This Moqtada al-Sadr dudes powerbase is in the Baghdad slums.
He operates like Hamas, providing protection and welfare.
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It is to the dispossessed youth of this ghetto that al-Sadr owes his power. He has established a sophisticated welfare network there and “courts” that dispense sharia justice in his name.
It was his militia — the al-Mahdi army — he likes to remind people that protected the local Shi’ites from looters and Saddam loyalists in the wake of the war.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1070058,00.html
He operates like Hamas, providing protection and welfare.
----------------------------------
It is to the dispossessed youth of this ghetto that al-Sadr owes his power. He has established a sophisticated welfare network there and “courts” that dispense sharia justice in his name.
It was his militia — the al-Mahdi army — he likes to remind people that protected the local Shi’ites from looters and Saddam loyalists in the wake of the war.
--------------------------------------
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1070058,00.html
