A man pushes a cart past a poster of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Iraq, on this Thursday, July 3, 2008 file photo. Loyalists within Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia network call it the 'martyrs list,' and it's long and growing: At least three dozen senior members killed in slayings or fighting since last summer and nearly 60 others detained.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim) From Yahoo News/AP:
BAGHDAD - Loyalists within Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia network call it the "martyrs' list," and it's long and growing: At least three dozen senior members killed in slayings or fighting since last summer and nearly 60 others detained.
The internal document — obtained by The Associated Press — offers a rare look at how the top echelon of the Mahdi Army militia is assessing the sustained blows to its once-mighty shadow state and the challenges to its absentee leader al-Sadr, who is holed up in Iran.
It also underscores the twin pressures on al-Sadr's followers.
Shiite rivals are waging gangland-style hits with diminishing fear of reprisals. Iraqi-led forces, meanwhile, are pressing their advantage against al-Sadr's weakened network — militia cells, quasi-civic groups and street-level operatives who have all crafted reputations as the champions of the Shiite poor.
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My Comment: I have no sympathy for these thugs. The sooner they are gone .... the better the people of Iraq will be.