H
Harry Hope
Guest
From The Los Angeles Times, 8/16/07:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...,1,7568017.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
Shiite militia infiltrates Iraqi forces
Radical cleric Muqtada Sadr's sectarian Mahdi Army has deep links with
security forces.
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD --
Abu Mohammed is a policeman by day, patrolling the Shiite Muslim
district of Sadr City.
Come sundown, however, Abu Mohammed commands a platoon of Jaish al
Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia associated with radical
cleric Muqtada Sadr that is widely accused of sectarian killings.
Abu Mohammed is not alone in this double life.
By his account and those of U.S. military and Iraqi sources, Mahdi
militia members have infiltrated much of the country's security
apparatus, including the army, where they reportedly intimidate and
bribe troops and commanders to look the other way as militants execute
their brutal sectarian "cleansing" agenda.
"There is a Mahdi Army member in every family and in every home across
Iraq and the military is not exempt," said Abu Mohammed, leaning
nonchalantly in a Sadr City alley, as children played in the street.
"The army wouldn't go after the Mahdi Army because many elements in
the army are Mahdi Army. Here in Sadr City for example, there is one
company and 35 of them are Mahdi Army."
Abu Mohammed, who insisted on identifying himself only by his battle
name, represents one of the challenges U.S. strategists face in Iraq.
While U.S. forces search out militia fighters and try to build a
nonsectarian police force and army, men such as Abu Mohammed are
surreptitiously undoing their work.
In addition to infiltrating Baghdad army units in Shiite
neighborhoods, the Mahdi Army has been able to bring political
pressure on commanders, and on at least one occasion, to create its
own army units packed with its fighters.
The Sadr movement has used Iraqi soldiers and national police officers
to push deeper into predominantly Sunni Arab districts in west
Baghdad, U.S. Army officers said.
It also swayed the leadership of an Iraqi army battalion in the spring
to mount strikes in Fadil, a Sunni district in east Baghdad, the U.S.
officers said.
The nexus has included soldiers carrying out killings or turning a
blind eye as Sadr fighters slip through checkpoints.
In late March, in the early phase of the U.S. military buildup, a
Mahdi fighter who gave his name as Abu Haidar bragged to The Times
that Iraqi army officers had provided vehicles to his group to carry
out executions.
"We have a deal with the Iraqi army and police," he said.
In one of the more troubling examples of the relationship between the
militia and Iraqi government, the Defense Ministry in January
authorized lawmaker Baha Araji, a Sadr loyalist, to form a
plainclothes army unit to patrol the Shiite district of Kadhimiya,
U.S. army officers and a Shiite politician told The Times.
"The Baha Araji company was a 300-man element of plainclothes Jaish al
Mahdi operatives . . . that have subsequently been put in Iraqi army
uniforms," said Lt. Col. Steven Miska of the 1st Infantry Division.
"Nobody in the Iraqi army chain of command wanted those guys in
uniform. It was a political decision."
Sadrist member of parliament Falah Hassan defended the company's
creation.
"This battalion was protecting Kadhimiya," he said.
The district houses a key Shiite shrine.
The Defense Ministry disbanded the unit in May.
The commander became the head of a new battalion that included many of
his former troops.
The other Araji soldiers were placed in Kadhimiya's Bravo Company.
The U.S. Army arrested three Bravo members last week after finding
them meeting with Mahdi fighters.
The battalion's intelligence officer was arrested for shooting at U.S.
soldiers April 29 outside a Sadrist mosque.
"We've slowed them down, but they are still slowly expanding their
reach. Jaish al Mahdi expansion is taking place," a U.S. Army military
intelligence officer in west Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.
"Like water, they are going to find a crack and move through the
weakest area."
Senior U.S. military officers involved in training Iraqis acknowledge
that militia influence in the army has been a problem, but said they
believed the challenge is small compared with the danger in the police
force.
They believe the militia has been able to woo and intimidate soldiers
who live in areas under the group's control.
"In some ways, we shouldn't be surprised some of the people involved
may have succumbed to these types of militia pressures," said Brig.
Stephen Gledhill, deputy head of the U.S.-led army and police training
efforts.
U.S. officers said the Defense Ministry was dealing with the
challenge.
"They are building more and more capacity to identify the problems . .
.. and then go after them," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel
Williams said.
The use of sympathetic or infiltrated Iraqi army battalions to drive
out Sunnis has been most evident in the western neighborhoods of
Hurriya and Ghazaliya.
In November 2006, Iraqi soldiers watched as Shiite militiamen forced
thousands of Sunni families out of Hurriya after a bombing in Sadr
City, U.S. and Iraqi officers said.
A month later, an Iraqi commander and four staff officers responsible
for the Hurriya district were arrested on suspicion of murder,
extortion and links with the Mahdi Army.
The judge released them after seven days when no evidence was
presented.
The day they were released, an Iraqi lieutenant colonel who had filed
a statement against the five was killed at a checkpoint.
In the northern part of Ghazaliya, Iraqi soldiers helped the Mahdi
Army take back territory from Al Qaeda in Iraq militants.
But the army also allowed the militia to lay claim to three additional
streets inhabited by Sunnis, U.S. officers and Sunni residents said.
In June, the Iraqi army warned the area's battalion commander, a Sadr
sympathizer, against any further misconduct and moved him to Amiriya
to fight insurgents.
An air of suspicion now pervades the northern Ghazaliya battalion.
At least two of its commanders are suspected of working with the Mahdi
Army.
"The militia is looking for guys who are working in the army and
living in the area. They make them sources," said an Iraqi officer,
one of the few in the battalion whom the Americans trust.
He asked that his name not be used because he was afraid for his life.
The officer said that if he acted aggressively against the Mahdi Army,
the group could pull strings in the parliament and government to
harass officers.
Last week, when the officer insisted that civilians be searched at a
Ghazaliya checkpoint, the militia threatened him, saying it would call
his division commander and have him removed.
The officer said he was soon brought in for questioning by military
intelligence; Sadrists had accused him of helping Al Qaeda.
"If anyone doesn't like me, they can complain" to the Ministry of
Defense, he said.
"Maybe the division commander will listen to them and not to me."
Seeking to offset the Mahdi Army pressure, the U.S. Army has organized
a citizen watch group of Sunni Arabs called the Ghazaliya Guardians.
The men stand at Iraqi checkpoints, dressed in khaki work clothes and
baseball caps, to monitor Iraqi soldiers with cameras to see whether
Mahdi Army members are let through.
In Hurriya, the militia reportedly intimidated an Iraqi army unit that
was brought up from southern Iraq.
Bombs have targeted U.S. convoys just a few hundred yards from Iraqi
army posts in that city, U.S. Army Capt. Andrew Lee said.
The militia also has started to flex its muscles in adjoining
neighborhoods, including Mansour's Washash and Iskan areas.
A Mahdi leader "frequently makes phone calls to the Iraqi army in that
area . . . with offers of money and threats of intimidation, all the
standard mob-style tactics of corruption and leverage in order to gain
power and control," Miska said.
Recently, the Mahdi Army pulled off a coup: hijacking the leadership
of a highly lauded Iraqi battalion in east Baghdad, using it to mount
strikes in Fadil, a bastion of Sunni insurgents.
_______________________________________________
So...uh...what about this "surge" everyone keeps talking about? It's
supposed to accomplish what?
Harry
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...,1,7568017.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
Shiite militia infiltrates Iraqi forces
Radical cleric Muqtada Sadr's sectarian Mahdi Army has deep links with
security forces.
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD --
Abu Mohammed is a policeman by day, patrolling the Shiite Muslim
district of Sadr City.
Come sundown, however, Abu Mohammed commands a platoon of Jaish al
Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia associated with radical
cleric Muqtada Sadr that is widely accused of sectarian killings.
Abu Mohammed is not alone in this double life.
By his account and those of U.S. military and Iraqi sources, Mahdi
militia members have infiltrated much of the country's security
apparatus, including the army, where they reportedly intimidate and
bribe troops and commanders to look the other way as militants execute
their brutal sectarian "cleansing" agenda.
"There is a Mahdi Army member in every family and in every home across
Iraq and the military is not exempt," said Abu Mohammed, leaning
nonchalantly in a Sadr City alley, as children played in the street.
"The army wouldn't go after the Mahdi Army because many elements in
the army are Mahdi Army. Here in Sadr City for example, there is one
company and 35 of them are Mahdi Army."
Abu Mohammed, who insisted on identifying himself only by his battle
name, represents one of the challenges U.S. strategists face in Iraq.
While U.S. forces search out militia fighters and try to build a
nonsectarian police force and army, men such as Abu Mohammed are
surreptitiously undoing their work.
In addition to infiltrating Baghdad army units in Shiite
neighborhoods, the Mahdi Army has been able to bring political
pressure on commanders, and on at least one occasion, to create its
own army units packed with its fighters.
The Sadr movement has used Iraqi soldiers and national police officers
to push deeper into predominantly Sunni Arab districts in west
Baghdad, U.S. Army officers said.
It also swayed the leadership of an Iraqi army battalion in the spring
to mount strikes in Fadil, a Sunni district in east Baghdad, the U.S.
officers said.
The nexus has included soldiers carrying out killings or turning a
blind eye as Sadr fighters slip through checkpoints.
In late March, in the early phase of the U.S. military buildup, a
Mahdi fighter who gave his name as Abu Haidar bragged to The Times
that Iraqi army officers had provided vehicles to his group to carry
out executions.
"We have a deal with the Iraqi army and police," he said.
In one of the more troubling examples of the relationship between the
militia and Iraqi government, the Defense Ministry in January
authorized lawmaker Baha Araji, a Sadr loyalist, to form a
plainclothes army unit to patrol the Shiite district of Kadhimiya,
U.S. army officers and a Shiite politician told The Times.
"The Baha Araji company was a 300-man element of plainclothes Jaish al
Mahdi operatives . . . that have subsequently been put in Iraqi army
uniforms," said Lt. Col. Steven Miska of the 1st Infantry Division.
"Nobody in the Iraqi army chain of command wanted those guys in
uniform. It was a political decision."
Sadrist member of parliament Falah Hassan defended the company's
creation.
"This battalion was protecting Kadhimiya," he said.
The district houses a key Shiite shrine.
The Defense Ministry disbanded the unit in May.
The commander became the head of a new battalion that included many of
his former troops.
The other Araji soldiers were placed in Kadhimiya's Bravo Company.
The U.S. Army arrested three Bravo members last week after finding
them meeting with Mahdi fighters.
The battalion's intelligence officer was arrested for shooting at U.S.
soldiers April 29 outside a Sadrist mosque.
"We've slowed them down, but they are still slowly expanding their
reach. Jaish al Mahdi expansion is taking place," a U.S. Army military
intelligence officer in west Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.
"Like water, they are going to find a crack and move through the
weakest area."
Senior U.S. military officers involved in training Iraqis acknowledge
that militia influence in the army has been a problem, but said they
believed the challenge is small compared with the danger in the police
force.
They believe the militia has been able to woo and intimidate soldiers
who live in areas under the group's control.
"In some ways, we shouldn't be surprised some of the people involved
may have succumbed to these types of militia pressures," said Brig.
Stephen Gledhill, deputy head of the U.S.-led army and police training
efforts.
U.S. officers said the Defense Ministry was dealing with the
challenge.
"They are building more and more capacity to identify the problems . .
.. and then go after them," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel
Williams said.
The use of sympathetic or infiltrated Iraqi army battalions to drive
out Sunnis has been most evident in the western neighborhoods of
Hurriya and Ghazaliya.
In November 2006, Iraqi soldiers watched as Shiite militiamen forced
thousands of Sunni families out of Hurriya after a bombing in Sadr
City, U.S. and Iraqi officers said.
A month later, an Iraqi commander and four staff officers responsible
for the Hurriya district were arrested on suspicion of murder,
extortion and links with the Mahdi Army.
The judge released them after seven days when no evidence was
presented.
The day they were released, an Iraqi lieutenant colonel who had filed
a statement against the five was killed at a checkpoint.
In the northern part of Ghazaliya, Iraqi soldiers helped the Mahdi
Army take back territory from Al Qaeda in Iraq militants.
But the army also allowed the militia to lay claim to three additional
streets inhabited by Sunnis, U.S. officers and Sunni residents said.
In June, the Iraqi army warned the area's battalion commander, a Sadr
sympathizer, against any further misconduct and moved him to Amiriya
to fight insurgents.
An air of suspicion now pervades the northern Ghazaliya battalion.
At least two of its commanders are suspected of working with the Mahdi
Army.
"The militia is looking for guys who are working in the army and
living in the area. They make them sources," said an Iraqi officer,
one of the few in the battalion whom the Americans trust.
He asked that his name not be used because he was afraid for his life.
The officer said that if he acted aggressively against the Mahdi Army,
the group could pull strings in the parliament and government to
harass officers.
Last week, when the officer insisted that civilians be searched at a
Ghazaliya checkpoint, the militia threatened him, saying it would call
his division commander and have him removed.
The officer said he was soon brought in for questioning by military
intelligence; Sadrists had accused him of helping Al Qaeda.
"If anyone doesn't like me, they can complain" to the Ministry of
Defense, he said.
"Maybe the division commander will listen to them and not to me."
Seeking to offset the Mahdi Army pressure, the U.S. Army has organized
a citizen watch group of Sunni Arabs called the Ghazaliya Guardians.
The men stand at Iraqi checkpoints, dressed in khaki work clothes and
baseball caps, to monitor Iraqi soldiers with cameras to see whether
Mahdi Army members are let through.
In Hurriya, the militia reportedly intimidated an Iraqi army unit that
was brought up from southern Iraq.
Bombs have targeted U.S. convoys just a few hundred yards from Iraqi
army posts in that city, U.S. Army Capt. Andrew Lee said.
The militia also has started to flex its muscles in adjoining
neighborhoods, including Mansour's Washash and Iskan areas.
A Mahdi leader "frequently makes phone calls to the Iraqi army in that
area . . . with offers of money and threats of intimidation, all the
standard mob-style tactics of corruption and leverage in order to gain
power and control," Miska said.
Recently, the Mahdi Army pulled off a coup: hijacking the leadership
of a highly lauded Iraqi battalion in east Baghdad, using it to mount
strikes in Fadil, a bastion of Sunni insurgents.
_______________________________________________
So...uh...what about this "surge" everyone keeps talking about? It's
supposed to accomplish what?
Harry
