In Baghdad, armed groups of Shia citizens are attempting to bring order to the streets. The Shia told the London Guardian they’re acting on instructions from clerics in the holy city of Najaf. They say they’re cooperating with U.S. authorities and have no objection to their presence in the city, provided it’s temporary. The Shia leadership in Najaf used its long-established underground communications system to distribute instructions to mosques across the country to form defense committees. A senior imam at the Buratha mosque in Baghdad said his group has managed to secure the water plants and electricity substations and all the hospitals in the neighborhood. He said the next stage is for Najaf to control what’s happening in the streets. The Guardian reports the emergence of the Shia defense committees overshadow the halting return to work of elements of Baghdad’s city policy yesterday. Uniformed police were barely visible.