The spiraling tit-for-tat violence in Iraq is being played out against an increasingly dismal backdrop for the US-led occupation, which has strayed far from the Bush administration's expectations of a quick, easy transition to Iraqi self-government. 

The US-led forces announced on Monday that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi'ite cleric whose followers began a coordinated anti-American uprising in Baghdad and the southern cities of Najaf, Nasariyah and Amarah over the weekend.

The announcement came as US troops stepped up action against the various centers of Iraqi armed resistance, sealing off the volatile city of Falluja and rolling tanks and armored vehicles into the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, the scene of the fiercest weekend fighting between US-led coalition forces and militias loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.

As US troops enveloped the Sunni Triangle city of Fallujah in response to the murder and mutilation of four US contractors there last week, a new and potentially more dangerous front was opening in the south, with members of Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim majority.

Sunday's rioting, which left hundreds wounded, was sparked by the coalition's closure of Sadr's newspaper, Al-Hawza, late last month and the arrest of his aide Mustafa Al-Yacoubi last week on charges that he aided in the assassination of Ayatollah Abdul Majid Al-Khoei in April.

Al-Sadr called for armed resistance against US forces later Sunday. "Strike terror in the heart of your enemy. We can no longer be silent in the face of their abuses," he said.

In response, L. Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, labeled al-Sadr an "outlaw who is trying to usurp legitimate authority."

Sadr responded in a statement read out in a mosque in Kufa, near Najaf, where he was staging a sit-in. "I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw," said the 30-year-old cleric. "If that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution for Iraq, I'm proud of that and that is why I'm in revolt."

US troops launched a major operation against insurgents, targeting the killers of the four US civilians as well as rebels who have attacked US forces in the past month.

Confrontation with Shi'ites -- who stand to benefit most from the removal of Saddam Hussein -- would point to a disaffection with US rule so great that the transition plan for Iraq, starting with the June 30 handover of sovereignty to unelected Iraqis would become untenable.

Still, the escalating violence overshadowed the arrival of United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who the US hopes will build support for the transition plan.

Iraq is sliding toward chaos -- the post-war conditions in hospitals, schools and refugee camps are worse than those on the eve of the US invasion. Outside the Kurdish north, there is almost universal antipathy for the occupation, for what Iraqis refer to derisively as the "Governed Council", and for a draft constitution that analysts feel has enough holes to ensure continued repression and corruption, despite its veneer of democracy.

A prominent Iraqi psychiatrist who has worked with the US military explained: "There is no way the United States can be this incompetent. The chaos here has to be at least partly deliberate."

(China Daily April 7, 2004)