Iran, enemy of his enemy

BAGHDAD — It was sunset, and a pair of Iraqi soldiers were sitting in a roofless house by the Iranian border, awaiting orders. Suddenly, Abu Baqr recalls, his friend let out a gasp and fell silent, a sniper's bullet in his forehead. Abu Baqr couldn't help him, couldn't move for fear of being shot. He lay beside his friend's corpse until morning.

"How would you feel after that?" Abu Baqr asked. "You come out of that, you only come out bad."

Abu Baqr, now a commander in the Mahdi Army militia of cleric Muqtada Sadr, blames Iran for what happened to his friend more than 20 years ago during Iraq's war with Iran, just as he blames Saddam Hussein for that conflict.

He still hates Iran. But now, he said, he accepts its weapons to fight the U.S. military, figuring he can deal with his distaste for the Iranians later. So he takes bombs that can rip a hole in a U.S. tank and rockets that can pound Baghdad's Green Zone without apology or regret.

"I think that the Iranians are more dangerous than the Americans. I hate them and I don't trust them," he said in an interview over soft drinks. But the militia has limited resources, he said, and "therefore, when somebody gives you or offers help, it's hard to say no."

He laughed: "If it came from Israel, we would use it."

Abu Baqr's attitudes illustrate the pragmatism of a movement under siege. Elements of the Mahdi Army are engaged in an intense conflict with rival Shiite Muslim parties in the Iraqi government that benefit from their own close ties to Iran and, more advantageously, the assistance of America's superior firepower.

The attitudes of commanders such as Abu Baqr would seem to confirm U.S. accusations of Iranian meddling in Iraq. Although the extent of their relationship remains unclear, the commanders have embraced a hardened stance that may bode ill for the U.S. military.

These leaders confound U.S. attempts to categorize and differentiate between moderate fighters and what U.S. officers call the Iranian-funded and trained "special groups" that are believed to continue armed struggle against American forces despite a truce called by Sadr.

"It blurs out there," acknowledged a senior U.S. military commander who is not authorized to talk publicly about the various factions within the Mahdi Army, which is thought to number as many as 60,000 fighters.