Protest camps across Iraq began fracturing on Monday over whether to back premier-designate Mohammad Allawi or continue opposing the government, marking a pivotal point for the four-month-old movement.

One demonstrator was killed in southern Iraq, medics and security sources said, after men in blue caps, the signature headgear of followers of cleric Moqtada Sadr, attacked an anti-regime rally.

Iraq's capital and mainly-Shiite south have been rocked by months of protests demanding an overhaul of the government, but Allawi's appointment as premier on Saturday has so far failed to quell the rallies.

Most young protesters have rejected Allawi, twice communications minister, as too close to the ruling elite and a product of consensus among much-reviled parties.

But Sadr, who has backed the rallies and demanded reform, has both welcomed Allawi's appointment and urged his followers to stay in the streets.

That has sparked confusion and created a rift in protest squares across Iraq between organised Sadrists and angry, leaderless youth.

Late Sunday, demonstrators opposed to Allawi's nomination began clustering their tents closer together in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, away from those occupied by Sadrists.

"They're split into two parts now, and there are plenty of people on both sides. I'm worried about a clash," one long-time protester in Tahrir told AFP.

At the weekend, dozens of Sadrists stormed a key building in Tahrir that was occupied for months by protesters, driving out activists and removing banners listing their demands.

- 'Not the people's choice' -

Sadr, a 45-year-old figure with a cult-like following across Baghdad, endorsed the protests when they broke out in October but has repeatedly rethought his support.

On Sunday, he condemned student sit-ins and road closures, the two tactics most used by protesters, and tweeted that "the 'blue caps must coordinate with security forces and education directorates" to reopen schools and streets.

The next morning, Sadrists deployed at schools and public offices in the southern city of Hilla to ensure they would fully reopen after intermittent closures due to the rallies, AFP reporters said.

But they clashed with protesters who insisted on keeping the provincial government's headquarters there shut as a sign of resistance to Allawi, AFP's correspondent said.

One man at the sit-in was stabbed in the neck and died of his wounds in hospital, while three others were hurt after being hit with batons, the medical and security sources told AFP.

In Nasiriyah, a southern city where government offices have been shut for months by the rallies, prominent protester Alaa Rikaby said it was a "critical time" for the movement.

Rikaby, a pharmacist by training, insisted Allawi was "not the people's choice", and appeared to try to steal Sadr's thunder.

"Let's take the initiative to open schools and public offices starting tomorrow, so as not to lose this opportunity to anyone else," Rikaby said in a video posted to Twitter.

In Kut, anti-regime protesters began donning red caps to distinguish themselves from the Sadrists.

Further south in Basra, university students relocated their tents to move away from Sadr supporters, AFP's correspondents there said.

"If Sadrists come to the protest square, don't come into contact with them, don't make problems," one organiser there called out over a loudspeaker.

- 'Smooth transition' -

The divisions appear to have worried the incoming premier, who has asked demonstrations to "pull back the fuse of conflict".

"Otherwise, we will lose what great achievements we have made and drag our country into the abyss," Allawi said in an overnight tweet.

Allawi, 65, launched his political career in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, first as a parliamentarian and then twice as communications minister under former premier Nuri al-Maliki.

But he resigned both times, alleging mass graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by watchdog Transparency International.

His appointment came after crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who threatened to select his own candidate unless parliamentary blocs agreed on someone by February 1.

The negotiations were highly secretive and it remains unclear what unlocked the deal that saw Allawi announce his own nomination Saturday in a video posted to Twitter.

Allawi has until March 2 to form his cabinet, which he insisted will be staffed based on skill, not nepotism.

It would be subject to a vote of confidence from parliament, at which point Allawi's term would officially begin.

He is expected to oversee early parliamentary elections under a new voting law but no date has yet been set.

Allawi met with the United Nations' top official in Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert for the first time on Monday after receiving his first public congratulations from a foreign counterpart, Jordanian PM Omar al-Razzaz.

At Iraq protests, a cleric's tweets split his followers
Baghdad (AFP) Feb 3, 2020 - Sporting their signature blue caps, the men marched triumphantly through Baghdad's protest camp. The die-hard followers of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr were back in Tahrir Square, and they wanted everyone to know it.

Sadr, an enigmatic Shiite cleric who shot to prominence years ago by battling US occupation troops with his notorious Mahdi Army, has built a cult-like following across Iraq and controls the largest parliamentary bloc.

Rarely seen in public, the 45-year-old with the round, turbaned face has fuelled the sense of chaos of months-long anti-government protests with a dizzying and often contradictory series of directives issued via Twitter.

Back in October, he sent thousands of "Sadrists" into the streets to support the unprecedented wave of rallies demanding the ouster of Iraq's entire political class and slamming their backers in Iran.

In late January, Sadr suddenly told supporters to pack up their tents -- but a week later he changed course again, issuing an impassioned call that saw them back in protest camps "to renew the peaceful, reformist revolution".

On Saturday, Sadr endorsed Iraq's new prime minister-designate Mohammad Allawi, a figure loathed by the youths in revolt, in a move that has splintered protest squares.

Hardcore Sadrists then ousted protesters from a multi-storey building that had become a symbol of the uprising, tearing down portraits of youths shot dead in rallies and banners listing demonstrators' demands.

The head-spinning back-and-forth of Sadr's positions, usually by tweet, has stuck a wedge in his millions-strong base, even his followers say.

- 'Love and obedience' -

At the weekend, Sadr's face could be seen on posters taped to three-wheeled motor-rickshaws and carried in gold-rimmed frames by fervent fans in Tahrir.

"If our lord, our commander Sadr told us to walk into a fire, we'd do it," said Nabil, a middle-aged supporter.

Nabil said he had torn down his protest tent when Sadr said he would no longer back the anti-regime rallies, but had returned Saturday following the latest directive.

Asked if the contradicting orders confused him, he said no.

Nadia Abbas, a 45-year-old woman from Sadr's namesake stronghold in east Baghdad, Sadr City, also said she saw "no contradiction between last week and right now".

"Whatever he says, we do. Big or small," she told AFP, as a cluster of veiled woman around her nodded in agreement.

Sadr's younger supporters weren't so sure.

Many of them had defied the cleric's orders last month and remained in Tahrir, watching in disbelief as neighbours packed up their tents.

"From the moment I came here, when the revolution started, I've seen a lot -- people dying, falling in the street and someone picking them up, ambulances, blood," said Hamza, 26, who follows the Sadrist movement.

"We got used to all those scenes but what hurt me the most was watching those tents be taken away. I felt like I was from one country and they were from another," he said.

Hussein, 24, struggled to explain the differing orders.

"He's the commander, but his statement wasn't a direct order to withdraw," the blue-eyed demonstrator insisted.

If Sadr issued a clear order to abandon the protests, what would he do?

Hussein paused, then said: "There's no way I would leave. Anyway, he'd never do that."

Ali, 29, hails from Sadr City and his older brother died fighting for the cleric's Mahdi Army in the years after the 2003 US-led invasion.

He had spent the past four months living in a tent in Tahrir, but said he couldn't blindly follow Sadr's tweets.

"The Sadrist movement has a huge popular base -- eight million people isn't nothing," he said. "Their hearts are with the protests, but love and obedience are two different things."

- 'Growing schism' -

The movement was founded by Sadr's father and was one of the first Shiite religious currents to adopt populist and even revolutionary rhetoric under Saddam's brutal regime.

It has splintered multiple times, and many of the powerful armed factions in Iraq today trace their roots back to the Sadrist movement, including those that oppose the protests.

"The danger of another schism is always there," a source within the Sadrist movement told AFP, asking not to be named in order to be able to speak freely.

Asked about the recent divide over Sadr's shifting positions, the source said: "Ultimately, this is a religious movement, not a democratic one."

Renad Mansour, a researcher at the London-based Chatham House, said Sadr was struggling to reconcile his populist rhetoric with a growing stake in the state, where he controls parliament's largest bloc and key ministry posts.

"There's been a growing schism for a while," said Mansour. "But winning the (2018 parliamentary) election put him into the elite, and he's trying to balance too many things."

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Iraq PM-designate Mohammad Allawi, consensus choice amid protests
Baghdad (AFP) Feb 1, 2020
Mohammad Allawi, who was appointed Saturday as Iraq's new premier, is a former communications minister and lawmaker who inherits a complex web of political challenges and four months of anti-government protests. Allawi announced his own appointment as prime minister in a video he shared on Twitter, addressing Iraqis in colloquial dialect with the national tricolour behind him. "A few minutes ago I was just a citizen, proud of what you have done for change. But I now work for you," he said. ... read more