From London to Iraq - the latest recruits to the Mahdi army (Brits + Sadr)

[Barrett808]

From London to Iraq - the latest recruits to the Mahdi army
'It is dangerous, but we have our belief.' Rory McCarthy in Najaf talks to the first Britons known to join the Shia rebels
Wednesday August 11, 2004
The Guardian

The two young men sitting cross-legged in a small room off the courtyard of the Imam Ali shrine looked like any of the fighters around them.

Their beards were short and neat, their feet bare and their dress the simple dishdasha, the Arab robe. They were deferential to their militia commander and spoke idealistically of defeating the military might of America in Iraq's holy city of Najaf.

But both were from London, the first Britons known to have joined the Mahdi army, one of the most prominent fighting groups in the Islamic insurgency that has gripped Iraq in the year since the invasion.

Though the two men were born in Iraq - one in Najaf, the other in Baghdad - their families took them to England as children. They went to school and college in the capital, picked up strong London accents and British passports and finally returned to the country of their birth for the first time on Monday.

Their sole aim: to fight a "jihad" with a ragtag Shia militia loyal to the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The Mahdi army and its allies have staged violent uprisings across south ern Iraq and are now battling the US and British armies and the Baghdad government.

(more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1280467,00.html

[Nambe]

1. The "ragtag Shia militia" is taking on the US forces....

and surviving what few could. Before we invaded, all of us wise ones said this would turn the moderate people against us. No surprise here.