The New York Times' report on Thursday about the pattern of assassinations against members of the Sunni Awakening movement blamed some of the killings on Al Qaeda, of course. But it also laid a big part of the blame on an organized campaign by death squads controlled by the Badr Corps of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (formerly SCIRI) and the Mahdi Army's rogue elements, both tied closely to Iran.

Both Sunni and Shiite officials in Baghdad blame two government-linked Shiite paramilitary forces for some of the attacks: the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. Sunni officials charge that militia leaders are involved, while Shiite officials believe that the attackers are renegade members of the groups. Both militias have close ties to Iran and have been implicated in death-squad operations against Sunni Arabs, although the Mahdi militia’s leaders have publicly told their members to abide by a cease-fire.

Citizen guardsmen and Iraqi intelligence officials say they have also captured Iranians with hit lists and orders to attack Awakening members. ...

“Badr is the worst threat,” said [an Awakening soldier], referring to the military arm of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a leading Shiite political party. The next greatest threat, he said, is the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political movement of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Both militias have deep influence in Iraq’s security forces. ...

An Iraqi intelligence official ... said that the most dangerous threat, however, was posed by the Mahdi and Badr militias who, he claimed, were working with Iran to undermine the Awakening movement.

“Two weeks ago, we captured one Iraqi and two Iranians meeting in a house in Baghdad,” he said. “They are hitting the Sunni councils, because the Shiites think that they will form a Sunni militia that will be a force to hit them hard. When we capture these Shiite militiamen, they tell us they have orders from Iran.”

This seems pretty accurate to me. While the Mahdi Army has, from time to time, taken part in ethnic-cleaning bloodletting, seeking to purge Sunnis from areas in Baghdad, the Badr Corps and its intelligence arm have carried out targeted assassinations in Iraq for the past five years, apparently with Iranian support and intelligence aid. They've targeted former Iraqi intelligence officials, current ones, army officers, air force pilots, and former Baathists by the thousands. What's interesting here is that, given America's support for the Awakening movement, the ISCI-Badr people involved in these killings are ostensible American allies killing other U.S. allies.