BAGHDAD - Iraq's new interim government
has reached an agreement on disbanding nine of the
country's factional militias, but fighters loyal to
firebrand Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are not part of
the deal.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on
Monday that about 100,000 people, mainly members of
militias loyal to mainstream political factions, will
give up their arms and enter civilian life or join
security forces by 2005.
A spokesman for
Muqtada, Sheikh Abbas al-Rubaie, said the cleric's
private Mahdi Army will remain armed and continue to
fight occupation forces. "The Mahdi Army is not a
militia," al-Rubaie said. "The Mahdi Army is an army to
fight the occupation, and I do not think that there is a
patriotic person in the interim government who calls for
a halt to the resistance."
According to Allawi,
"While recent news has associated the word 'militia'
with the sort of violence orchestrated by Muqtada
al-Sadr, in fact most of these groups and individuals
were part of the resistance against Saddam Hussein's
regime."
In other developments, a senior
commander of the armed wing of the Supreme Council of
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Shahir Faisal Shahir,
was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad on Monday,
while on Tuesday at least four people were killed in a
car bomb that exploded outside the main US military base
in the northeastern town of Baquba.
In the
north, a suspected suicide car bomb exploded in front of
the mayor's office in Mosul on Tuesday morning, killing
10 civilians and wounding about 100, the US military,
Iraqi police and witnesses said.
The agreement
on disbanding the militias was hammered out by the new
Iraqi government and US occupation authorities over some
weeks. It includes a US$200 million program to absorb
the displaced fighters into official security forces.
In effect, the banning order means that Muqtada
and his fighters, as members of a now illegal armed
group, are barred from holding public office for three
years. This provides an obstacle for mainstream Shi'ite
political and religious figures who want to involve
Muqtada in Iraq's political process once sovereignty is
handed over on June 30.
In this regard, France
said on Tuesday that it would back a United Nations
resolution on Iraq after its US and British sponsors
made last-minute adjustments on military policy. The
United States and Britain have called for the 15-nation
Security Council to vote on the resolution later on
Tuesday. Diplomats expect a unanimous 15-0 vote for the
resolution, which gives international legitimacy to a
newly formed Iraqi interim government and authorizes a
US-led multinational force, now at 160,000 troops.
The ban on militias is aimed to underscore
premier Allawi's week-old government's intention to
improve the security situation in the country.
Enforcement of the ban remains a problem, though.
Nine Iraqi political parties and movements had
pledged to abide by the ban on militias and seek
promised benefits, including job training and veterans'
pensions for demobilized fighters, Allawi announced.
"All of these parties have accepted detailed plans,
timetables and terms for the transition and
reintegration of the armed groups under their authority
or have already disbanded their militias," he added.
(Asia Times Online, Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty.)
