Monday, March 28, 2005

Badr Bader Bad

From here via Juan Cole:
Guerrillas killed 16 persons in Iraq on Sunday, including three members of the Badr Corps in a drive-by shooting at Baquba. The Badr Corps is the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite party that is one of two big winners in the recent parliamentary elections. Badr itself ran on the United Iraqi Alliance slate as a political party, the Badr Organization.
I wondered if the Badr Corps is related to the Bader-Meinhof gang? I Googled "Bader-Meinhof Gang" but couldn't get a good definition; just passing referrals such as:
The Marxist Bader Meinhof gang was terrorizing West German society in the 70's, and the right-wing law and order forces were cracking down hard on that gang and those considered sympathetic to them.
How can such prominence disappear so easily from History?

Sic Tempus Fugit

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Doc

There's no connection. Badr is the scene of a famous military victory by the early Muslims against the Meccans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Badr

And it is to this that the name of SCIRI's military wing refers.