DARBANDIKHAN, IRAQ -- Hundreds of fighters from Iraq's main Shiite Muslim opposition faction put on a rare show of military force at their northern Iraqi base Saturday, with their leadership vowing to act independently of the United States in the battle against Saddam Hussein, AFP reported.

During a parade by the Al-Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Iran-based Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the group's number two said his well-disciplined army would quickly move to secure areas captured from the Iraqi regime in the hours following a U.S. assault.

"We will do it our way. We have our own plans," Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim told reporters at the Al-Badr Brigade's recently installed base in a lush green valley near Darbandikhan, in the southeast of the Kurdish autonomous zone close to the Iranian border. "The message is that it is Iraqis who should oust Saddam Hussein. Our role will be real participation, and we do not need outside help," Al-Hakim said. "We are not going to sit here and wait, we will be providing on the ground security." When asked if his group was in any way coordinating its military operations with Washington, he boasted that "on the level of field actions, there is no specific agreement with any country because we don't need it."

The Al-Badr Brigade, which has up to now been largely kept out of the public eye, is believed to number between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters.

The parade outside Darbandikhan, 45 kilometers south of Sulaymaniya, included some 800 fighters from the militia's Imam Ali Unit, named after the martyred caliph who Shiite Muslims see as the Prophet Muhammad's rightful successor.

In an event with religious symbolism -- especially given that it coincided with the annual highpoint in the Shiite calendar -- they were carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and communications equipment.

Most of the fighters, who appeared to have been recently equipped with new uniforms and weapons, were in their 30s or early 40s.

Dozens of new Japanese-made pickups, mounted with recoilless rifles, mortars and rocket launchers also rolled past a podium of SAIRI leaders to the beat of a small military band.

"Just as Imam Hussein was martyred and gave his blood for God, you must be prepared to be martyred," Al-Hakim, one of a number of clerics watching the show, said in an address to the fighters.

Imam Hussain, a grandson of the prophet, is revered by Shiites as a symbol of resistance. He and his family were killed, unarmed and outnumbered, in a 680 AD battle in Kerbala in modern day Iraq.

The troops responded with cries of "Revenge, Revenge".