Two armies are being raised in Iraq

[donsu]

we knew about the one the bushgang is raising but this is one the Iraqis are raising

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/06/wirq06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/06/ixhome.html

Iraqis flock to Mahdi's Shia army

-snip-

But this is not the new Iraqi army sponsored and approved by the American-led administration. These soldiers will receive no monthly salary of £40. Here, prospective warriors are ready to serve, and die, for nothing.

Call to arms: volunteers sign-up at the Al-Ahrar Mosque

This is "Mahdi's army", a growing militia of mostly Shia men who have responded to the fiery call to arms made by a maverick young cleric, Muqtader al-Sadr, two weeks ago in the Shia holy city of Najaf.

-snip-

"The official Iraqi army is the puppet of the USA," he added. "Now our people are willing to be martyrs and the USA must fear us."

-snip-

But there is no doubt that Mahdi's army has the potential to be a heavily armed force. "We do not need to issue weapons," said Sheikh Qais al-Kaza'ali, who oversees Baghdad's main rallying point for signatures from a religious centre in Saddam City. "Everybody has their own gun."

The US administration has dismissed al-Sadr and his Mahdi army as nothing more than a nuisance. But on the rundown streets of Saddam City, Shia who were despised and oppressed by the former regime believe they have found a new oppressor.
-snip-
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and our troops think they are coming home soon.............

it seems self evident why I'm posting this.

[mistertrickster]

1. Thanks for posting this, Don

This is an important development. Gives the lie to Bush (again) that "all the trouble is in the Sunni Triangle."

Many of us that opposed the war wondered how the post-Saddam gov't was going to hold these Balkanizing forces together. Looking more and more like they aren't.

Welcome to a brewing mid-east civil war . . . what's that going to do for the price of oil? Or security from terrorist threat?

[donsu]

2. well, the bushgang will just accidently bomb to pieces

that particular part of the city, or the whole city, (what the heck) to rid themselves of this minor problem. Or maybe they all will just get sick. Pretty soon Iraq and Sick will become synonymous.