debkafile Exclusive: All 35,000 Palestinians expelled from Baghdad in Shiite militia drive to evict Sunnis
The last evictions were carried out by the Shiite Wolves Brigade (picture) Thursday, April 20. According to DEBKA’s sources most of the Palestinians fled to Sunni Muslim sanctuaries in northern Iraq including Samarra and Falujja. For some weeks, 2,000-3,000 Palestinians have been stranded in tents set up in the desert on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border. Jordan refuses to let them enter.
debkafile adds: The Solves Brigade is regarded as the most effective and savage of Iraqi militias. Formally it is part of the interior ministry’s security forces, but in actually fact it is an armed branch of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq -SCIRI, one of the two major Shiite parties which is led by Abdel Aziz al Hakim. Its commander goes under the nom de guerre of Abu Walid.
Our Iraqi sources add that the expulsion of the Palestinians is part of the Shiite campaign to purge Baghdad of Sunni Muslims without official Iraqi or American interference. The Wolves have now moved to the southern Baghdad’s Dora to carry on driving out Sunni residents. This campaign has finally put paid to the four-month effort to establish a national government shared by Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.