Posted on 05/05/2004 12:41:26 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
NAJAF, Iraq - Armed with a 9 mm handgun and grit, Haidar is trying to do what the American military camped nearby hasn't done: Drive the gunmen of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from this holy city.
Since mid-April, Haidar and scores of other young men from Najaf have gathered nightly in the city's sprawling cemetery to attack members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. Only a few gunmen are targeted each time to prevent big firefights that might injure civilians, said Haidar, who spoke with Knight Ridder on the condition that his last name not be used.
"If we capture them and they swear on the holy Quran they will leave Najaf and never come back, we let them go," the 20-year-old furniture maker said. "If they resist, they are killed."
As of Friday, the group claimed to have killed more than a half-dozen Mahdi gunmen and chased off at least 20.
This is the first homebred movement against al-Sadr, and it illustrates the animosity toward the radical cleric within Iraq's Shiite community, which makes up the majority of Iraq's population. The Shiites were oppressed under Saddam Hussein's rule, and the United States has looked to them for support in its efforts to transform Iraq.
Many Shiites in Najaf say only a small number of Iraqi Shiites support al-Sadr. But the grand ayatollahs who guide the Shiites are withholding support from Haidar and his band of vigilantes, fearing a civil war among their followers.
U.S. authorities have expressed hope that the Shiite community would take care of al-Sadr and have failed to condemn the vigilante attacks, leaving the impression that they endorse them. U.S. forces have sought to arrest the young cleric and disband the Mahdi Army, but they don't want to risk a public backlash that would follow a military incursion into Najaf.
Najaf businessmen, some of whom Haidar and others say are financing the resistance movement, say there's no choice but to fight back. Al-Sadr "is just a child and he's running everything," complained one shop owner, Mohammed Hassan, 45, who sells women's sundries in the main bazaar. "We haven't been able to get our goods from Baghdad since his men took over our city. They stop the trucks at checkpoints and steal everything."
Like the Mahdi Army, which al-Sadr named after the Shiite Muslim messiah to portray his fight against American occupation as God-driven, the counter-militia has adopted a religious name. The group is called "Thul Fiqar al Battar," named after the double-edged sword carried by Grand Imam Ali, recognized by this Muslim sect as the successor to the Prophet Muhammad....."
(Excerpt) Read more at kansas.com ...
The article goes on to say that these are local people from the area that know the town inside and out. On the thread below there is a new US attack in Najaf. If these people work with the US forces, al-Sadr's forces are in terminal trouble.
(Fighting around Najaf) Iraq troop numbers to stay at 138,000
In fact there was a story 2 weeks ago about some Iraqi sniper who was shooting at the terrorists from rooftops. It seems Iraqis, at least some, are getting tired of riffraff messing up their nation.
I've been hoping for this sort of thing since the resumption of hostilities last April. The Iraqis need to earn their freedom. Freedom earned tends to be valued much more highly than freedom given.
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