Iraq Cracks Down on Iran-Backed Shiite Militias

The New York Times

Against a backdrop of rising violence against American soldiers, Iraqi security forces have unleashed a sweeping crackdown on Iranian-backed Shiite militants responsible for most of the lethal attacks, according to American and Iraqi officials.

The operation has been welcomed by the United States military, which announced the deaths of three Americans in southern Iraq on Thursday, bringing the total of combat-related deaths in June to 14 — the bloodiest month in three years.

Throughout the spring, as the attacks on soldiers increased, American commanders grew concerned that the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki would be unwilling to act against the militias. Many of the militant groups have ties to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose party is a critical pillar of Mr. Maliki’s governing coalition.

Those fears have begun to be allayed as a force of about 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers has undertaken an offensive in a southern province, Maysan, in one of the largest mobilizations by the government since it took over security responsibilities from the Americans.

Although the operations are concentrated in the southern region near the Iranian border, they are not limited to it. Security forces have increased activities across Iraq, arresting militants, conducting patrols to cut down on rocket and mortar fire on American bases and searching for weapons caches, according to the United States military’s top spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan.

“They are going after specific targets and were following intelligence leads and doing detailed searches to find weapons caches,” General Buchanan said. “They have detained some of the targets, and they have uncovered a number of I.E.D.’s and found caches,” he said referring to improvised explosive devices. “If nothing else, they are disrupting their networks.”

Since the sweep began, the number of rocket and mortar attacks on American military bases has fallen, although attacks on convoys continue unabated, General Buchanan said.

This is not the first time that Mr. Maliki has ordered an assault on the militias. In 2008, he sent security forces into the southern city of Basra to attack Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army.

That operation was something of a watershed for Mr. Maliki, who had been widely regarded by Iraqis as weak and vacillating. After the Mahdi Army was routed, he enjoyed a surge of popularity as an effective leader who was willing to use force to keep the country safe from internal threats.

Analysts offered a number of possible reasons for the current crackdown.

The simplest, offered by a spokesman for Mr. Maliki, is that the government is just doing its job of providing security. “This is our job, to protect everyone,” said the spokesman, who declined to comment further.

Others note that the crackdown comes as the Iraqi government weighs whether to ask the Americans to keep a contingency force in Iraq after the end of the year, when — for now, at least — all United States troops are scheduled to leave.

“As they understand where the support is coming from and they see our forces withdraw, they realize these groups are not going to be gone when we leave, and they are still going to be here, and that has added energy to the long-term threat from these groups,” General Buchanan said.

Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group’s deputy program director for the Middle East, said he believed that Mr. Maliki was responding to pressure from members of his own party.

“What has been the case in the past is that Maliki has come under pressure from his own party, who are furious about the increasing power of the Sadrists,” Mr. Hiltermann said. “There is already discontent in the ranks, and we hear rumors of them wanting to replace Maliki.”

Cooperation from the Iraqi government is essential to thwarting the militants’ attacks. Under the security agreement now in effect between the United States and Iraq, American forces can conduct unilateral operations only if they believe there is an imminent threat. Most of the attacks on Americans involve random mortar shots and improvised explosive devices.

The Iraqi security forces, dominated by Shiite officers, traditionally are far more comfortable policing Sunni insurgents. They have spent much of the past two years conducting operations against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni insurgent group that is thought to have some foreign leadership. Over that time, many fewer operations were undertaken against Shiite militants.

Hakim al-Zamili, a Sadrist member of Parliament with a seat on the security committee, confirmed the southern operation against the Shiite militias, saying the military planned to extend the effort from Maysan Province to Basra in the coming days or weeks.

But Mr. Zamili criticized the actions, contending that the government should focus on going after Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group that he said was responsible for “killing Americans and Iraqis.”

The choice of Maysan Province as a target of the operation comes as little surprise to analysts. It is led by a Sadrist governor, Ali Dwai Lazem, who gained his post as part of the deal that brought the party into the governing coalition. In contrast to his predecessor, who had a close relationship with the American military, Mr. Lazem has refused all contacts, commanders said.

As security deteriorated in the province this year, American diplomats and soldiers took to wearing flak jackets and helmets even while walking around their bases and slept in bunkers.

The new governor was of little help, saying publicly that he was not responsible for protecting the Americans, and he even went to the funeral of a militant who died trying to attack the Americans.

Despite the new operation, American commanders are still frustrated by the performance of the Iraqi security forces. “There is a reluctance to target political targets,” said a major with the Special Forces, who spoke under the ground rules that he be identified only by military rank.

The major had persuaded his Iraqi counterpart, Maj. Gen. Fadhel al-Barwari, who commands the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, to press his superiors to approve a mission against a militant suspected of attacking an American base with rockets. “It’s pretty sensitive, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take,” the American major said.

The mission was approved, and at night several helicopters carrying Iraqi commandos and American Green Berets left the base in Baghdad on a mission to capture the suspected militant. The next morning, the suspect was in a holding cell near the helicopter landing zone.

Tim Arango contributed reporting.