KurdistanObserver.com

Sunnis Build Up Their Own Militia In Iraq

By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Sunni Arabs have formed their own militia to counter Shi'ite and Kurdish forces as part of an attempt to regain influence they lost after Saddam Hussein was toppled.

The so-called "Anbar Revolutionaries" have emerged from a split in the anti-U.S. insurgency, which included al Qaeda.

They are a new addition to a network of militias that have thrived in Iraq's bloody chaos and are tied to the country's leading ethnic and political parties, now negotiating the formation of a coalition government after the Dec. 15 election, the second such polls since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The newly-organised militia is made up mostly of Saddam loyalists, Iraqi Islamists and other nationalists leading an insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Sunni officials said Sunni rebels first decided to reorganise their forces into a militia after their tactical alliance with al Qaeda, who are also Sunnis, unravelled when al Qaeda bombs began killing fellow Sunnis in recent months.

But a key motive behind the militia's emergence is to have a force on the ground to confront the Shi'ite Badr Brigades, whom the Sunnis accuse of killing and torturing members of their sect in death squads sanctioned by the government, the officials added.

"The Anbar Revolutionaries are here to stay, we need them to protect the people," one Sunni Arab official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

"Sunnis do not have the Shi'ite Badr (Brigades) or the Kurdish peshmerga (militia). In these times when sectarian tension is high, such a force is needed."

The Anbar Revolutionaries are likely to further hamper the Iraqi government's effort to impose its authority and curb rising sectarian strife between Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

A government source said although the original aim of the force was to fight al Qaeda, it was hard to predict how it would develop.

Sunni officials familiar with the militia say its numbers are in the hundreds and it will be used for "defensive" purposes only.

"It is our right to defend ourselves," another Sunni official said.

NEW STATUS QUO

Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam, watched Shi'ites and Kurds sweep to power when the Sunnis boycotted last January's election. But Sunni political fortunes improved after they won seats in parliament in the latest vote.

While fighting for cabinet positions, Sunnis have embarked simultaneously on a strategy of loosening the grip of the much larger Badr Brigades, and to a lesser extent the Kurdish peshmergas, in a country where militias often blend in with the security forces.

Badr officials and the government deny the Sunni accusations, and the authorities have vowed to investigate abuses in the battle against a Sunni insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqi security forces and mostly Shi'ite civilians.

The group has changed its name to the Badr Organisation but Iraqis still refer to it as the Badr Brigades, after the Iranian-trained fighters who turned on Saddam Hussein's army in his 1980-88 war with Iran and returned as a dominant force after his ousting.

Aside from giving Sunnis more power, the new militia will have a more formal structure than existing insurgent forcess including al Qaeda, and could be easier for U.S. and Iraqi officials to talk to.

"Tribal leaders and political figures found that al Qaeda's programme is harming the political efforts and progress the Sunni political leaders are making, because al Qaeda rejects all politics," said Hazem Naimi, a political science professor.

While rival forces have built their militias, successive U.S.-backed governments have struggled to create effective state security forces.

U.S. officials would ultimately like to see all militias disbanded. Kurdish President Jalal Talabani has said the militias could help fight insurgents. Shi'ite leaders avoid the subject.

The Anbar Revolutionaries are being built up as diplomats say U.S. officials are shifting favour from Iraq's pro-Iranian Shi'ite leaders to Sunnis because of Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

That could give Sunnis more clout as the Badr Brigades, believed to command up to 10,000 fighters, continue to operate as a semi-official force speeding through Baghdad on police vehicles in military uniforms.

Sunni officials say their militia is "defensive". But that may be idealistic as more and more Iraqis are bombed, shot and beheaded for belonging to one Islamic sect or the other.

"Sunnis feel that the Shi'ites have taken over the government and now it is their state," said Naimi.

"The Badr Brigades are in the interior ministry and under the interior ministry's name they go to towns, kill and arrest."