Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (115104)	9/17/2003 5:50:07 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

Militias rule in Najaf By Sarmad S. Ali 15.09.2003. Iraq Today. Najaf - In the wake of the latest trouble and turmoil at Najaf, unbridled conflicting militias overrule badly equipped police whose role is being undermined day in day out. Policemen, however, have greatly protested that neither the general Police Directorate nor Coalition upholds their authority. At Ghari police station, the one responsible for protecting the shrine of Imam Ali, policemen complained of the administrative corruption prevalent among senior police officers in the governorate and the rampant behaviour of militias represented by Badr forces and Muqteda al-Sader's Jaysh al-Mahdi. " Officials here don't support us. They did not supply us with guns to protect ourselves and to do our job and some of the officers bought themselves guns and we don't have furniture to sit on even these chairs in this room we brought from the director's home " said Lt. Mohammed Abdel Hussein. The police station is stripped bare of any comforts. The director's room has an old fan with some rickety chairs and a desk and the rest of the police station is almost deserted. Some rooms show walls that are dilapidated and cracked. Officers have no sanitary toilets and no resting place. When citizens visit the police station for a complaint, they have to stand outside because the place is neither roomy nor furnished. Even the telephone was brought from the director's home. Moreover, officers in the station have been using money from their own pockets to build a room to act as a prison for detainees. Major Hazim Habeeb, the director of the police station, said that he has been asking for a police car for the police station, but with little success. "Imagine two days ago I was obliged to hire a taxi for bringing a suspect in after arresting him," Lt. Qais Diab said. Abdel Hussein claims that policemen are unable to go out in the streets because they are unarmed while civilians who are not licensed to carry weapons are allowed to wander freely, often causing trouble. "At (Mohammed Baqer) Hakim's funeral I was stopped by two men from the Badr force, a part of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and was accused of not being an officer in the police. They prevented me from staying in the area where the procession was despite the very fact that I was dressed as a police officer and had my badge displayed," said an enraged Lieutenant Diab. Najaf appears to be held in a conflict for supremacy between two irreconcilable forces, Muqteda al-Sader's troops and the Badr forces. The frail police force seems to have been lost in-the middle of this confrontation. Lt. Abdel Hussein said that some weeks ago and while in his house, he heard gun shooting at night and next day he learned that the source of firing was al-Sader's guards who shot at a BMW car, killing three persons and wounding a girl only because they passed by the street where al-Sader's house is located. The survivors say they had an emergency, and were with an old woman suffering from diabetes who needed immediate medical attention. He added that when police investigated the incident, al-Sader denied that these men had any connection with him and accused the only rescued girl of lying. On another occasion, Badr forces arrested Talal Abood Baqir and allegedly tortured him with electric wires. They then took him to the police station to have Baqir sent to court. But the judge acquitted him because he believed Baqir had committed no crimes, except that SCIRI forces had taken a dislike to him. Raad Baqir, brother of Talal, said that he went to SCIRI headquarters to ask them why they tortured his brother; Badr forces hit him accusing him of being a Wahabi, despite the fact that he is Shiite. iraq-today.com