Shiite Militias Roam Free Despite Curfew, Occupy Sunni Mosques

[RedEarth]

BAGHDAD, Feb. 25 -- Until four days ago, the building was a Sunni Muslim mosque called al-Hassan, located on a quiet side street amid a clutch of stone homes with ragged yards in the northeast Baghdad neighborhood of Mustansiriya.

But in the chaos that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad on Wednesday, Shiite residents of the diverse community and members of a feared militia stormed the mosque and adorned it with black, red and green Shiite prayer flags. They closed the street to vehicles and renamed the mosque after Imam Ali, who was the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and is particularly revered by Shiites.

It was a Shiite mosque before the tyrant Saddam Hussein took it for Sunnis. We had the chance and we took it for its rightful owners," said Haidar Abbas, 25, part of a force of about two dozen guarding the mosque Saturday afternoon. Several carried AK-47 assault rifles as they walked the perimeter, and neighborhood residents said their black attire and police-issue flak vests were hallmarks of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr

While Baghdad and three other Iraqi provinces are supposed to be under security lockdown, Shiite militias are roaming the streets among and alongside Iraq's police and army, attacking and occupying dozens of Sunni mosques -- and reflagging some as Shiite -- and detaining and killing worshipers. Residents of several Baghdad neighborhoods have reported seeing pickup trucks barreling through otherwise empty streets, bearing militia members armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501252.html

[madrchsod]

1. i thought that baghdad was under curfew

i wonder how he got this story?

[cantstandbush]

2. This is what the admin is hiding from the MSM and the American people.

It is a civil war in Iraq. It's out of control and we are helping fuel the killings by just being there.

[henslee]

3. Don Knotts isn't dead, he's running our country.

[AlamoDemoc]

4. Can't understand what all this fuss is about

both the Sunnis and Shias believe the same Prophet. The Umah should stop killing one another and realize that that would give aide to their enemy.

[realFedUp]

5. can you say militias....

wonder how many were trained and armed by the U.S.?