.Shiite leaders in Iraq seek to curtail U.S-backed security groups composed mostly of Sunnis
BAGHDAD | The leader of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite Muslim political party warned Friday that the security organizations that American officials credit with helping to cut violence must be brought under control.
Abdulaziz al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, became the latest Iraqi leader to raise concerns that the U.S.-financed groups, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim and known as “awakening councils” or “concerned local citizens,” could become a potent army capable of challenging the U.S.-backed Shiite-dominated central government.
“We emphasize that it’s important that these awakening councils become an aid and an arm to the Iraqi government in its pursuit of criminals and terrorists, and not become a substitute for it,” Hakim said in a speech.
The groups have become a controversial aspect of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. More than 75,000 people, 80 percent of them Sunni, have signed up for the groups under a U.S.-sponsored program that pays Iraqis $300 each to patrol their neighborhoods.
The groups began in Anbar province, a predominantly Sunni area, where they are credited with curbing al-Qaida in Iraq. But it was the U.S. push to form similar groups in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas of Baghdad and Diyala province, as well as in mostly Shiite southern Iraq, that has sparked the anger of Shiite officials.
Recently, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has directed that no councils be formed in the predominantly Shiite areas of southern Iraq, where violence is caused primarily by rivalries between the Mahdi Army militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Supreme Council’s Badr Organization militia.
In recent weeks the government has taken steps to quash any possible formation of awakening councils.
On Dec. 7, police in Najaf, Shiite Islam’s holiest city, arrested Adnan al-Hamaidi, general secretary of the Independent Iraqi Politicians, after he told Najaf Gov. Assaad Abu Galal, a member of the Supreme Council, that he planned to organize an awakening council. Ahmed Duaibel, a spokesman for the governor, said that Hamaidi was arrested because awakening councils were banned in the area.
In Diwaniyah, 11 men who said they were members of an awakening council were arrested this week for setting up a checkpoint in the southern city, which is notorious for battles between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi security forces, many of whose members also belong to the Badr Organization.
U.S. officials say that the effort to bring more Shiites into the awakening councils is in response to the Iraqi government’s insistence that the groups be more balanced between Sunnis and Shiites. But the officials said it is hard to recruit Shiites because Shiite militias threaten those who try to join.
KansasCity
Abdulaziz al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, became the latest Iraqi leader to raise concerns that the U.S.-financed groups, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim and known as “awakening councils” or “concerned local citizens,” could become a potent army capable of challenging the U.S.-backed Shiite-dominated central government.
“We emphasize that it’s important that these awakening councils become an aid and an arm to the Iraqi government in its pursuit of criminals and terrorists, and not become a substitute for it,” Hakim said in a speech.
The groups have become a controversial aspect of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. More than 75,000 people, 80 percent of them Sunni, have signed up for the groups under a U.S.-sponsored program that pays Iraqis $300 each to patrol their neighborhoods.
The groups began in Anbar province, a predominantly Sunni area, where they are credited with curbing al-Qaida in Iraq. But it was the U.S. push to form similar groups in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas of Baghdad and Diyala province, as well as in mostly Shiite southern Iraq, that has sparked the anger of Shiite officials.
Recently, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has directed that no councils be formed in the predominantly Shiite areas of southern Iraq, where violence is caused primarily by rivalries between the Mahdi Army militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Supreme Council’s Badr Organization militia.
In recent weeks the government has taken steps to quash any possible formation of awakening councils.
On Dec. 7, police in Najaf, Shiite Islam’s holiest city, arrested Adnan al-Hamaidi, general secretary of the Independent Iraqi Politicians, after he told Najaf Gov. Assaad Abu Galal, a member of the Supreme Council, that he planned to organize an awakening council. Ahmed Duaibel, a spokesman for the governor, said that Hamaidi was arrested because awakening councils were banned in the area.
In Diwaniyah, 11 men who said they were members of an awakening council were arrested this week for setting up a checkpoint in the southern city, which is notorious for battles between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi security forces, many of whose members also belong to the Badr Organization.
U.S. officials say that the effort to bring more Shiites into the awakening councils is in response to the Iraqi government’s insistence that the groups be more balanced between Sunnis and Shiites. But the officials said it is hard to recruit Shiites because Shiite militias threaten those who try to join.
KansasCity
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