Iran's influence evident in Basra

The Iraqi government says it is fighting the Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army in Basra. But Moqtada Al Sadr, the maverick mullah who founded the militia and is supposed to be its leader, says he has ordered his men to lay down their arms and go home. What is going on?

One thing is certain; the fighting that started in the last week of March is still going on, albeit on a smaller scale. Outside that certainty, we enter the realm of probabilities. Chief among these is the probability that this fighting is, in fact, a mini-war, involving proxies, between new Iraq and Iran.

The latest battles for Basra, and attempts by armed groups to undermine the recently improved security in Baghdad have been portrayed by much of the media as a power struggle among rival Shiite factions.

According to the standard analysis, three Shiite factions, the Fadila (Virtue), the Daawah (The Call), and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq that support Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's coalition government are trying to disarm the remnants of the Mahdi Army.

There are several problems with that analysis.

To start with, it is the regular Iraqi army, and not Shiite armed factions, that is doing the fighting in Basra. Also, the kind of fighting we have witnessed in Basra the past week or so is different from the usual militia operations.

This is a war of position in which units acting as detachments of a regular army are trying to deny the Iraqi government forces control of specific territories. The fighters defying the Iraqi army may be Iraqi irregulars, even nominal members of the Mahdi Army. But those leading them are acting as textbook regular army commanders.

Advanced weapons

It is possible that at least some of the officers in charge of the rebel units are seconded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as part of a broader plan to control the Basra region, and thus the lifeline of the Iraqi economy.

The types of weapons used, in both Basra and Baghdad, also suggest at least some outside involvement. In Basra, the rebels are using a large number of armoured vehicles to transport men and materiel, something no other Shiite militia, certainly not the Mahdi Army, has ever done.

They are also using heavy artillery, mobile rocket launchers and a sophisticated communications system unavailable to militias.

While elements of the Mahdi Army may provide the visible face of the rebellion, there is no evidence that the militia, supposing it still exists as an organised force, is the sole star of this show.

Al Sadr has extended the ceasefire he declared six months ago, and last week issued a statement calling for a political settlement in Basra, a far cry from the bellicose noises made by the rebels with the help of Iranian state-owned media.

One other fact must taken into account.

Whoever is running the show on the rebel side has been able to devise a battle plan that included simultaneous attacks along a north-south axis including Baghdad, Al Amarah and Basra. No other militia group, Shiite or Sunni, has had the resources to stage such a show.

The rebels are trying to retain areas that connect Basra, a vast urban sprawl, to the Shatt Al Arab, an estuary that forms part of the border between Iran and Iraq.

If the Iraqi government is kept out of these areas, Iran would control both banks. Iran has already occupied several islands in the waterway facing Basra, using them as advance observation posts.

The way this operation is designed recalls an Iranian plan, drafted in 1983-84, to seize control of Basra and parts of the Shiite-majority areas of southern Iraq.

According to Ebrahim Yazdi, once a top aide to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the "Basra Plan" had been devised as a compromise.

The ayatollah wanted the war with Iraq to continue until the fall of Baghdad after which he hoped his armies would march on to occupied Jerusalem. His advisers, including Yazdi, knew that Iran could not win such a war and tried to placate him by offering him Basra.

Visitors to Basra since the fall of Saddam have often been struck by the massive "Iranian" presence there. Much of this presence consists of large numbers of Iraqi Shiites, known as mua'aweddin (returnees) who have returned home after years of exile in Iran.

There are also those who hold both Iranian and Iraqi nationality. Known as muzdawajun (double-nationals), they are often accused of being loyal to Shiism rather than any secular concept as a nation-state.

Why has Basra, a relatively calm place for the past five years, is heating up now?

One reason may be the British decision last year to withdraw from the city. This created a vacuum that the new Iraqi army and police were not able to fill immediately.

Iran may have used the opportunity to try to grab as much influence and presence as it could both through Shiite militias, including the Mahdi Army, that it has financed for years, and by sending large numbers of agents and operatives from across the border.

Key to election

The prospect of losing control of Basra may have prompted the Al Maliki government to act. Whoever controls Basra could influence the outcome of the crucial local government elections next year.

Basra and the Shiite south represent the backbone of support for the Al Maliki coalition. If lost, the coalition would not be able to retain control of the central government in Baghdad.

At a time that US commanders in Iraq, including General David Petraeus, openly accuse Iran of having joined the Iraqi imbroglio, the fate of Basra appears important for another reason.

If there were a war between the United States and Iran, one American objective could be to seize control of Iranian oilfields in the early stages. To do that, US and its allies would need advance bases in southern Iraq, the key to which is Basra. Iran, on the other hand, could extend the defensive perimeter of its oilfields by annexing Basra.

Both sides may be simply interested in testing the waters at this stage. But the war over who will shape the future of Iraq, indeed of he Middle East as a whole, is in its early stages.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.