After the civil war, the Badr Brigade turned into a political force on its own and left ISCI, although the two continue to be part of a coalition in Iraq's parliament.

SCIRI was the umbrella body for two Iran-based Shia Islamist groups, Dawa and the Islamic Action Organisation led by Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi.

The Iranian Islamic revolutionary government arranged for the formation of SCIRI, which was based in exile in Tehran and under the leadership of Mohammad-Baqir al-Hakim.

Iranian officials referred to Hakim as the leader of Iraq's future Islamic state ..."[8] However, there are crucial ideological differences between SCIRI and al-Dawa.

It gained popularity among Shia Iraqis by providing social services and humanitarian aid, following the pattern of Islamic organizations in other countries such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The car bomb exploded as the ayatollah was leaving a religious shrine (Imam Ali Mosque) in the city, just after Friday prayers, killing more than 85.

In 2006 the United Nations human rights chief in Iraq, John Pace, said that every month hundreds of Iraqis were being tortured to death or executed by the Interior Ministry under SCIRI's control.

Another is the Mehdi Army of the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is part of the Shia coalition seeking to form a government after winning the mid-December election.

Not only counter-insurgency units such as the Wolf Brigade, the Scorpions and the Tigers, but the commandos and even the highway patrol police have been accused of acting as death squads.

"[17] Ideologically SIIC differs from Muqtada al-Sadr and its sometime ally Islamic Dawa Party, in favoring a decentralized Iraq state with an autonomous Shia zone in the south.

[19][20][21] In a BBC interview in London, Ghazi al-Yawar the Sunni Arab sheik, cited reports that Iran sent close to a million people to Iraq and covertly supplied Shia religious groups with money to help compete in the elections.