In Shiite Ghetto, a Vacuum Is Filled by Brutal Street Justice

Samir Ali Alou had a large knife and a mission: to help die-hard supporters of Saddam Hussein kill and terrorize Shiite Muslims, hoping to spark sectarian violence.

He was captured by vigilantes Saturday in Saddam City, the sprawling Shiite ghetto here; he was beaten and taken to a mosque where, according to his captors, he was tortured. Then he confessed.

“I made a mistake, and I will try to correct my mistake for those people I was trying to harm,” he said Sunday while being held inside the mosque.

The Lebanese citizen said that he came to Iraq for jihad, or holy war, against the Americans and that he was also offered $600 for his efforts.

His arms were covered in white bandages, which were tinged by blood. His face was yellow with bruises, and he had a scab on his nose.

“I didn’t know they didn’t like Saddam Hussein,” he said.

Alou’s story provides a cautionary tale to U.S. planners hoping to stabilize Iraq. Deep sectarian hatreds remain in a country where the Sunni Muslim minority ruled -- and repressed -- the Shiite majority for decades.

Hussein’s regime has been toppled, but he still has fanatical supporters in Iraq, including some from other nations. And they apparently want to use car bombs and suicide attacks to destabilize the country.

Alou’s capture also underscores the pressing need for an interim authority.

In the absence of any government, residents are taking matters into their own hands, with vigilante groups, like the one that captured Alou, doing what they want.

Saddam City is a sprawling expanse of concrete houses and wide avenues strewn with trash. In recent days, residents said there have been car bombings, sniper attacks and mortar attacks, many reportedly carried out by foreign Arabs like Alou working on behalf of Hussein’s holdout allies.

With the dictator’s government fallen, residents now call the district Sadr City, after Mohammed Sadr, a popular religious leader killed by the regime.

To help combat the violence, those living in this neighborhood have set up checkpoints to question anyone who looks like a foreigner and beating those they suspect of plotting against them.

“We caught one Saudi person -- we tortured him and took out his teeth,” said Ali Saddam, 35, who was keeping watch at a citizen-staffed checkpoint Sunday.

Saddam and his neighbors stood in the middle of a busy street, beside obstacles they had placed in the road. They carried automatic weapons, which they used to flag down motorists who tried to pass.

They said that the city comprises 79 administrative districts and that each one of them now has its own citizen patrols working in shifts.

The men boasted of capturing Palestinians and Syrians and Lebanese at roadblocks around the community. It’s easy to pick out foreigners in Saddam City, even when they are Arabs, because they dress and talk differently from Iraqis.

The men said they are turning their captives over to U.S. forces after questioning them.

Saddam, who was wearing a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, said they have caught more than 60, adding that the foreigners “like to make divisions between Sunni and Shiite.”

Alou didn’t set out to fight other Muslims; he said he came to battle Americans. He is from the Bekaa Valley, a poor, mostly Shiite region of Lebanon where he worked as a driver.

He said he arrived in Iraq in February and had spent most of his time collecting intelligence for the Fedayeen Saddam, the militia that for a time fought the invading forces.

Alou said he was caught Saturday when he slipped into the neighborhood on a spy mission for Fedayeen members who remain active in other areas of Baghdad.

“They wanted me to come here to know the houses of the Shiite militants, how they move, how they work,” he said.

“First I asked about someone, they suspected me, then I was caught.”

There are no functioning police or courts, so the neighborhood patrol that grabbed Alou dragged him to the Sheik Abdul Zahra Budeiri Mosque.

A few days ago, the house of worship had a different name, which in English meant Two Noble Men. But the mosque is now named for the Shiite religious leader who built it before his 1999 arrest and disappearance.

At first Alou denied that he was involved in any wrongdoing. So, his captors said, they tied him up, beat him and tortured him.

“They brought him yesterday morning, and he was denying what he had done,” said Sheik Ahmed Budeiri, son of the slain religious leader. “Then after that he told the truth.”

Budeiri said that he is opposed to violence but that these “terrorists” have brought their fate on themselves.

As he spoke, a young man, no more than a teenager, slept on a foam mattress under the open sky. He had been picked up by the vigilantes and beaten, before they realized that they had made a mistake and that he was innocent after all.

But such errors don’t deter these men from wanting to run their own affairs after living for so long under Hussein’s iron fist. Religious and tribal leaders met Saturday to draw up lists of workers. They hope to have their neighborhood up and running soon, and they are not interested in the efforts of the Marines or any other outside agency to tell them what to do.

“We will see their intentions,” said Sheik Ali Tulai Bawi about the Americans. “If they are in good faith, they will bring democracy. If not, the people will deal with that in another way.”