Word: militiaization
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...mosques around Iraq containing his verdict on the future of the cease-fire observed by his Medhi Army, Iraq waited on tenterhooks for the message to be read at Friday prayers. "I'm extending the freeze of army activity," al-Sadr's statement read, ordering his militia to remain standing down until mid-August, when presumably the cleric will reconsider. Despite pressure from within his movement's ranks to end the cease-fire that, they complain, has been used by U.S. forces and al-Sadr's Shi'ite rivals to go after the organization, Friday's message hardly mentioned...
...idea that misery loves company appears to have been at work last summer when several thousand refugees, fleeing attacks by the Janjaweed militia in Darfur, arrived in Sam Ouandja - a town where locals live in fear of their own gunmen. Ironically, however, rather than worsen the plight of already impoverished and isolated people, the arrival of the Darfur refugees has been a blessing...
...officials are hoping that Sadr will largely abandon Kalashnikov politics and focus his movement more on social causes as the need for militias to protect neighborhoods from Sunni extremists recedes. "I kind of think it will hold," Crocker said of the ceasefire. "The Shi'a are just as sick of militia violence as the Sunnis are." But Sadr is notoriously unpredictable. And while allowing for some optimism, U.S. officials remain unsure what will unfold. "It truly is a wait-and-see moment," Petraeus said...
...cease-fire had its origins in intra-Shi'a rivalries. Most observers were surprised last August when Sadr's Mahdi Army militia announced a six-month cease-fire, shortly after bloody Shi'ite infighting erupted in Karbala. Thousands of pilgrims had gathered in the city for a Shi'ite festival. Some Sadrists who turned up for the event got into an altercation with local security forces, who are largely loyal to the Sadr movement's chief Shi'ite factional rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). Things escalated, and a street tussle turned into a gun battle that left more...
Leadership figures from the Mahdi Army have long accused government security forces of being under the sway of SIIC, which is led by Sadr's chief political rival Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Until August, the Mahdi Army and the militia wing of al-Hakim's movement, the Badr Brigade, were engaged in a running struggle for influence in southern Iraq, competing for control of everything from gas stations to sacred shrines. The Karbala incident seemed to shock both sides into cooling tensions. But the recent statements suggest the agreement is unraveling. If so, it could draw U.S. troops back into...