Iraqi Shias set up 'Anger Brigades' to fight attacks

"We have established Anger Brigades from Shia elements who will target terrorist elements who are killing Shia groups," said the head of the group who goes under an assumed name, al-Medi.

The militant band, based in Iraq's second city of Basra in the far south, would target rebels who have turned the roads south from Baghdad to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala into death traps, he said.

The roads cut through the so-called triangle of death, which spans the towns of Mahmudiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah and is a scene of daily violence against Iraqi police and national guards.

The Shia community, which makes up more than 60 percent of Iraq's population, suffered from high unemployment under the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

And since the war, Shias have flocked to join Iraq's nascent security forces which have become a prime target in a vicious insurgency that is raging against the US-backed government.