Word: militiaization
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...troops have stepped back, Shi'ite and Kurd political parties are relying on their own armed militias to step in. Especially after Tuesday's bloodbath, no one feels safe enough to disarm. Gun-toting Shi'ite militiamen clad in black flooded the bomb-scarred neighborhoods of Karbala and Baghdad, setting up checkpoints and clearing the streets. Thousands of Shi'ites are under arms, divided into two major groups. One, the Jaish al-Mahdi, is aligned with the firebrand radical Muqtada al-Sadr and posts its secretive fighters at his Baghdad strongholds. "Every day people are coming in to volunteer," Sheik...
...disarming the militias while violence flourishes will be a dicey proposition. The Shi'ites say they deserve the same dispensation to protect themselves as the Kurds. The Kurds feel they have had a tacit understanding, now acknowledged in the transition charter, that the peshmerga would be allowed to keep their arms. Even if others disagree, the Kurd militia does not plan to give up its weapons. "The peshmerga were on the right side of the fence" against Saddam and fought side by side with the Americans, says Qubad Talabani, son and aide to top Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani. "There...
...youths - some traumatized like Debbie, many others now laden with guilt - described similar experiences in government-run camps around Zimbabwe in which youths are, the witnesses say, trained to maim, torture and kill. Youths who have fled the camps say they are used to train Mugabe's feared youth militia - known as the Green Bombers after the uniforms some wear - that have been so ruthlessly effective at suppressing opposition to the regime. The youths attack suspected opposition supporters with sticks or iron bars, and are known for their brutality. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, based in Harare, estimates they...
...more democratic. When Philippe, 36, served as Cap Haitien's police chief in the late 1990s, Colombian cocaine shipments flowed virtually unobstructed through its port, according to Haitian and U.S. officials--one reason that Haiti is now the largest narcotics transshipment center in the Caribbean. Philippe's ragtag militia, motivated by a hatred for Aristide, numbers only a few hundred men wielding old automatic rifles. But they stormed virtually unopposed into Cap Haitien last week after gobbling up numerous other Haitian towns like so many pieces of fried conch. "The only people Haitians have left to trust are street-gang...
Many soldiers in the main force of Haitian rebels attempting to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide are armed with American M-1 and M-14 rifles given to Haiti in the 1980s. The turncoat militia--the Artibonite Resistance Front, formerly known as Aristide's loyal Cannibal Army--is hardly the first foreign military force to get its hands on a stockpile of U.S. weapons. Here are some conflicts of the past few years that the U.S. has unwittingly armed. --By Nadia Mustafa...