Shia militia demolish 'debauched' Iraqi village

The Financial Times (UK) ^ | 4/2/04 | Nicolas Pelham

[saquin]

A Shia militia group loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr has wiped out a large village in central Iraq which refused to adhere to its puritanical creed, killing many of its inhabitants and forcing the rest to flee.

Hundreds of militiamen from the Mahdi's Army group besieged the town of Kawali, 10km south of the city of Diwaniya, with mortars and smashed walls with sledgehammers three weeks ago, reducing to rubble the entire village famed for its dancers and prostitutes since the 1920s.

On Friday scavengers scoured the ruins, loading bricks from houses, a school and a mosque into pickup trucks to sell to local builders. Sayid Yahya Shubari, the 30-year-old local clerical commander of the Mahdi's Army in Diwaniya, said his militia raided the village after receiving reports that pimps had kidnapped a 12-year-old girl.

"It was a well of debauchery, drunkenness and mafia, and they were buying and selling girls," he said. He said Kawali was flattened after the villagers shot an emissary he had sent to negotiate with them.

A clerk at Diwaniya general hospital said he saw "many" corpses brought into the hospital after the attack on March 12, but neither residents nor militia sources had exact figures for the dead.

The town's destruction has raised fears that the militia, which operates under the command of Mr Sadr, and is active in Baghdad and eight southern provinces, is not just operating above the law, but defining it. Mr Shubari says his Diwaniya office operates its own Sharia (Islamic law) courts, and uses its Sharia police to apply Islamic punishments.

Militiamen say their Diwaniya brigade alone has between 800 and 1,000 men under arms.

Diwaniya residents speak of a reign of terror, and say masked militiamen with Kalashnikovs are staging processions in the streets.

Hamid Alwan's back is still black with the marks of 80 lashes struck by a cleric for smelling of gin.

Mr Shubari confirmed that his office was punishing alcoholics with 80 lashes.

The Spanish-led multinational force, assigned to provide security in the area, says it has made one raid on the Sharia court, after receiving orders from its military command, but is reluctant to intervene. "The problem is not the Mahdi's Army, the problem is the terrorists. It's the terrorists who make dangers for the coalition," says Major Carlos Herradon.

A local police chief says the Army is "a good force", whose Sharia courts are supreme. Journalists in the city have also been advised to respect "the sensitivity" of the news, and refrain from reporting.

In recent weeks, coalition officials say they have demolished Mr Sadr's Sharia court run from a basement in the nearby holy city of Najaf, and padlocked the main offices of Mr Sadr's newspaper in Baghdad.

The occupation authorities have also reissued orders to disband the Mahdi's Army and other militias. But analysts fear the measures will serve to provoke Shia grassroots activists into open confrontation with the occupation authorities that the coalition has so far managed to avoid.

"We prefer to die rather than see the Mahdi's Army dissolved," says Mr Shubari. "Either martyrdom or victory, there is no other way."

Ahead of a large Shia procession next week, black flags are draped from many Shia shrines in southern Iraq instructing followers to face the sword rather than surrender an Islamic state.

In Diwaniya, a town where women are all but absent on the streets, many younger residents and some policemen praised the Mahdi's Army methods as salvaging their town's reputation.

"People would come from all over the south, and even Baghdad to dance with the Kawali girls," said Bassam al-Najafi, a Diwaniya restaurateur. "Women were leaving their husbands to work there. They are cleansing the town."

He said that in the absence of a central authority, the vigiliantes were a necessity in the midst of anarchy. He said their lashings had also helped tackle a new wave of drug dealers peddling looted medicines.

But the owners of CD stores said Mr Subari's God-squads had smashed their collections and forced them to sell recording of clerical sermons instead.

"Under Saddam we had to sell songs, and religious cassettes were banned. Now it's the reverse," said Hossam, who recently draped his shop-front in black flags and Imam Ali posters, like an amulet for protection.

[saquin]

Sadr must be stopped.

Supporters of a militant Shiite cleric protest in central Baghdad

"The centerpiece of Friday's Baghdad demonstration was a speech by Sadr's Baghdad envoy, Sayid Hazem al Araqi, who condemned the U.S. presence here and decried the Iraqi Governing Council.

Together, he said, the U.S. and proxy Iraqis have created "streets full of thieves, carjackers and rubbish," encouraged adultery by trying to crack down on so-called honor killings and flirted with reconciliation of the reviled Baath Party by only dismissing from jobs top tier workers who swore allegiance to Saddam's movement.

"We fought Saddam, and now we're fighting the Americans," the sheik said. "Listen America, Britain and Israel, there's a man named Muqtada Sadr and he gives resistance fighters their courage."

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[Spruce]

Scenes like this will be playing in the EU soon, if not already. Religion of Peace, my a**.

[McGavin999]

Yep, this guy is bad news and he's going to have to be taken care of sooner or later. Hopefully, in the elections, he will find out that there aren't that many who will follow him any more. He's stepped over the line on this one I think, and his little militia will be disbanded by the IP and the ICDC.

[freedumb2003]

Either martyrdom or victory, there is no other way."

Martyrdom it is!

[xm177e2]

We fought Saddam, and now we're fighting the Americans

Did he really fight against Saddam? I don't remember him doing anything remotely rebellious for the past decade. Where were his armies then?

[Light Speed]

So then..its a toss up between,

Joining the Mahdi's army...
or staying home for internet porn.

[New Horizon]

"We prefer to die rather than see the Mahdi's Army dissolved," says Mr Shubari.

I'm pretty sure it will be the former.

[Ronin]

Sadr is an opportunist who is trading on the family name in hopes of jumping ahead of Sistani and positioning himself as an Iraqi Khomeni.

If he is not taken out soon, he is definitely going to be a menace.

[yonif]

A family picture: