Shi'ite militias extend control

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, June 27, 2003
Militia Trained in Iran Controls a Tense Town
By SHAILA K. DEWAN

MAJAR AL KABIR, Iraq, June 26 — The Badr Brigade, a militia group whose 
members trained in Iran during the long rule of Saddam Hussein, controls 
this town of 50,000 people where six British soldiers and four Iraqis 
were killed in a firefight this week, residents said today.

Officials in Washington have said that United States intelligence 
reports indicate that the Badr forces — based and trained in Iran during 
Mr. Hussein's rule — have set up headquarters and tried to recruit 
supporters in towns in southern Iraq, and that fighters who have 
returned to Iraq from Iran have shed their uniforms and melted into the 
civilian populations.

In Majar al Kabir, less than 50 miles from the Iranian border to the 
east, the militia is armed and occupies the police compound where the 
soldiers, members of the British Royal Military Police, were killed on 
Tuesday.

Two of about eight armed men in the police compound today said they had 
recently come from Iran.

One, Hussein Ashayer, 30, said he had spent five years there, sneaking 
into Iraq several times on unspecified missions. When asked what he had 
done in Iran, he was interrupted by the militia's leader, Abed Salaam, 
who said in Arabic, "Don't tell everything."

full: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/international/worldspecial/27TOWN.html

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org