Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Breaking News Shiite Badr Brigade Hq In

Juan Cole 12/19/2003

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

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).

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....