BAGHDAD, July 6 (Reuters)- The head of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite militia ridiculed on Wednesday an apparent challenge from al Qaeda that it had formed a unit to fight his group. Saying such talk from the Sunni Arab group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi only aimed at fueling sectarian strife among Muslims, Badr movement leader Hadi al-Amery said: "Saddam did not scare us. Why should Zarqawi? Let him form a 100 brigades. We will stay in Iraq and it is he and his group that will flee." "He is a criminal," Amery, whose formerly exiled movement still has thousands of paramilitary troops at its disposal, told Reuters. "Death shall be his fate." Zarqawi said in a tape posted on the Internet on Tuesday that he would form a brigade to combat the Badr fighters. His group said on Wednesday it would kill Egypt's top envoy to Iraq, who was snatched off a Baghdad street on Saturday. "His only aim is to lure Shi'ites to a sectarian war," Amery said of Zarqawi. "We know his plans and will never be drawn into sectarian war." "Our fight is not between Sunnis and Shi'ites. It is between the Iraqi people in all its components -- Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians and Kurds -- and terrorism."
The former Badr Brigade, which fought Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime from exile in Shi'ite Iran group now styles itself the Badr Organisation and says it is devoted to peaceful politics. Many Sunni Iraqis fear it nonetheless as a potentially strong fighting force in any civil conflict. Amery denies Sunni accusations his group runs hit squads against Sunnis. But, though Zarqawi's followers are estimated in the hundreds rather than thousands, his comments may touch a nerve in the wider Sunni community because of widespread wariness of the Badr militia's tactics and motivations. |