"The interior minister is the biggest terrorist "

Iraq's new wave of violence reflects the dramatic changes in Iraq's power elites. Shi'ites and Kurds are now dominant after the elections and the hitherto privileged minority Sunnis, privileged under Saddam Hussein, have been sidelined. The Badr and Sadr brigades are now stirring …

Police are finding dumped, corpses, of victims shot dead execution-style. At least 50 bodies have been found since Saturday. 13 were found in a garbage-strewn lot in Baghdad's Shiite-dominated Sadr City slum, 11 more in an abandoned chicken farm south of the capital which the Press love to call Iraq's Triangle of Death, and 10 identified as Iraqi soldiers in the battleground city of Ramadi.

Late Sunday, at least 8 men were found near a dam in another Shiite-dominated Baghdad neighborhood, their hands tied behind their backs and bullet wounds to their heads. 2 victims were still alive, but died soon afterward, police said.

Shiite cleric Qassim al-Gharawi died in a drive-by shooting in W Baghdad last week. Quraish Abdul Jabbar, a Sunni cleric, was reported shot dead and his corpse dumped behind a mosque in NE Baghdad on Monday.

The Sunni based Muslim Clerics Association, accused the Sh’ite led government of State Terrorism on Monday, a senior member of the group Hassan Nuaimi’s mutilated dead body was found in Baghdad the following day. He had been arrested and freed on Sunday by the Police say his family.

Hundreds of angry Sunnis attended Nuaimi's funeral on Wednesday and condemned the Iraqi government.

"The interior minister is the biggest terrorist," said a banner at the funeral, referring to the Shi'ite Interior Minister Bayan Jabr. (Named Bakr Solagh at birth, he took on the pseudonym to evade Saddam. He was a member of the Iran based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) when in exile. He later headed SCIRI's office in Syria. After Saddam's fall, ( he didn’t return to Iraq until Sept 2003) he became Minister of housing and reconstruction in the first U.S.-picked provisional cabinet. He is a senior member in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.)


2 Shi'ite clerics were shot dead on Tuesday in Baghdad. SCIRI member Mani Hassan was gunned down in front of his house and Muwaffaq Mansour's car was ambushed.

Hundreds of angry Sunnis attended Nuaimi's funeral on Wednesday and condemned the Iraqi government.

The Sh’ite Badr Brigades (AKA Mahdi Army) spent many years in exile in Iran during Saddam's rule. Under the tutelage of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), SCIRI established a military wing in 1983, called the Badr Brigade. This force quickly grew into a full-fledged corps and joined regular IRGC forces on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war. The Badr Brigade is believed to have between 10,000-15,000 fighters, although only around 3,000 are professionally trained

After their return when Saddam was removed they changed their name – officially "Badr Organization for Development and Reconstruction". Although they call themselves a political group many Iraqis believe they are still a militia…and many believe ( probably with very good reason) that they are behind many of the execution style killings, beheadings and mutilations.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came out of hiding Monday for the first time since his fighters clashed with American forces in Najaf and Baghdad in August. Although lacking substantial religious credentials, he is the son of the late Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, an esteemed cleric killed by the Iraqi regime in 1999. He is said to take his spiritual direction from an ultra-conservative, Iran-based, Iraqi-exiled cleric, Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri.

He held a press conference and demanded that U.S.-led forces leave Iraq and Saddam Hussein be punished. "I want the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces," he said.

Sadr is rumored to be responsible for the April 10, 2003 assassination of Imam Abdul Majid al-Khoei who was hacked to death by a Shia mob near Sadr's offices. Having lived 12 years in exile in Britain and having met with Tony Blair and Bloody Jack Straw, Al-Khoei had been handpicked by the Americans and British to become a prominent leader in the Shi'a community in Iraq. Naomi Klein(!), writing in the Nation, has called al-Sadr and his supporters "the single greatest threat to U.S. military and economic control of Iraq."

Hold tight on to your seats ...it's going to be a bumpy ride.