“These groups are trained to kill so they will represent a major danger to their countries,” General Abdel Rahman tells Dateline’s Fouad Hady in an exclusive report to be broadcast tonight on SBS ONE.
General Rahman is Head of Intelligence in Diyala Province and says fighters have been recruited from across the world.
“Fighters come from Afghanistan, fighters come from Turkey, fighters come from Russia, fighters come from America, Britain, Australia,” he says.
“They are fighters trained in explosives, booby trapping, assassinations, kidnapping, and in my view, they will create havoc in their countries.”
The Sunni militia behind the ISIS insurgency are now less than 100 kilometres from Baghdad and Shia forces are already massing to defend the capital and their country.
They have just four days of instruction before being sent to the front but using weapons supplied themselves, there’s concern they may not be able to defend themselves against ISIS and its modern armoury.
“These are all personal weapons from the young men,” one of the Shia leaders tells Fouad. “Some sold the cupboards in their houses, others sold their wives’ jewellery and bought them, so they are personal weapons.”
A man strapped with a suicide belt of explosives is among those telling Fouad that they’re prepared to die for their country.
“Will you kill yourself?” Fouad asks. “For Iraq… yes,” he replies.
The Shia fighters are fiercely loyal to the man who once led a bloody insurgency against US troops in Iraq, the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
“Today all of you are martyrs,” one of the leaders tells a crowd of fighters. “Ticking bombs in the hands of the honourable leader, Moqtada al-Sadr.”
“Anyone who thinks of attacking or entering Iraq must know there are men who don’t sleep, the people of Sadr City are lions who will be on the lookout,” one of them tells Fouad.
This frontline was once a place where Shia and Sunni people lived and worked together, but not any more.
“After the downfall, for a year, we were without a government… the tribes lived in harmony,” a local Shia elder tells Fouad.
“More than 20 of our men intermarried with their women… [now] our cousins fight us, we say this openly, what can we do?” he asks.
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