Senior Shiite Official Killed in Baghdad

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed a senior official in Iraq's largest Shiite political party Monday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a party aide said.

Shahir Faisal Shahir was shot while traveling to his office, said Haitham al-Hissaini, a top party adviser for the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Shahir carried the rank of major general in the party's militia, which is known as the Badr Brigade. The militia fought the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq is the country's biggest Shiite party and maintains close ties to Iran. It is headed by Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim.

The shooting took place only hours before Iraq's prime minister designate, Iyad Allawi, announced that nine major political parties had agreed to disband their militias in a move to assert state control before the return of sovereignty June 30.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040607/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_official_slain&cid=540&ncid=1480

[NNN0LHI]

1. Badr Brigade, eh? That is Sistani's private army

Sounds like a power struggle going on to me.

Don

[Aidoneus]

2. No it isn't..

it is the private army of the Supreme Assembly/Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq & its current leader `Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, not Sistani. For Imam Sistani to have a private army, that would require a clear and firm stance to be taken on something at all.

[David__77]

3. I know. Sistani is squishy and vague.

I guess that's how he survived under the Ba'ath and so far has survived under the occupation.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Thank you for the info and I apologize for my ignorance

:hi:

[Teaser]

5. The BAdr brigades have been trying to portray...

...themselves as allied with asSistani, hence your confusion.

But they are only succeeding marginally with this, if at all.

Their star is on the way down.

[Aidoneus]

7. Interestingly, in the 90s they had supported Sadr's father

in as much as Shahid AsSadr(II) was openly in favour of active resistance to the Baathists on the one hand, and US/Israel on the other, as SCIRI was as well in that period. Cutting a deal with the latter damaged them greatly.

They now have to cling close to Sistani, for they have little else to fall back on. Any widespread popular support and respect they held among Iraqis (who they were originally formed to fight against, incidentally) evaporated with their collaboration with the invaders. Shahid al-Hakim personally was widely respected and could thus weather that storm (and still draw half a million at his funeral procession, which a friend of mine attended), but the party itself lost a great deal of ground to Sadr & Sistani (and as you say, their "star is on the way down") and some other parties like Yaqubi's other Sadrist movement and others.

There are now open divisions in the ranks that still remain, and the case is the same in the already much-divided Hizb al-Da'awa. Some think they should be supporting the Sadrists in this fight, like they supported Mohammed Sadiq AsSadr before (when Sistani did not lift a finger to protest his martyrdom, of note, but perhaps he just did not wish to join him at the time; I would look at that as the smart choice, but hardly in the example of Husayn(AS).. much of what Sayyid Muqtada holds against Sistani stems from this). Another group finds no problem with acting as a "5th Column" for the occupation if it means having power handed to them on a cracked and bloodied plate.

[Just Me]

6. Geez. Yet, another Shiite official has been killed?

By my count, that's at least three.

[Aidoneus]

8. difficult to find any detailed information on this

particularly about the background of those with the role of the 'drive-by' part of the equation.. it's not like SCIRI has any lack of rivals & enemies, including within its own ranks, so it is difficult to say.

[Aidoneus]

9. there's been several, lately

A member (Sheikh Khalil al-Mashadani) of the Association of Muslim `Ulema`, the strongest Sunni attempt at organization in the center areas, was also assassinated recently. Not many details on this or anything new on the Badr Corps' Maj.Gen. Shahir.