Shiite Militia Reviving In Post-Election Iraq

[Hissyspit]

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/08/1933407/shiite-militia-reviving-in-post.html
Posted on Sat, May. 08, 2010 10:15 PM

Shiite militia reviving in post-election Iraq

By HAMZA HENDAWI and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD | A Shiite militia that was crippled two years ago by defections and a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown has quietly started to regroup.

The revival of the Mahdi Army, loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adds street muscle to the Shiite party that emerged strongest from Iraq’s parliamentary elections.

An al-Sadr spokesman said the force was gearing up to ensure U.S. forces stick to a Dec. 31, 2011, deadline to withdraw from the country — threatening attacks on American troops if they stayed past the date.

In the near term, Sunnis fear the militia will turn its firepower against their community in vengeance after an uptick in militant violence against Shiites in recent months, a move that could revive the sectarian bloodshed that nearly tore the nation apart in 2006 and 2007.

Al-Sadr disbanded the militia in 2008. But his spokesman, Salah al-Obeidi, told The Associated Press that it had officially been revived.

In a show of the movement’s new boldness, al-Sadr offered to help Iraqi security forces — who have almost no visible presence in their eastern Baghdad stronghold — protect Shiites after a wave of bombings April 23 targeted their places of worship. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not respond, and a top aide, Ali al-Adeeb, expressed doubt that the government would accept the offer.

So al-Sadr took matters into his own hands. Recently his militiamen deployed at the sites of the weekly Muslim prayers organized by the Sadrists in Baghdad’s Sadr City — home to some 2.5 million Shiites — and across the Shiite south of Iraq, throwing a security ring around their mosques, searching worshippers and vehicles.

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