SCENES of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims expressing their newfound political power on the streets of Iraq’s cities are causing growing concern in Western and Arab capitals.

A fortnight after American and British troops deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime, there is a growing consensus that the only credible force to have emerged in the country is the Shia clergy and its followers, many of whom advocate the creation of an Iranian-style Islamic state.

“There is real concern,” a senior British official said. “The Iraqi Shia are the only group to have made any real impact so far. There was a feeling that the Shia were more secular than those in Iran. Now we are not so sure.”

The United States and Britain have vowed to replace Saddam’s dictatorship with a democratic government representing all of Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups.

Jay Garner, the retired US Army general in charge of Iraq’s civil administration, said: “The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government.”

But that vision of a multi-ethnic democracy could be seriously challenged by the Shia, who make up more than 60 per cent of the Iraqi population and traditionally have been excluded from power by the minority Sunni Muslim community.

Brutalised by decades of oppression by Saddam, the Shias have wasted no time filling the power vacuum left by the overthrow of the Baathist regime. Already Shia clerics are in complete control of the Baghdad suburb of Sadr city, a slum of two million people. They also run several southern towns, including al-Kut and the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, where a million Shia pilgrims are expected to worship today.

They have also told American and British forces that they will not tolerate any prolonged occupation of Iraq. “In the begining, our opposition to foreign occupation will be expressed by peaceful means,” Sheikh Qaazem al- Nasari, a leading Shia, said. “If, after a certain point, non- violence produces no result, we will then have to decide what to do.”

The threat will not be taken idly. Martyrdom is an integral part of the Shia culture. In the 1980s Shia militants used suicide bombings against US Marines and the American Embassy in Beirut to drive the US out of Lebanon and later Israel.

Three main Shia factions have emerged in Iraq over the past weeks. Sayed Muqtada al-Sadr, 22, whose father and two brothers were killed by Saddam in 1999, is the newest and most aggressive political force in the land. His followers are blamed for the murder of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a rival Shia leader with close links to Tony Blair and the Bush Administration. He is also accused of intimidating Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior Shia religious leader in the country.

Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Resistance in Iraq, is supported and armed by Iran. Some Iraqis fear that he plans to return home from exile in Tehran to emulate the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who seized power after the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran and established a strict Islamic state.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, made clear yesterday that America would not tolerate an Iranian-style theocracy hijacking its plans for democracy in Iraq. The Iraqi state “has to be in accordance with those principles of democratic freedom and tolerance”, he said. “That is not inconsistent with a state that has religious elements to it.”

He added: “Iran certainly is not an example of democracy or a country in which people are free. So certainly we want to make certain that (Saddam’s regime) is not replaced by another type of dictatorship.”

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