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Iraq's Youthful Militiamen Build Power Through Fear
In addition to ordering girls to wear scarves, young militiamen have ordered teachers to give Shiite religious lessons, even if the students are Sunnis.
(By Sudarsan Raghavan -- The Washington Post)
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"No one will suspect they are Mahdi Army," Ali said.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Today, more than half the militia here is under age 20, said Ali and another young fighter named Mahmoud. The new generation is heavily involved in the militia's income-generating schemes. They sell the cars of kidnap victims and rent out the houses of displaced Sunnis. The militia also demands payments from generator men supplying electricity. Each month, youths collect 5,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $4, in protection money from every household.
"The more flagrant, younger crowd tends to focus on organized crime and lining their pockets with cash," said Miska, the U.S. officer.
Many young militiamen appear to have become ruthless murderers, replacing older fighters who have been captured or gone underground. Ali said he took part in four killings, all of neighbors. After Ali informed the Sadr office that his childhood friend Wissam had joined the Iraqi army, several young militia members abducted him and his mother. First they shot Wissam. When his mother kneeled over his body, screaming and in tears, they shot her in the head, Ali and Mahmoud said.
Another neighbor, a divorced woman, was killed after Ali mentioned that he had heard on the street that she was a prostitute -- a crime in the view of the militia -- although he had no proof. One of her assassins, Ali said, was a 17-year-old named Saad, who had joined at age 15.
When young fighters are told to kill someone, Ali said, "they will kill that person the next day without hesitation."
Nearby, in the living room of his narrow two-story home, Abu Ali Hassan, a 42-year-old Sunni, has hung a portrait of Imam Ali, one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures, in case militia fighters visit. Each month, he hands them 5,000 dinars, which he calls "extortion money."
He's noticed that older fighters have all but vanished. "They are running the neighborhood through these kids," said Hassan, a Transportation Ministry employee.
Like many areas in Baghdad, Tobji has experienced a decline in violent attacks. But most Sunnis who fled have yet to return, community leaders said. Those who remain live under constant fear that they are being monitored. This year, the militia started to deploy women as spies, Ali and other residents said.
Desperate, Hassan has befriended a few young militiamen on his street. "God forbid, if anything happens to me tomorrow, they will be useful to me," he said. "Now, they are the supreme power in our neighborhood."
Shiites as Victims
Increasingly, the militia's victims are Shiites.
Tobji's Shiite head of the local council, Abu Hussein Kamil, and another official were assassinated in August. Kamil, Ali said, had not given jobs to relatives of the militiamen and was suspected of collaborating with U.S. forces. "He was hurting his own people," Ali said.
