IRAQ. Autonomous Region in Northern Iraq controlled by Kurdish parties. PUK controlled territory. March, 2003. Iraqi Arab Shias who are in opposition to the Saddam HUSSEIN regime and created the Badr Brigade, the military branch of the SCIRI, Supreme Council of Islamic Resistance in Iraq, under Ayatollah Muhammad BAKR AL-HAKIM, in their first public parade near one of their bases in Northern Iraq.