Via the NYT: Baghdad Mayor Is Ousted by a Shiite Group and Replaced

Armed men entered Baghdad’s municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city’s mayor and installed a member of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite militia.

The deposed mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, who was not in his offices at the time, recounted the events in a telephone interview on Tuesday and called the move a municipal coup d’tat. He added that he had gone into hiding for fear of his life.

“This is the new Iraq,” said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. “They use force to achieve their goal.”

The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq’s capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.

“If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that,” said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief who led the ouster on Monday and who had been in a lengthy and unresolved legal feud with Mr. Tamimi.

“We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone,” Mr. Makkia said. “This is not a coup.”

Odd, it certainly reads like one.

This does not sounds good at all.

Update: It gets worse. Ted Barlow at Crooked Timber notes that militia in quesiton is linked to Iran:

It should go without saying that the blossoming of the rule of law is incompatible with armed coups by Iranian-backed militias.

Indeed.

The SCIRI have their own web site and it states the following in the About Us section:

The head office of SCIRI is based in Iran among the largest Iraqi community outside Iraq temperarely estimated at one million Iraqis. SCIRI has main offices in different parts of the liberated areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Update II: The New Mayor speaks, and denies there was an ouster, and claims he was appointed to the position: via Reuters: Baghdad’s new mayor denies forced out incumbent:

Baghdad’s new mayor denied on Wednesday he had forced his way into the post in a city hall putsch this week, and said the prime minister may appoint someone else to permanently occupy the post.

“I don’t want this job, I met with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari yesterday and urged him to appoint a new permanent mayor as soon as possible,” Hussein al-Tahhan told Reuters.

The previous mayor, the secular-minded Alaa al-Tamimi, said he was ousted on Monday when 120 gunmen surrounded his office and installed the Tahhan, an Islamist Shi’ite, in his place.

Tamimi, who returned home from a wealthy Gulf emirate in 2025 vowing to revive a broken city, said he was not in his office at the time but the gunmen had replaced him with Tahhan.

Tahhan, governor of the province of Baghdad, insisted the changeover had been peaceful and that he had no desire to occupy the post for the long-term.

Which, if true, would expect the lack of response from the national government in Iraq.

Also, John Cole points to this interview in which the former Mayor confirms that Tahhan had been appointed Mayor and that he had reisgned in June:

Al-Tamimi: You may know that a week ago, the Baghdad Governorate Council named Husayn al-Tahhan to the post of acting Baghdad governor. While I was on vacation outside Iraq, a campaign to denigrate my image was launched here. I was apprehended in the airport and remained in detention for one day. All that was based on unfounded allegations.

At that time, the decree naming Husayn al-Tahhan as acting Baghdad governor was sent by the municipality to the Council of Ministers. A reply from the Council of Ministers said they would be dealing with the issue, adding that the Council of Ministers is the only party entitled to repeal or appoint the Baghdad mayor. The issue had been raised earlier and it will be discussed tomorrow as I announced my resignation and was pensioned from the post already on 21 June. I did not know that such problems would appear on the part of the Baghdad Governorate Council and Baghdad governor. I have already decided to withdraw. I am a man of work, not a man of conflict. I do not get involved in conflicts, I do not belong to any political party. I do not have any militias and no political party supports me. This is what I can say to the attack.

RFI: Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba has confirmed in a telephone conversation to RFI that the Baghdad mayor had indeed filed his resignation and that this resignation has been accepted. He added that the Council of Ministers would in its next session discuss the names of three candidates for this post.

Of course, the former Mayor also accussed the new Mayor of the following:

Al-Tamimi: Baghdad Governor Husayn al-Tahhan entered the municipality, accompanied by [Baghdad] Governorate Council President Mazin Makkiya and some 120 armed men. He summoned an assembly in my office where he announced that he was now assuming the post of acting mayor and that he is now expecting to receive orders. He was asked who had entitled him with this action as mayor is subordinate to the Council of Ministers. He replied [to the person who asked], “I am not receiving orders from you.” Then he started, supported by the armed men, to arrest some administrative employees and beat some of them. I have no militia that would guard me. Thank God, I was not present in the office when it was stormed. Now it is he [al-Tahhan] who has abused the responsibilities of his office.

The whole thing is quite confusing. Hopefully clarification will be forthcoming.