Shiite leaders oppose expansion of U.S.-backed citizens groups

Shiite leaders oppose expansion of U.S.-backed citizens groups
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007

BAGHDAD — The leader of Iraq's most powerful Shiite Muslim political party warned Friday that the security organizations that American officials credit with helping to cut violence in Iraq must be brought under control.

Abdulaziz al Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, became the latest Iraqi leader to raise concerns that the U.S.-financed groups, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim and known as awakening councils or "concerned local citizens," could become a potent army capable of challenging the U.S.-backed Shiite-dominated central government.

"We emphasize that it's important that these awakening councils become an aid and an arm to the Iraqi government in its pursuit of criminals and terrorists and not become a substitute for it," Hakim said in a speech that marked the Eid al Adha festival of sacrifice commemorating the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

The groups have become a controversial aspect of the U.S. military's counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq. More than 75,000 people, 80 percent of them Sunni, have signed up for the groups under a U.S.-sponsored program that pays Iraqis $300 each to patrol their neighborhoods.