Baghdad buzzing with talk about 'Shiite Zarqawi'

[ECH1969]

Sadr City and Internet bulletin boards buzzed with talk that a US-Iraqi raid on the poor Shiite district that killed nine was targeting a militiaman nicknamed the "Shiite Zarqawi".

There were suggestions that the unnamed "high-level insurgent leader" US forces said they had captured in Friday's nighttime raid on the industrial "Kisra wa Atash" neighbourhood in the northern fringes of Sadr city was a shadowy and brutal Shiite militiaman known as Abu Deraa.

Several postings on two Iraqi Internet bulletin boards described Abu Deraa as the "butcher of Rusafa" in reference to the city's east bank district. They accused him of kidnapping, torturing and killing Sunni Arabs in retaliation for attacks against the country's majority Shiites in the ongoing sectarian bloodshed plaguing Iraq.

"This bastard specialises in killing Sunnis en masse," it added. Zaid al-Nar", said Abu Deraa was real and that he was wanted for killing US soldiers during the bloody rebellion against US forces in 2004 and that he also "killed dozens of Sunnis after bombings in Sadr City".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060708/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestshiiteus_060708132059