BAGHDAD -- Rekindling sectarian rivalries, Iraq's parliament on Saturday voted to fully legalize state-sanctioned Shiite militias long accused of abuses against minority Sunnis, adopting legislation that promotes them to a government force empowered to "deter" security and terror threats facing the country, such as the Islamic State extremist group.
The law, proposed by parliament's largest Shiite bloc, applies to the Shiite militias as well as to the much smaller and weaker Sunni Arab groups that oppose the Islamic State. Militias set up by tiny minority groups, such as Christians and Turkmen, to fight the Islamic State are also covered.
The legislation, supported by 208 of the chamber's 327 members, was quickly denounced by Sunni Arab politicians and lawmakers as proof of the "dictatorship" of the country's Shiite majority and evidence of its failure to honor promises of inclusion.
"The majority does not have the right to determine the fate of everyone else," Osama al-Nujaifi, one of Iraq's three vice presidents and a senior Sunni politician, told reporters after the vote, which was boycotted by many Sunni lawmakers.
"There should be genuine political inclusion," al-Nujaifi said. "This law must be revised."
A Sunni legislator, Ahmed al-Masary, said the law cast doubt on the participation in the political process by all of Iraq's religious and ethnic factions.
"The legislation aborts nation-building," he said, adding it would pave the way for a dangerous parallel to the military and police.
A spokesman for one of the larger Shiite militias welcomed the legislation.
"Those who reject it are engaging in political bargaining," said Jaafar al-Husseini of the Hezbollah Brigades.
"It is not the Sunnis who reject the law; it is the Sunni politicians following foreign agendas," said Shiite lawmaker Mohammed Saadoun.
According to a text released by parliament, the militias have now become an "independent" force that is part of the armed forces and reports to the prime minister, who is also the commander in chief.
The new force would be subject to military regulations, except for age and education requirements -- provisions designed to prevent the exclusion of the elderly and uneducated Iraqis who joined the militias. The militiamen would benefit from salaries and pensions identical to those of the military and police, but are required to sever all links to political parties and refrain from political activism.
The legislation comes at a critical stage in Iraq's two-year fight against the Islamic State, a conflict underscored by sectarian tensions given that the militant group follows an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam and the security forces are predominantly Shiite. The Shiite-led government last month launched a campaign to dislodge the Islamic State from predominantly Sunni Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the last major urban center still held by the extremist group.
Through the military, the government has used the campaign to project an image of even-handedness, reaching out to the city's residents and promising them a life free of the atrocities and excesses committed by the Islamic State. It has also excluded the Shiite militias from the battle, winning a measure of goodwill from the Sunnis.
The Shiite militias, most of which are backed by Iran, have been bankrolled and equipped by the government since shortly after the Islamic State swept across much of northern and western Iraq two years ago. Many of them existed long before the Islamic State emerged, fighting U.S. troops in street battles during the U.S. military presence in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Their ranks, however, significantly swelled after Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called for jihad, or holy struggle, against the Islamic State in June 2014.
They now number over 100,000 men and fight with heavy weaponry, including tanks, artillery and rocket launchers. The larger militias have intelligence agencies and run their own jails. Since 2014, they have played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State, checking the group's advance on Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Samarra and Karbala and later driving the militants from areas to the south, northeast and north of Baghdad.
Their heavy battlefield involvement followed the collapse of security forces in the face of the Islamic State's 2014 blitz, but their role has somewhat diminished in recent months as more and more of Iraq's military units regain their strength and choose to distance themselves from the occasionally unruly militiamen.
Rights groups and Iraq's Sunni Arabs have long complained that the militiamen have been involved in extrajudicial killings, abuse, and the theft or destruction of property in Sunni areas. They view them as the Trojan Horse of the Shiite, non-Arab Iran because of the militias' close links to Tehran and their reliance on military advisers from Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Senior Shiite politician Amar al-Hakim sought to reassure Sunnis on Saturday, saying several laws to be issued by the prime minister to regulate the work of the militias will allay many of their fears. He did not elaborate, but added, "The law creates a suitable climate for national unity."
A Section on 11/27/2016