By Oliver Poole
The Telegraph, 22 September 2006
Shia militias behind widespread sectarian killings in Baghdad are earning at least £500,000 a day through criminal enterprises, the US military believes.
The groups, which are accused of operating death squads to terrorise the city's Sunni population, are therefore able to spend freely on weapons, pay salaries to the militiamen who carry out the murders and buy the loyalty of the Shia population by funding social welfare programmes.
Although it was known that the Shia militias were closely linked with crime, this is the first time that the scale of the their financial resources has been detailed.
Both the Iraqi and American governments have said that the disbandment of the militias is a prerequisite for restoring law and order.
Lt Col William Brown, an intelligence officer whose job is to monitor the militias in east Baghdad, estimated that Shia groups raised at least $1 million (£530,000) a day through organised crime. The money came "especially from kidnappings, extortion, black marketeering and blackmail".
Thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Payments of $50,000 are routinely demanded and paid. Many people are killed even after the ransom is paid.
Lt Col Brown said that of particular concern was the control of many petrol stations by members of the Mahdi army, the militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-western fundamentalist cleric whose political allies control the ministry of transport. The Mahdi army is the largest and most powerful of the Shia militias in Baghdad, with an estimated 10,000 members.
"You see the guards around the petrol stations," Lt Col Brown said. "It is easy for them to sell 40 litres of gas then give only 35 litres."
The US military is monitoring 20 militias operating in the city. They have recently grown stronger as they provide security to residents at a time of rising religious violence. At the same time they are accused of conducting many tit-for-tat sectarian killings.
American officials said that trying to prevent militia killings was hampered not only by the cash available to them but also because a number of them had recently fragmented into smaller, rival groups.
Sadr's control over his militiamen seems to be weakening, with reports of a number of his followers operating independently.
American concern has focused on one of his former lieutenants known by the nom de guerre Abu Dereh (Father of the Shield).
Abu Dereh is accused of abducting scores of Sunnis and depositing their bodies at al-Sada, a rubbish tip near the Baghdad Shia slum of Sadr City. His preferred method of murder is by crushing skulls with cinder blocks.
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Citation: Oliver Poole. "Shia killers rake in £500,000 a day from crime, says US," The Telegraph, 22 September 2006.
Original URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/22/wiraq22.xml
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