Looking For Trouble

According to this article, “Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia are filled with young volunteers eager to fight the US-led occupation forces.”

Outside, hundreds of young men chanting “Allahu Akbar,” or God is the Greatest, listened to another cleric shouting vows to fight the occupation from the rooftop.

A Mehdi Army spokesman, Amer al-Husseini, said the militia had orders to stay calm, but warned that “after they bombarded our headquarters and prayer room with Apache helicopters and tanks, we are ready to resume combat until the last drop of our blood.”

“We will never let anyone arrest our leader Moqtada Sadr,” he added, alluding a coalition arrest warrant for the firebrand in connection with the murder of a rival cleric after Saddam Hussein (news – web sites)’s regime was ousted last April.

Following several days of clashes with the US-led occupation forces across the country during which the Mehdi Army seized police stations and government offices, the coalition has vowed to destroy the militia.

“We will attack to destroy the Mehdi Army. Our offensive operations will be deliberate, they will be precise, and they will be powerful and they will succeed,” said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

Sadr, who is only in his early 30s and whose father and great-uncle were killed by Saddam’s regime, formed the Mehdi Army last summer after the US-led military coalition invaded Iraq (news – web sites).

[…]

A steady flow of new volunteers have been presenting themselves to mosques and Sadr offices in defiance of the coalition’s ban on militias.

Its ranks are largely composed of desperate and unemployed young men from poor Shiite areas — notably Baghdad’s teeming Sadr City which switched its name from Saddam City after the fall of the deposed regime to honor the firebrand’s slain father.

Many are also from southern Shiite cities which suffered brutal repression at the hands of Saddam’s Sunni Muslim-dominated regime.

The militiamen often wear black pants and shirts, as well as green headbands symbolizing Islam. They are fiercely attached to Sadr’s guidance and his family’s lineage of revered clerics.

Their recent fierce battles with the coalition revealed they mostly have access to light weapons, including assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.

“We have light weapons, but our most lethal weapon is our faith in God. Nothing can defeat God’s will,” said one militiaman, Ali Hussein.

“We started new training last week. But we don’t really need to train the new recruits. Saddam had built a militarized society over decades. So we were trained by the best killer,” he said.

Let’s hope that this does not become a fraternity of aimless young men because there are a huge number of them in Iraq. The demographics of Iraq are not heartening:

Iraq is a young country: Sixty-six percent of Iraqis 15 and up are under age 35, compared with 36 percent of Americans age 15 and up.