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Military-Style Assault Kills Dozens in Iraqi Marketplace
The militias are the armed wings of two of Iraq's governing Shiite religious parties, Sadr's group and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The strength of the militias is growing despite repeated pledges by the Shiite-led government to disband them. Iraqi soldiers and U.S. forces are generally credited by Sunnis and Shiites alike as being more neutral parties in the sectarian conflict, while the heavily Shiite police forces are widely seen -- and feared by Sunnis -- as allies of the Shiite militias.
  A relative mourns one of those who died in an attack by masked gunmen in Mahmudiyah. (By Alaa Al-marjani -- Associated Press)
VIDEO | Dozens were killed in an Iraq marketplace attack Monday when heavily armed gunmen raided a town south of Baghdad.
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Since Feb. 22, when Shiite militiamen took the offensive after the destruction of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, attacks and threats have led tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee the country or seek safety among their own kind, Shiite or Sunni. The upheaval has transformed much of the country into sectarian enclaves.
In Mahmudiyah on Monday, Shiite men scrambled to a local mosque in the wake of the attack, gathering for any orders by the Mahdi Army.
Resident Karim Hussein had not been a member of the Mahdi Army militia until Monday, he said. After the attack, he joined up.
"All Mahmudiyah is Mahdi Army," Hussein said.
Special correspondents Naseer Mehdawi and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.