Word: militiaization
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...Sadr City targeting a so-called "secret cell" of Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army was a reminder that even as they press their campaign against al-Qaeda aligned Sunni militants, U.S. forces are ramping up operations against what they see as a more serious long-term threat: Shi'ite militias supported by Iran. The attack killed, by the U.S. military's count, 30 men allegedly involved in receiving weapons and training from Iran. Attacks of that scale in the militia's stronghold are not unheard of, but they are rare. Since the two sides declared a truce...
...fact that the latest raid came on a day when al-Maliki was in Tehran for talks underscored the fact that the U.S. may now be turning toward a more aggressive posture against elements of Sadr's militia. Al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a formidable threat; a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad called it the organization most likely to push Iraq's vicious sectarian conflict into a full-blown civil war. But American efforts to turn tribal leaders and armed Sunni groups against the jihadists in their midst have borne fruit in the security realm this year, although such...
...Until now, Shi'ite militiamen have evaded the punishing attention the U.S. and Iraqi forces have lavished on Sunni insurgents, and have maintained a very strong presence within the Iraqi police and army. The policy of waiting for the government to resolve the militia problem has passed from the realm of wishful thinking and into the realm of fantasy, and the U.S. military now appears more inclined to take strong action...
...attacks against American troops and the Iraqi security forces. According to the same U.S. military official, Mahdi Army cells with Iranian backing were responsible for 75% of U.S. and Coalition deaths last month. The Americans contend that the Mahdi Army, which sprang up in 2003 as a nationalist militia opposed to both the U.S. occupation and Iranian interference, has since become heavily influenced by Tehran...
During my visit, she recounted the fateful afternoon in October, 1993 when she lost her home. "We were 20 people inside the room when the helicopter fell on our house. Militia first attacked [it from the] Bakara market. It came down and fell among our houses. When the chopper fell, a wounded American jumped away. He along with others ran from the back of our house to the front and stood near us. When he came to the front of our house, he stopped there and he killed several people. He killed one man there, there and there," she says...