Rag-tag force watches over Baghdad militia hotspot

By Adrian Croft

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rag-tag band of men toting AK-47s at a checkpoint in Baghdad's Sadr City forms part of a plan to strengthen the Iraqi Army's hold over a bastion of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The men, wearing tan uniforms and baseball caps with "Smirnoff" inexplicably blazoned across them, belong to one of the first groups of a new neighborhood guard to take to the streets of the sprawling district under a U.S.-funded program.

U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol units, sometimes called "Sons of Iraq", have spread in mainly Sunni Arab areas of Iraq to beef up security and combat al Qaeda insurgents.

The U.S. military says such groups helped cut violence in Iraq to its lowest level in more than four years in May.

The neighborhood guard in Sadr City is the first attempt to set up such a force in the Baghdad stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. The poor, east Baghdad slum of two million people has largely been outside the government's control for years.

U.S. forces are paying local residents $300 a month to guard their area and search vehicles for guns or explosives.

"I'm here to protect my neighborhood, to protect my family and to protect my country," said Qais Ali al-Moussawi, 32, one of the latest class of recruits to take a three-day training program run by Iraqi soldiers at a U.S. base near Baghdad.

Hundreds of people were killed in battles in Sadr City between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mehdi Army in March and April. A May 10 truce ended the fighting and, 10 days later, some 10,000 Iraqi troops entered the district unopposed.

The new neighborhood guard is part of U.S. and Iraqi efforts to consolidate the government's grip on Sadr City and prevent the militias regaining the upper hand.

The militia has lost popular support among many residents of Sadr City because of its violence and extortion.

THREAT

At a graduation ceremony, Iraqi Army trainers do not specifically mention the Mehdi Army as the neighborhood guard's adversary but new recruits are under no illusions they could become targets because they are helping Iraqi and U.S. forces.

"We received a threat from the Mehdi Army ... but we don't care," said Abbas Kadhim Musa, 41, a supervisor at a guard checkpoint in southern Sadr City.

"If they are brave, let them show up to face us," he said.

Sadr City takes its name from Moqtada al-Sadr's father, a revered Shi'ite cleric. Posters of father and son are plastered on signposts and buildings all over the area.