Mehdi Army Fills Social Services Gap In Sadr, But U.S. Says It Must Disarm

(CBS) Late into the night, Sadr City is still bustling with life. There's no sign of the curfew that shuts down the rest of Baghdad in the early evening, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.

The shops and the market are open, and everybody can go and come back to their homes safely.

The vast Shiite slum of 3 million, which from time to time experiences big bombing attacks like one that killed dozens of people last Saturday, is still one of the most secure areas in a city ravaged by violence.

It's not because of Iraq's police or the U.S. Army; it's because of the local men, with weapons out of sight, who enforce order on every street. They are the Mehdi army, a militia founded by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a man who has twice sent gunmen into battle against the United States.

To Sadr City's Shiites, the Mehdi army are their protectors. But to Iraq's Sunni minority, they are the executioners behind most of the sectarian killings dividing Iraq.

Read the rest at CBS News

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