...U.S. and local Iraqi officials struck a deal in May that allowed the all-Iraqi Fallujah Brigade to take control of the city. But according to city residents and U.S. military officials, the Brigade has little influence and the experiment has turned Fallujah into a hotbed of radical groups. Some of the groups are affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who has claimed responsibility for the beheadings of U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.
Besides conducting summary executions of suspected American sympathizers, various groups of Fallujah Mujahideen (holy warriors) have imposed harsh interpretations of Islamic law much as the former Taliban regime did in Afghanistan. They have banned liquor and pop music and have threatened to cut off the hands of thieves, dispensing justice through a six-week-old "Mujahideen court." ...Fallujah resident Saad Najam Abdullah visits Baghdad so he can drink alcoholic beverages without fearing arrest and said as many as 14 alleged collaborators have been shot dead on the streets for giving information to Americans...Despite his own lapses into vice, however, Abdullah talked approvingly of the militant crackdown. "The Mujahedeen are applying Islamic laws very precisely against the criminals," he said.
This chaos in Fallujah was alluded to by Hamurabi blogger in "A Bloody Day in Iraq", which was posted today . |