ANALYSIS-Iraqi crackdown backfires, strengthens Sadrists

March 31, 2008
ANALYSIS-Iraqi crackdown backfires, strengthens Sadrists

BAGHDAD, March 31 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on militias in the southern oil port of Basra appears to have backfired, exposing the weakness of his army and strengthening his political foes ahead of elections.

U.S. President George W. Bush has praised the crackdown, calling it a "defining moment" for Iraq, but it has unleashed a wave of destabilising violence in southern Iraq and in Baghdad that risks undoing the security improvements of the past year.

It has also exposed a deep rift within Iraq's Shi'ite majority -- between the political parties in Maliki's government and followers of populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.