....Today, no one force - neither the Iranian-influenced clerics nor the Iraqi nationalist scholars - is in full control of Najaf and Kerbala. Instead, there is constant turmoil as different factions struggle for power. The Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Badr militia of Ayatollah Muhammed Baqir al-Hakim, and the followers of Ayatollah Ali Sistani, regarded as Iraq's supreme Shia authority, all compete for influence.
Amid the anarchy, a new kind of Shia leader emerged which no one had anticipated, and which now represents a serious threat to the rule of law in the most important Shia religious centers: self-appointed clerics who combine the might of armed militias with an almost messianic sense of purpose.....
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