9 Iraqi militias to disband

2004-06-07 17:29

Baghdad - Nine Iraqi militias have agreed to disband as part of a deal announced on Monday by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, but which does not include the Shiite and Sunni groups responsible for most of the latest violence.

"I am happy to announce the successful completion of negotiations on the nationwide transition and reintegration of militias and other armed forces previously outside state control," said Allawi in a statement.

The agreement was reached with nine political parties, most of them participants in the new Iraqi government.

Those outside the coalition's political process, like Shiite rebel leader Moqtada Sadr, scorned the deal.

Officials of the US-led coalition made it clear the order, referred to as CPA order 91, approved by the pro-United States Allawi, leaves Sadr's militia and other rebel movements fighting the Americans effectively outside the law.

The religious firebrand, whose followers have a battled the occupation forces for the past two months, faces a three-year ban from political office if he leaves his Mehdi army militia.

Small groups to protect leaders

The order bars any former militia member from serving in political office for three years. It makes a distinction for the nine parties, calling them resistance groups against Saddam Hussein.

Allawi listed the groups as: Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP); Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK); the Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party; the Shiite fundamentalist Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Brigade militia; the prime minister's own Iraqi National Accord (INA); Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC); the Shiite-based Iraqi Hezbollah; the Iraqi Communist Party, and the Shiite fundamentalist Dawa party.

A coalition official said Dawa, the INC and INA claimed that they already had dissolved their militias other than small security forces deployed to protect their leaders.

Those small forces will be disbanded and turned into private security firms that could be hired to guard political parties or reconstruction projects, the official said.

The law promises punishment for any political party whose militia picks up arms again, The penalties are to be announced in legislation later this month.

40% will become ordinary civilians

The deal, in the works since February, aims to have 90% of the militias decomissioned by January and the remainder phased out later, Allawi said.

But implementation hinges on the formation of an Iraqi government oversight committee to ensure that the groups, including Iraq's main Shiite and Kurdish parties, truly disband and hand in all arms.

Allawi said about 40% of the decomissioned forces would become ordinary civilians and another 60% would join "the Iraqi armed forces, the Iraqi police service, or the internal security services of the Kurdish regional government".

- AFP