Militiamen fighting under the banner of radical Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are pumping themselves up with drugs before confronting coalition forces, according to U.S. military reports and State Department and Iraqi sources.
Tater's tots, faithful emulators of Muhammed's examples.
Although quelled in Najaf in August, the Mahdi's Army militia is still active around southern Iraq and continues to largely control the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City — the target of repeated U.S. military air raids and tank patrols. "They give their suicide bombers barbiturates, and the amphetamines are for street fighters who are facing off with the U.S.," a State Department analyst said. Most schools of Islam believe that the prohibition of alcohol in the Koran is applicable to other mind-altering substances, including narcotics.
An Iraqi engineer, incredulous at reports of drugs being bought and sold by the militia inside Sadr City mosques, sent a member of his staff to purchase a sample. "She brought me capsules filled with powder — heroin — that they are selling everywhere in Baghdad and financing their fight from this trade," said the engineer, who asked that his name not be used. He said the heroin was entering the capital through the southern Iraqi cities of Amara and Basra — both Mahdi militia strongholds — from Iran. |