I met Sheikh Mohammed, a self-styled commander of al-Bayaa al-Kobra brigade, which was founded 24 hours after the fatwa, a cleric with a turban on his head and military uniform on his body. “I have 1,000 fighters; they are all ready to die now if the Marja requests,” he said.
I asked him where he gets his weapons and money to pay his people. “We are using local resources. We all have weapons at our places. We are using all that we can to keep the region we are serving safe,” he replied. “My group is in south Baghdad. We are guarding the southern gate of the capital, just a few kilometers from the terrorists’ posts," he said. “I’m trying to reach the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to get support from him so that we can continue to do our work.”
According to official numbers, volunteers exceeded 3 million across Iraq. Some of them are veteran soldiers who fought with the old army, others used to fight with groups that fought against the US army during the occupation era. Sheikh Mohammed told Al-Monitor that the process started with an assessment and ended in deployment: “The army checks the capabilities of each volunteer; experienced fighters will be sent directly to the front, those who have slight experience will be given some brief training and then sent to less dangerous areas to be under the supervision of the army, while those who lack any experience will have to go through a long process of training and they’ll be given logistic duties.”
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