Posts
Still, it was unclear Tuesday night whether the gunmen were members of the police or impostors. Militias associated with religious groups have been widely seen as fomenting the sectarian violence gripping the country, and Shiite militias are believed to have infiltrated the Shiite-dominated police force, which Sunnis have long accused of conducting mass abductions.
The minister of higher education is a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Muslim bloc in parliament. At the same time, Karrada is increasingly becoming a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, the militia linked to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. And the dominant Shiite religious party in government, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also has an armed wing, the Badr Organization, that is known to have strong links within the police.
On Tuesday, in a televised meeting with President Jalal Talabani, Maliki appeared to imply that the kidnappings might be linked to militia rivalries. "What is happening is not terrorism, but the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that," Maliki said.
If the kidnappings were militia-related, it would underscore Maliki's inability to disarm the groups and could erode his relationship with U.S. officials who have been pressuring Maliki to take tougher action against the militias.
Maliki appears to be using, or at least passively condoning, the takeover of a Sunni-dominated ministry by what many suspect are Interior Ministry police, or at least Shi'ite militiamen wearing IntMin uniforms. These twenty pick-up trucks were allowed free traverse of all the checkpoints in the Shi'a controlled neighborhood despite the fact that many of the vehicles were without license plates!
It appears that these kidnappings may be a tipping point in forcing the PM to confront his own coalition allies. Since the bombing of the Samarra Dome Mosque, the Shi'ites have begun to run amok.
No comments :
Post a Comment