Husham is standing on a street corner in his Sunni Baghdad neighbourhood when his cellphone rings. ”Yes brother … Two strangers … Investigate and take measures,” he mumbles. He carries a pistol in his right hand. Around him are a half-dozen fellow vigilantes carrying Kalashnikovs or wearing pistols tucked into their belts.
Suddenly a white car carrying two men appears at the end of the street. Husham’s men clutch their weapons but the car passes uneventfully. A few minutes later, the headlights come into view again. The car has turned and is driving back towards the highway. This time, another car appears from a side street almost hitting the first. As the vigilantes look on, a man approaches and points a pistol at the driver. He and two other men drag the ”strangers” from their car and take them to the other vehicle, then speed away.
A few residents have gathered to watch, but this is a familiar scene on the streets of Baghdad, where strangers are regularly snatched from their cars if they pass through the ”wrong” area carrying the ”wrong” ID cards. ”It’s OK, it’s OK. We will just check their IDs and take the measures,” says one of the men, by way of reassurance. But three hours later the strangers have not returned. Few locals would bet on their survival.
There is little unusual about the street with its small walled-villas and trees. It stretches almost a mile through this middle-class neighbourhood in the north of Baghdad, connecting a highway, which separates a Shia area from Husham’s Sunni one, to a riverbank road. But it has become a favoured route for Shia death squads and Ministry of Interior commandos during their attacks on the Sunni neighbourhood, according to Husham and his gang. In the past few weeks this mundane street has been transformed into one of the many frontlines in Baghdad’s civil war, with regular street skirmishes, kidnappings and even exchanges of mortar fire.
”We have more than 50 men in this street,” says Husham, pointing his pistol up the almost empty road. ”If I cross that highway, I am dead.” Husham is 23 and unemployed. He has lost two cousins in the past month, he says, both snatched from a bus by Shia militiamen on their way to work in central Baghdad. Their bodies were found on the outskirts of the city.
Husham hasn’t set foot outside his neighbourhood in four months, fearing a similar fate. ”During the day we sleep and at night we guard the area. We keep our weapons close to us, but hidden in case the Americans show up. We all have cellphones and once we see a stranger we inform each other.”
The local mosque plays an important role, says Husham. ”The imam organises us. He gives us all directions, and if we need weapons or anything he organises the supplies. The neighbours also help us … They know we are here to protect them.”
He adds: ”We don’t wait for orders. If we see them we open fire; it’s a matter of life and death.”
The people Husham and his gang believe they are protecting their neighbourhood from are men such as Abu Karar. A muscular 45-year-old Shia, Abu Karar is the intelligence officer in the Martyr al-Sadr office, the organisation led by Moqtada al-Sadr, in a Shia district in the south of Baghdad.
Until recently, the industrial neighbourhood was a mixed Shia-Sunni area. But through a campaign of intimidation, kidnappings and assassinations, Shia militias drove most of the Sunnis out. Abu Karar was one of those in charge of the ”cleansing campaign”.
A former officer in Saddam’s army, he drives around the area, visiting his men at their checkpoints, talking to police officers and answering numerous calls on his two cellphones.
”I have men everywhere,” he says, ”ready for any attack from them.” In Abu Karar’s world, ”them” means Sunni insurgents. The structure of the Jaish el-Mahdi (the Mahdi army) differs from the militia that fought the Americans and British two years ago. The mainstream Mahdi militia has become much more organised and complicated. At the same time, there is evidence that some commanders are working independently. With the average ransom for a hostage about $5 000 and sometimes up to $20 000, running a militia in Iraq can be a very lucrative business. But Abu Karar dismisses suggestions that his men are involved in death squads. ”We are defending our people. If the Sunnis come from an area to attack us, we go and attack them. They have started this fight.”
The mainstream Mahdi militia is organised around the Martyr al-Sadr offices, scattered around Baghdad and holding more authority, in some areas, than the government. Each office is led by a cleric appointed from Najaf, where Moqtada is based. The offices command their own militia units, called Ameriyah or HQ, and the units are divided into smaller groups. Full-time fighters are paid $250 to $300 a week. ”We control all of Baghdad now, even in the Sunni areas we have agents,” says Abu Karar. He says the militia have intelligence units, commando units, and even explosive experts from Saddam’s army who manufacture IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
The Mahdi army models itself on Hizbullah, the Lebanese resistance organisation, he says. ”We are not only an army for killing, we provide services. We get gas cans from the plant and deliver it to the people. We give the people what the government is unable to provide: services and protection.” If someone wishes to inform on a ”terrorist”, they are asked to swear on the Qur’an. The rest is taken care of by Abu Karar and his men. ”We have eyes all over Baghdad. We investigate the suspects and then we get them.”
He describes how, a few days ago, he received a tip from a fellow Shia about a Sunni ”terrorist group”. ”They were killing our Shia brothers, in Tobji … The office in the area called on us to help. We went in a convoy of three cars. We stormed into the house. There was a small gun battle. We found three men; we arrested them.”
Were the men questioned? ”We don’t need interrogations or trials, the informant had sworn by the Qur’an. We took them to the Seda and finished them there.” The Seda is a small dirt berm on the edge of Sadr City, north-east of Baghdad, where bodies are often found. ”We are supported by everybody,” says Abu Karar. ”Our people are tired of the killing. We can protect them. The police, the commandos even the traffic police help us. They give us tips about strangers coming to our areas.”
Raid, a captain in the notorious Ministry of Interior commandos, confirms Abu Karar’s claims. ”When we arrest a suspect, sometimes we get a letter from a Moqtada office asking for the suspect to be transferred to their custody. We do it.” He continues: ”What can you do if you are policemen standing at a checkpoint and see militiamen with a dead body? Nothing. The policemen can’t do anything. They are scared of the militia; they let them pass.”
In the absence of a strong Iraqi state, men such as Husham and Abu Karar have become the new authority. They are either saviours or demons, depending on who you ask.
”They came to me one evening and said, you have to come out with us and protect your neighbourhood,” says one of Husham’s young men, out of earshot. ”I told them I don’t want to; I don’t like shooting others. They said, then you are a collaborator. I can’t say no and I don’t want to kill Shia. I know they are not protecting the neighbourhood. They go around shooting at Shia houses.
”I am between two fires: my Sunni neighbours who would kill me if I don’t go out with them into the street and the Shia militia.” He pauses for a moment, then adds: ”No, three fires. There are the Americans too.” — Â