Badr Organization
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The Badr Organization originally the Badr Brigade or Bader Corps is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Headed by Hadi Al-Amiri it participated in the 2005 Iraqi election as part of the United Iraqi Alliance coalition. Its members have entered the new Iraqi army and police force en masse and gained virtual control of Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
Currently based in and around Karbala, the Badr Organization effectively rules that city and other parts of southern Iraq. It has played a leading role in fighting insurgents there. While the organization has lessened the burden on coalition troops there have also been tensions between the two. There have been reports of gun battles between the organization and British troops that occupied the area. The government of Iyad Allawi has accused the Badr Organization of assassinating Iraqi intelligence officers on behalf of Iran, something the organization strenuously denies. Also, the militia has allegedly been involved in several incidents of kidnapping, beating and torturing of Sunni Iraqis, and many experts view it as a sectarian Shi'ite militia.
The brigade was based in Iran for two decades during the rule of Saddam Hussein. It consisted of several thousand Iraqi exiles, refugees, and defectors who fought alongside Iran in the Iran-Iraq War. Returning to Iraq following the 2003 coalition invasion the group changed its name from brigade to organization in response to the attempted voluntary disarming of Iraqi militias by the Coalition Provisional Authority. It has pledged to give up its arms when the security situation is resolved.
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[edit] History
Originally the Badr Brigade, it grew to a division and then a corps. The Badr Brigade was formed by the Iranian government to fight Sadam Hussein's Baathist regime in Iraq. Its members were drawn from pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia political and religious dissidents. The Badr forces fought alongside Iran in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Before 2003, it was based in Iran for two decades during the rule of Saddam Hussein.
[edit] Structure
The Badr Corps consists of infantry, armor, artillery, anti-aircraft and commando units with an estimated strength of between 4,000 and 10,000 men (according to the Badr Organization) but this is difficult to confirm. It is also hard to estimate how much capability they have beyond light arms today as CPA forces are unlikely to have allowed them to retain armor and other easily identified heavy assets in Iraq's current (2006) uncertain situation.
[edit] Badr Organization and the Death Squads in Iraq
Because of their opposition to Saddam Hussein, the Badr Brigade was seen as a U.S. asset in the fight against Baathist partisans. After the fall of Baghdad, Badr forces reportedly joined the newly-reconstituted army, police and Interior Ministry in significant numbers. The Badr Brigades were supposedly trained by American Jim Steele who also trained Death Squads in El Salvador.
The Badr Brigade has allegedly been involved in many incidents of kidnapping, beating and torturing Sunni Iraqis, and many experts view it as a sectarian (pro-Shi'a) militia. In 2005, reports appeared that they were also attacking and murdering gay Iraqis. [1]
Across the south, in late 2003, CPA officials began to notice a worrisome trend. Badr and other militiamen would perform what was euphemistically called "spontaneous de-Baathification"--assassinating those suspected of being members of the former regime. In one particularly controversial episode, Shia militiamen opened fire on a woman believed to have been a high-ranking Baathist, killing her and her baby. Then, in February 2004, Badr sought political "insurance" by swarming a Najaf "caucus" station with chanting abaya-clad women, outfitted to look like potential suicide bombers, in the hopes of swinging the selection of an interim government toward SCIRI loyalists. Pro-democracy clerics told their CPA contacts that they feared for their safety [2].
Badr forces have been involved in recent (2006) sectarian and Shiite-on-Shiite violence, exchanging revenge killings with members of the rival Mahdi Army.
