'We have liberated Amara from the British. Basra next'

Last week Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visited Amara, the city overrun by militamen yesterday, and met British troops in the area

The Guardian


Ten days ago I sat on a mattress on the floor of a Mahdi army safe house talking to Abu Mahdi, a slim 40-year-old, bearded former Arabic teacher and low level commander in the Shia militia.

I had first encountered him in Najaf in August 2004, when the Mahdi army seized the holy city. Now he boasted of how his comrades were effectively in control of his home town, 200 miles south of Baghdad.

"As we have liberated Amara from the British, Basra is next," he said. "My men are everywhere, can you see the British anywhere? For the people in the street it's my men who rule the town."

Yesterday morning the militia loyal to the Baghdad-based cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated that fact - and the acute dillemma facing British and American military planners - in the most dramatic fashion.

Residents described how fighters stormed three police stations in this city of 900,000 and blew them up. Around 800 black-clad militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades patrolled the streets in commandeered police vehicles as others set up road blocks on routes into the town.