Al- Karbala'i Backs Militias

"The small foreign Salafi terror group in Iraq had called on Thursday for more attacks on Americans in Iraq. Many Iraqi Sunni sermonizers distanced themselves from that call at Friday prayers. In Baghdad, a traffic ban was instituted to forestall car bombings of mosques while congregations were worshipping. AFP adds,

In his sermon, though, [Sunni Shaikh Zakariya] Tamimi [of the Ibn Taymiyah Mosque] railed against an Iraqi government that could not be trusted while Shia militias roamed the streets killing Sunnis, asking the administration “to heal itself”.

For his part, the Shia cleric Ahmed al-Safi al-Karbalayi said in his sermon at Karbala’s Imam Hussein shrine that militias would remain necessary as long as the government could not protect its own people.

“Arms should be put in the hands of the state and the state should be able to protect the citizen, otherwise popular organizations shall be formed to defend themselves,” he said.

Al-Karbala'i is an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and if he is talking this way about militias, it is a bad, bad sign."
Juan Cole

No, not a good sign at all.