I'm not sure what this means...

...but I still think it's worth noting. The tip comes from Information Clearinghouse.

Baghdad, July 12 (Xinhuanet) - Sources close to Moqtada Al Sadr, a young Iraqi Shiite cleric, said that Sadr was stabbed by one of his office members after a quarrel over his authorities, and the injury was not dangerous, local newspaper Al Itihad reported on Monday.

The newspaper, speaking for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Jalal Al Talabani, quoted the sources saying, "a disagreement erupted between Al Sadr and some of his office members concerning the authorities of Al Sadr."

The sources pointed out that the office sees that Al Sadr has no right to contact political leaders or Iraqi movements and trends, and that he does not have the right to take any decision without referring to the office members.

They added that the stab resulted from Al Sadr's contacting some politicians in Baghdad without referring to the office members, and pointed out that his injury was not dangerous.

The story apparently originated with an anti-Sadr website called Alnajafnews.net (note: the site is in Arabic). Al-Taakhi, the daily paper of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, has a slightly different version of the story, quoting the website as saying it was an assassination attempt that happened in the course of a "brawl" but agreeing that the cause was arguments over the extent of al-Sadr's authority to undertake political actions without the approval of his office. According to al-Taakhi, the "politicians in Baghdad" was actually one in particular: Iyad Allawi.

(The al-Taakhi story comes via the Iraqi Press Monitor of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting for July 12.)

Assuming the story is true, it indicates a split between Sadr and his office, with the latter the more rejectionist. Sadr of late appears to be moving toward some kind of accommodation with the new government, at least to the point of giving it a chance - or perhaps he's tempted by the deal offered by which he'd be amnestied from murder charges in exchange for disbanding his so-called Mahdi Army. In either case, again if this report is true, it may be causing conflict within his own circle.

And that rejectionist faction, if I can call it that. may be more in line with those supporters on the streets than Sadr himself is. The Toronto Star reported on July 6 that in response to Sadr's statement calling the interim government "illegitimate,"

in the unspeakably bleak slums of Sadr City Sunday, ... Shiite militiamen were readying their guns for another al-Mahdi uprising.

With fighters ranging in age from 11 to 71, they may not be the best-equipped army in the neighbourhood. But al-Mahdi militia is nothing if not disciplined. Their fealty belongs wholly to firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. And by all appearances, al-Sadr had just ordered them back to war. ...

Officers in the al-Mahdi militia's four divisions throughout Iraq began calling their commanders for confirmation and specific marching orders. ...

"We are ready to begin again. But when I called my superiors, we were told to stay quiet for the time being," Amar al-Saadi, who commands a group of 150 fighters in the eastern Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, told the Star yesterday.

"If they tell us to fight, we fight. We do not like this interim government. If we are given the word, al-Mahdi is capable of bringing 250,000 fighters against them. We can eliminate this government in three days. That is all we need. But our leaders must decide."

Their leaders must decide - but it seems clear which decision the followers would prefer. Meanwhile, in Najaf the quiet remains - but so does the standoff, according to al-Nahdhah, an Iraqi paper issued by Adnan al-Pachachi, head of the Independent Democrats Movement. (Via, again, the Iraqi Press Monitor, this time for July 15.)

Elements of the Mahdi Army in Najaf have deployed in streets close to the shrine of Imam Ali, and in the cemetery of Wadi al-Salam, using the huge numbers of graves and the difficulty of reaching them without infantry forces. Police chief Ghalib al-Gazairi said his forces decided to control the city to give no chance to the outlaws to interfere with the security of the innocents. He added there would be no need to ask for the assistance of the multilateral forces to impose law and order. Joint forces from the Iraqi army and police were patrolling the city along with American units, but no one from the Mahdi army assaulted them.

At the same time, there are reports that

followers of radical preacher Muqtada al-Sadr appear to be upholding law and order in several towns

in cooperation with the overworked and understaffed Iraqi police, says an IWPR story, citing in particular Sadr City and Kut. However,

not all citizens of Kut are happy with the Mahdi Army.

Followers of older and more conservative clerics often view Sadr's followers as violent troublemakers.

"The fighters of the Mahdi Army are the cause of the riots which happened months ago, and now they are acting like good people,” said Muneer Ahmed, 42, a storeowner and follower of the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.

Grocer Salih Ali, 44, holds a similar view. "The majority of Mahdi Army soldiers are criminals," he said. "How are these criminals working with policemen to keep security?"

The better question, it seems to me, is what happens when the police say to the militia "thanks for your help but we can handle it ourselves from here?"

A while back I raised the question of if Sadr was feeling that he had generated a tide that was pushing him in directions he didn't want to go, that was getting out of his control. I still wonder the same thing and still wonder what the consequences of that might yet be.

More on a related issue tomorrow.