Baghdad, Iraq - Iraqi Shi'ite religious leaders' restraining influence on militia groups is waning fast and senior clerics fear they are dragging Iraq into civil war, a source close to the clerical authorities said on Wednesday.
Sounding the most urgent note of alarm yet from the Marja'iya, the religious establishment led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior source told Reuters: "People are paying less and less heed to the Marja'iya every day because of how sectarian killings are affecting Shi'ite public opinion."
In two years of attacks on their newly empowered majority community by Sunni rebels, Shi'ite militias have mostly respected calls for restraint from the holy city of Najaf but senior figures in Shi'ite armed groups speak of mounting anger.
Despite insistent pleas for calm last month from Sistani hundreds were killed in days of reprisal attacks after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, prompting fears that Shi'ite anger could plunge Iraq into all-out civil war.
"The Marja'iya is still calling for restraint but there is a great worry and fear that people are responding less because of continual pressure every day from the killing and slaughter," the source close to the Najaf religious establishment said.
A multiple car bombing in the Baghdad stronghold of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday was followed by the discovery of dozens of tortured bodies in the capital who police said appeared to victims of sectarian reprisals.
Though Sadr, a youthful firebrand, said his Mehdi Army would not retaliate, several bodies labeled "Traitor" were hung from telegraph poles in his Sadr City bastion after the bombings.
Over the past year, pro-government Shi'ite militias, some working with the security forces, have been accused of killings.
But senior sources in militias, many of them formed as the underground Shi'ite opposition to
Saddam Hussein, say they face pressure from supporters to strike Sunni rebel strongholds.
"People are calling me and accusing us of being cowards," one senior Shi'ite militia commander said. "They are saying that we are not doing anything to protect them and will start defending themselves ... We are running out of soothing words."
WANING INFLUENCE
After the destruction of Samarra's Golden Mosque, the aging and reclusive Sistani backed up written statements calling for restraint by releasing television footage of him meeting fellow senior clerics, the first time he had been seen in two years.
Yet Sunni counterparts mocked his inability to rein in the gunmen in the days that followed and analysts agree his influence seems to be waning fast on some Shi'ite groups.
"We take our orders from God to preserve the Shi'ite sect, not from you," a senior Shi'ite source quoted the leaders of one prominent militia group as telling Najaf clerics recently.
Militia sources said that, following the attack on Sadr City on Sunday, some groups were readying plans to raid Sunni areas.
The source close to the Marja'iya said senior clerics were more worried about a generalized rage by Shi'ites in a country where virtually every household has an automatic rifle than it was about organized militias like the Mehdi Army, the Badr movement and other pro-government organized armed groups.
"The issue is not the Mehdi Army or the others. It goes beyond that now. There is huge tension among the Shi'ite public and we're worried the situation could get out of control," the source said. "We fear we're reaching this point."
Hadi al-Amery, the head of the Badr Organization loyal to the powerful, pro-Iranian SCIRI party, told Reuters he too saw a wider issue of ordinary Shi'ites forming small armed groups.
"People have begun forming popular committees to protect themselves in some villages and towns," he said. "They are defending themselves against terrorists."
"What are we supposed to tell them? 'No, don't do it. Don't carry guns?' As the Badr Organization, we are ready to help the government if it asks us and also we're telling the people to ensure their own security if the government is incompetent."
Amery said the broader Sunni population had to take responsibility for the insurgent groups operating among them, suggesting that Sunni leaders were not doing enough.
"These (insurgents) ... need local support," he said, suggesting that Shi'ites' enemies were at large in the broader population and that the government was not doing enough to prevent guerrilla attacks on the majority community.
"If you do not protect people, then people will find themselves forced to protect themselves."