http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1079420126275&p=1012571727172A Shia militia group loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr has wiped out a village in central Iraq which refused to adhere to its puritanical creed, killing some inhabitants and forcing the rest to flee.
Hundreds of militiamen from the Mahdi's Army group besieged the town of Kawlia, 10km south of the city of Diwaniya, with mortars and smashed walls with sledgehammers three weeks ago, reducing to rubble the entire village famed for its dancers and prostitutes since the 1920s.
On Friday scavengers scoured the ruins, loading bricks from houses, a school and a mosque into pickup trucks to sell to local builders. Sayid Yahya Shubari, the 30-year-old local clerical commander of the Mahdi's Army in Diwaniya, said his militia raided the village after receiving reports that pimps had kidnapped a 12-year-old girl.
"It was a well of debauchery, drunkenness and mafia, and they were buying and selling girls," he said. He said Kawlia was flattened after the villagers shot an emissary he had sent to negotiate with them.
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