Baghdad/Brussels, 9 September 2003: Iraq’s Shiites, who form over half the country’s population, have undergone a major transition since the fall of the Baathist regime from persecution to political reawakening. The massive car bomb attack on 29 August that killed the prominent Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and roughly 100 other Iraqis has put renewed focus on the Shiite community and its role in Iraq’s politics.

A new briefing paper published today by the International Crisis Group, Iraq’s Shiites Under Occupation*, provides a timely insight into the main Shiite groupings, analysing their backgrounds, political links and responses to the U.S.-led occupation.

“The end of the Baathist regime paved the way for a Shiite reawakening but has left behind an atomised leadership that has yet to coalesce behind any single party or platform”, said ICG Analyst Loulouwa al-Rachid. “The struggles within the Shiite community will determine whether an organised political force can emerge as its legitimate representative and, if so, which it will be“.

There are a number of major Shiite groupings and leaders: the traditional leaders of the hawza of Najaf; Islamic political groups that were based in London and Paris prior to the war; Teheran-based Islamic political parties; and local clerical dignitaries, most notably Moqtada al-Sadr, who represents a populist strand of street politics.

For now the leaders of the Shiite Islamist movement have eschewed confrontation with the occupation forces because of a historical debt (the end of the Baathist regime) and a common goal (the end of Sunni domination). But the current muddle-through which characterises the U.S. approach is far from being the best prescription.

“The answer to the challenges in dealing with the Shiites is the same as that which applies to Iraq as a whole”, said ICG Middle East Program Director Robert Malley. “It is to accelerate the process of transferring responsibility to the Iraqi people, including by laying out a clear path toward national elections and the end of the occupation; put Iraqi politics and its transition under the aegis of the United Nations; provide better security and services; and weaken rather than exacerbate sectarian loyalties”.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) is an independent, non-profit, multinational organisation, with over 90 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.