Breaking News: Shiite Badr Brigade HQ in Baghdad Bombed
According to CNN, a huge bomb demolished the headquarters of the paramilitary Badr Brigade in Baghdad, the militia of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It killed one woman and injured 8 others. The building also housed some displaced families, but Western news services that reported this an an attack on a homeless shelter are misreading it.
This attack was a guerrilla strike at the Badr Corps, which Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is maneuvering into a permanent position in Iraqi state security. The American-appointed Interim Governing Council recently announced that a special “counter-terrorism” unit will be created that will draw for personnel on private militias like the Badr Corps.
Since the militias are overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurd, and the resistance is largely Sunni Arab, this was an announcement that the former were going to be used to hunt down the resisters among the latter. Presumably today’s bombing is the Sunni Arab nationalist response to that threat.
The Badr Corps HQ in Baqubah was attacked by a mob of Sunni protesters on December 17 in the wake of Saddam’s capture (see the Informed Comment entry for that day).
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