Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?

“They have now completely surrounded Sadr City. The media is talking about Gaza, while we now have a second ‘Rafah Crossing’ in Sadr City. The hospitals are jammed with dead bodies... the occupation forces completely ban and open fire at any convoy trying to deliver humanitarian aid. People here suffer from shortage of food supplies. The occupation forces have burnt the city’s market.”- Sadrist MP Dr. Maha al-Dori

“Do you want a third uprising?” - Muqtada al-Sadr

The ripples of the March 25th Basra offensive-turned-fiasco initiated by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have been transformed into waves of bloodletting, crashing rhythmically northward onto Sadr City. According to one governmental official, more than 900 people were killed and 2600 wounded in the teeming slum of three million in April.

For the past month, Sadr City has been effectively sealed off from the rest of Baghdad as United States and Iraqi forces attempt to crush Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. In an ostensible effort to quell the launch of rockets from the neighborhood into the Green Zone, recent days have seen an intensification in fighting and causalities.

The largely symbolic Green Zone attacks are the only latest excuse to go after al-Sadr and his militia. His popular appeal among downtrodden Iraqi Shi’ites threatens to unseat the joint dominance of Maliki’s Dawa party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (both of which favor the continued presence of American troops) in upcoming October parliamentary elections. Al-Sadr has always been outspoken in his demand the occupation come to an end. It was no therefore coincidence that Vice President Cheney’s March visit to Iraq shortly preceded the attack on his loyalists in Basra.

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