearly six hours, the visitors were held in a concrete-floored room furnished with rough mats and a handful of blankets. They were watched by about five young men with Kalashnikovs that were leveled, fingers on triggers, whenever they entered or approached the building's rusting metal door.

As night fell, the militiamen and several of the detained Iraqis became visibly more nervous, and tensions rose as all of the detainees pondered what might happen to them if American troops began a nighttime assault on the mosque in an effort to capture Mr. Sadr.

The most difficult moment came when aircraft were heard overhead — at one point, a high-flying jet, at another a low-flying turboprop that sounded like a Predator drone, the pilotless craft used by American forces for battlefield surveillance. After perhaps 10 minutes, the drone sound faded, leaving only the hum of traffic passing on a distant highway.

The group of detained men slept fitfully and were awakened by the sound of an approaching car. The security officials who had arrested them came through the door, smiling broadly. "Everything is O.K. now," they said, without further explanation. "You can go home."

As the detainees were taken back to the mosque, the driver, who gave his name as Khadem, gave a hint of his thinking. With magnesium flares fired by militia outposts lighting the night sky outside Kufa, the man, who said he was 40 and a technical college graduate, explained how he had had spent two years in prison under Saddam Hussein for belonging to a banned Shiite religious party.

But when he was asked if he had not welcomed the American forces who toppled Mr. Hussein almost exactly a year ago, as many Shiites did, he turned suddenly combative.

"It was God who finished Saddam, not the Americans," he said. "The Americans broke all their promises to us, and they have brought their infidel beliefs to Iraq. We hate them, and they are worse than Saddam."