A recent Baghdad bank heist has unveiled a nasty power struggle among factions of the Iraqi Shia, writes Salah Hemeid Shortly after midnight on 28 July, a gang of armed men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms broke into a local branch of the state-owned Rafidain Bank in Baghdad and got away with more than US$6 million worth of Iraqi dinars. They also killed eight police guards before escaping in army vehicles. While the bank heist could have been seen as nothing out of the ordinary in Baghdad, it was remarked at the time that it had occurred in Karadah, a mainly Shia-dominated neighbourhood that is considered among the safest in the violence-ridden Iraqi capital. Two days later, an Iraqi interior ministry spokesman tried to persuade the still- bewildered population that the police had been able to solve the riddle, but succeeded only in adding more uncertainty to the unfolding drama. The spokesman said that the police had arrested five bodyguards of Iraqi vice- president Adel Abdel-Mehdi in connection with the bank robbery. He said that the two main suspects, including a middle-ranking officer in Abdel-Mehdi's security forces, had managed to flee "to unknown destinations outside Iraq" and that they were being tracked down through diplomatic channels and Interpol. This allegation of the involvement of a high-ranking state official's security team in the robbery has been taken as a sign that Iraq's security forces are still vulnerable to penetration either by militias belonging to competing groups or by criminal elements. Many Iraqis also believe that government forces have not displayed competence in cracking down on violence two months after the withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi towns and cities. However, the charges against Abdel-Mehdi's forces immediately threw a spotlight on the vice-president's powerful Iran- backed Shia Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), turning the bank robbery into a political football between the council and Prime Minister's Nuri Al-Maliki Dawa Party just six months before the Iraqi general elections. Abdel-Mehdi himself has denied any involvement in the heist and has claimed that he was the one who helped to unveil the gang. For its part, the SIIC has also accused its political opponents of blowing the suspected involvement of a single member of Abdel-Mehdi's guard out of all proportion in a bid to harm the group's prospects in January's parliamentary poll. The exchange has also turned into a political spat between the two main allies in the Shia coalition that has dominated the government since Iraq's first election after the 2003 US-led invasion. Although the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has himself maintained his silence, and interior ministry officials have not pointed fingers at Abdel-Medhi himself, suspicions nevertheless seem to be targeting the vice-president, who was al-Maliki's main contender for the post of prime minister after the 2005 elections and is a potential rival in next year's election. One of the accusations that have been made is that quantities of the stolen money were found at the offices of the Al-Adallah newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is also Abdel-Mehdi. Al-Adallah is a mouthpiece of the SIIC, and its offices are heavily guarded by members of the powerful Badr militia, which controls the entire Karadah neighbourhood in which the SIIC's headquarters are located. SIIC officials have also jumped to defend their comrade and the group's tarnished reputation by claiming that the Iraqi army and police is penetrated by criminals and corrupt officers who might themselves have been behind the robbery. One of the group's top officials, Sheikh Jalal al-Sagheer, has alleged that al-Maliki himself was the target of an assassination attempt last month by one of his own bodyguards, suggesting that the prime minister's office and security guards are penetrated by untrustworthy elements. The minister of finance, head of a ministry which is itself controlled by another senior member of the SIIC, has also claimed that police in uniform tried to ransack another Rafidain bank branch three days later, charges which were immediately denied by the government. The bank drama comes amid a simmering dispute between al-Maliki's Dawa Party and the SIIC over a new political alliance, through which the Shia parties are trying to safeguard a further Shia victory in the next election. The present bickering between the groups now seems to threaten a split within the Shia coalition ahead of the national polls. Such a split could also raise tensions between factions of Iraq's Shia majority, and it would also likely force them to seek allies from among the minority Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to bolster their chances in the elections. Al-Maliki is reportedly now demanding that he retain the post of prime minister and have a larger say in formulating Shia coalition strategies. His Dawa Party believes that it has made major political gains at the SIIC's expense, after running as the State of Law Coalition in the provincial ballot earlier this year, and it therefore wants to ensure that it will be in a leadership position in any new alliance. Al-Maliki also wants to distance himself from the perception that the ruling coalition represents only Iraqi Shias, and he has indicated that he will work to build a national alliance that includes Sunnis. The recent bank heist episode has, however, highlighted a new chapter in Iraq's political instability and in the power struggles that are occurring even among supposed allies. It has revealed how apparently greedy and corrupt Iraqi politicians have become in their quest for power. As a result of the present wrangling, for example, Iraqis learned for the first time that one entire Iraqi army battalion is in charge of Abdel-Mehdi's personal security, meaning that the government is paying salaries and other expenses to nearly one thousand men to protect the vice-president alone, whose post is only symbolic. Even worse, the present problems have also revealed that government troops are either penetrated by rival factions, or that they owe their loyalty to political factions and not to the government, to which they have nevertheless vowed allegiance. The rivalry between the Council and Dawa is deep rooted and it dates back to Saddam Hussein's era when both were trying to win Iraqi Shias to their sides in the struggle against the regime. It is significant that Iraqis have discovered that their current problems go well beyond the new political and demographic realities and the clash of sectarian differences that have been on display since the collapse of the state and the disintegration of society following the 2003 US-led invasion. The country seems to be rooted in short- sighted and egoistic polices that will only generate further patronage and opportunism unless they are changed, and they can only produce further disasters for the already beleaguered country. Yet, it is unlikely that the two Shia groups will abandon their political games, raising fears that the present row will further constrain Iraqi politics, fuel tensions and even plunge the nation into a new crisis. Tens of thousands have been killed in the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq thus far, and an internecine Shia conflict would certainly delay any possibility of restoring stability and peace to the country for many years to come. No wonder so many Iraqis are blaming the continuing disaster in their country on their new leaders, who have thus far proved to be far smaller in stature than Iraq's problems and challenges.
