Word: militiaization
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...card Maliki always held was his alliance with the political bloc led by Moqtada al-Sadr, the head of the Shi'a Mahdi militia. This includes 30 parliamentarians and six cabinet members. Maliki was seen as one person who might be able to exercise some sway over Sadr and his lawless sectarian army. But it became clear that influence flowed only one way between Sadr and Maliki in October, when U.S. forces seized Sadr aide Sheik Mazin al-Saedi, a suspected organizer of kidnapping rings and death squads. Maliki immediately called for Saedi's release, and the U.S. military complied...
...earlier incarnation, Aidid was - and some say still is - commander of a clan militia that ruled a district of Mogadishu from the barrel of a gun. A naturalized U.S. citizen who became a U.S. Marine in 1987 and served in Somalia in 1992, Aidid succeeded his father, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, as leader of a Saad clan militia after he was killed in 1996. In 1993, it was the elder Aidid's faction that killed 18 U.S. troops in a bloody Mogadishu street battle made famous by the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Today, by virtue of the clan power...
...everyone buys this happy talk. "Are we assuming the insurgents don't get to vote on this?" asks a veteran of both the Iraqi and Vietnam wars. "I see more arrogance than ever, assuming once again that Western genius counts for more than Eastern resolve." Already the sectarian militias so eager to kill civilians across Baghdad have been careful not to confront U.S. forces. When U.S. troops appear, the Mahdi Army simply melts away and waits for another moment. Unless they are killed off, jailed or somehow turned into allies--unlikely outcomes all--Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militia fighters...
...Saddam didn't hide what he thought about them either. At one point, he called them "Persians" - in other words, traitors - and his choice of insult was very revealing. Like Saddam, most Iraqi Sunnis view Sadr as all but a paid-up Iranian agent, and his militia, the Mahdi Army, as an Iranian creation.The Sunnis are convinced that one day, given the opportunity, Sadr will hand Iraq over to Iran. For all the shock Iraq's Sunnis felt on hearing Sadr's name shouted at Saddam's execution, Iranian diplomats might as well have been in attendance...
...driver barrels past the building and our security - a pickup full of militia gunmen - follows in our 60 mph dust cloud. The car bounces over several massive potholes, and suddenly we're looking out at the sea over a rocky harbor where a couple of rusted tankers lie in water the color of malachite. The skeleton of a large building looms on a headland overhead. "The Aruba Hotel," says Fanah. "This was once the eighth or the ninth finest hotel in Africa." The tour continues...