James Hider (left), Baghdad Correspondent of The Times, says that many Iraqis fear that letting loose the private militias will lead to civil war

"Iraq is full of civilian militias, each loyal to one political party and ethnic group. They act as local enforcers and are involved in unofficial policing. Some have also been accused of fighting the police and indulging in hostage-taking.

"As it is enshrined in law that every Iraqi has the right to keep a gun at home, any political party that is able to persuade its supporters to go and fetch their weapons can have its own impromptu security force. All the parties had them after the war. Ahmed Chalabi had his Iraqi Free Fighters, and Iyad Allawi had the Iraqi National Accord.

"The oldest and best-established group is the Badr brigade, the Shia Muslim militia which was formed at least 20 years ago during the Iran-Iraq war, and supports the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (Sciri) in Iraq.

"Back in the 1980s recruits were trained in Iran, and had a reputation for using torture on prisoners of war. Today the organisation is still supported by Tehran, and straight after the war they were accused of forming hit squads to go around executing former Baathists.

"Equally large, but lacking the same training and equipment is the Mehdi army, a militia formed in 2003 which is loyal to the young Shia cleric Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr. They were the group holed up in the Shia holy city of Najaf last summer.

"Then there are the Peshmerga guerrillas, Kurdish fighters who are known to be policing the border unofficially and manning border checkpoints. There are also numerous Sunni militias, who are involved in the insurgency.

"The US has largely been turning a blind eye to the militias' existence, although they did fight the Mehdi Army when they started firing on coalition forces. The Badr brigade keeps people in line to a certain extent, so the Americans leave them alone, reasoning that they are better than complete chaos.

"All the militias claim to be working for the interests of Iraq, but whether you agree depends on where you are standing.

"The idea of using these militias to police Iraq and put down the insurgency, voiced by President Jalal Talabani today, is not a new one. But a lot of Iraqis, while torn by the desire for order, are very nervous about the idea.

"What kind of accountability do you have from private, sectarian militia? Trying to use militias against different ethnic communities risks carving up Iraq on sectarian grounds.

"Even moderate Arabs have lingering suspicions about the Kurds, because they fought them for so long. Almost everyone had a family member recruited by Saddam to go and fight the Kurds. There is very little love lost between the ethnic groups.

"Meanwhile Sunnis and Shias have accused one another of hostage-taking. Using Iran-trained Badr recruits would scare the Sunnis, and push them towards the resistance.

"I think that in making these remarks Talabani was playing on the desire of ordinary Iraqis to see the back of coalition forces. He is gambling that you could lock up a lot of suspected guerrillas very quickly and get it over before a backlash develops.

"But people are going to be very nervous of letting the Badr Brigade and the Peshmergas loose to run around.

"There has been talk of absorbing them into the security forces. But in January Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Sciri, gave an interview saying how he wanted to purge the army of all former Baathists and Saddamites, prompting fears that he would just bring his own people in and the Badr Brigade would effectively become the army.

"To be fair, the Shias have said that all they intend to do is to purge the insurgents who have infiltrated the security forces and the ministries, but there are fears that they would go further and purge perfectly competent officers on purely sectarian grounds. And that would lead to further suspicious and conflict."

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