Iraqi Neighborhood Militias Add Another Armed Layer (sectarian war closer)

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Neighborhood Militias Add Another Armed Layer
Fearing Shiite attacks, Sunni Arabs in Iraq are organizing fighters and storing guns in mosques. Some fear an escalation to all-out sectarian war.
By Megan K. Stack, Times Staff Writer
April 1, 2006

BAGHDAD — When the "black shirts" come back, the neighbors of the mosque will be ready to fight.

The Sunni Arab men of the district have posted plainclothes spies on the corners to look out for suspicious strangers. They keep their cellphones close at hand, waiting for the ring that will call them to arms. When it comes, the men will pour from the surrounding homes, guns blazing.

Faced with the growth of Shiite militias such as the black-shirted Al Mahdi army and deadly abuses by the Shiite-dominated police forces, Sunnis in mixed-sect neighborhoods and cities throughout Iraq are stashing guns in their mosques and knitting themselves into militias of their own.

"We've made an agreement with the neighbors that if we have another attack, they'll pick up their weapons and fight the invaders," said Fares Mahmoud, deputy preacher of the El Koudiri Mosque here in the middle-class neighborhood of Arasat. "We are depending on the soul of the people to protect us."

In the last week, U.S. troops have clashed with Shiite militias, and American officials have expressed concern about their growing power. On the other side of Iraq's sectarian divide, the emergence of armed bands of Sunnis, often from middle-class or secular backgrounds, presents a disturbing indication of how close Iraq is to all-out sectarian war....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-militias1apr01,0,7923382.story?coll=la-home-world

[Inland]

1. The arming, organizing seems to be occuring at a neighborhood level.

Out of sight and mind of our military, admin. and press. When the civil war comes, it's not going to be armies depicted in big blue and red arrows on a map, like our civil war. It's going to be up close, personal, and of the ethic cleansing variety against civilans, like the greek or spanish or kosovo civil wars.

Being unorganized, all it needs is the right starting gun, the occurence that everyone recognizes as "this is it". The blowing up of the Shiite mosque was one such starting gun, but it seems to have played itself out.

[Missy M]

2. What a colossal mess!! Last week US troops clashed with....

Shiite militias now next week will they clash with Sunni militias? There seems to be no end in sight and the Bush administration has no idea what to do. Why did they not predict this would happen. I guess they thought it would be a cake walk.

[rocktivity]

3. GOOD NEWS!

Iraqi civilians are forming their own neighborhood crime watch groups!

:party: (This post is part of the George Bush GULF WAR GOOD NEWS initiative.)
rocknation