BAGHDAD, Aug 2: Thousands of Shia civilians charged with guarding neighbourhoods in Iraq marched through Baghdad on Wednesday to demand an end to the sectarian violence that is ravaging the country.

Young men in uniforms and headbands, members of what are known as the popular committees, chanted as a speaker urged them to protect the neighbourhoods from the Saddam Hussein loyalists leading an insurgency against the government.

“Stamp on terrorism,” he said.

The crowd included members of the Badr Organisation, one of the armed Shia groups that Sunnis accuse of running militia death squads, a charge they deny.

“We have to benefit from this wide popular base, and the state and Iraqi people should form these popular regional committees from the best of our young men to face terrorism,” Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shia leaders, told the crowd.

“They will defend people of districts; Sunnis, Shias, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. They do not differentiate between anybody. They will provide support for the official security apparatus.”

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, whose reconciliation plan has failed to reduce sectarian bloodshed, has promised to disband the militias many fear will push the country into civil war.

“The first enemy is the Baathist Saddam loyalists and their henchmen, the Islamic extremists,” said Hakim.

Officially, the event was held to mark the third anniversary of the death of Hakim’s brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim, in a bombing in the southern city of Najaf.

But the speeches also covered some of the most explosive issues in Iraq, such as federalism, which is opposed by Sunnis who fear it will leave them deprived of oil in resource-poor central Iraq.

“We believe that implementation of a federal system in Iraq will achieve justice and rebuild Iraq and guarantee the unity of the Iraqi people and land,” said Hakim.—Reuters