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  • Iraqi leader drops protection of militia

    Iraqi leader drops protection of militia

    By STEVEN R. HURST Associated Press Writer
    © 2007 The Associated Press
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    BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric's Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday.

    In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday.

    Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to display their weapons. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.

    Saturday's U.S. death toll climbed significantly to 25 after the military reported Sunday that six more troops had died in the deadliest day in two years for American forces.

    The latest military reports said four soldiers and a Marine had died during combat Saturday in Anbar province and one soldier was killed in a roadside bombing northeast of Baghdad.

    Nineteen of the deaths were reported Saturday, 12 in a Black Hawk helicopter crash, five in an attack on a security meeting in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and two others in roadside bomb attacks elsewhere. It was the third-highest daily toll for U.S. forces since the war began in March 2003.

    Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's turnaround on the Mahdi Army was puzzling because as late as Oct. 31, he had intervened to end a U.S. blockade of Sadr City, the northeast Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is headquarters to the militia. It is held responsible for much of the sectarian bloodshed that has turned the capital into a battle zone over the past year.

    Shiite militias began taking revenge after more than two years of incessant bomb and shooting attacks by Sunni insurgents.

    Sometime between then and Nov. 30, when the prime minister met President Bush, al-Maliki was convinced of the truth of American intelligence reports which contended, among other things, that his protection of al-Sadr's militia was isolating him in the Arab world and among moderates at home, the two government officials said.

    "Al-Maliki realized he couldn't keep defending the Mahdi Army because of the information and evidence that the armed group was taking part in the killings, displacing people and violating the state's sovereignty," said one official. Both he and a second government official who confirmed the account refused to be identified by name because the information was confidential. Both officials are intimately aware of the prime minister's thinking.

    "The Americans don't act on rumors but on accurate intelligence. There are many intelligence agencies acting on the ground, and they know what's going on," said the second official, confirming the Americans had given al-Maliki overwhelming evidence about the Mahdi Army's deep involvement in the sectarian slaughter.

    Earlier this month, Bush and al-Maliki separately announced a new security drive to clamp off the sectarian violence that has riven the capital and surrounding regions.

    Bush announced an additional 21,500 American soldiers would be sent to accomplish the task and al-Maliki has promised a similar number of forces, who will take the lead in the overall operation.

    Iraq's Special Forces Command division has already teamed with the Americans since late last year for a series of pinpoint attacks in which at least five top Mahdi Army figures have been killed or captured.

    The neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep, expected to begin in earnest by the first of the month, will target Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq and its allied militant bands equally with Shiite militias, both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade.

    The latter is the Iranian-trained military wing of Iraq's most power Shiite political group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

    The first government official said al-Maliki's message was blunt.

    "He told the sheik that the activities of both the Sadrist politicians and the militia have inflamed hatred among neighboring Sunni Arab states that have been complaining bitterly to the Americans," the official said.

    Sunni Muslims are the majority sect in key Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, all of which have shunned al-Maliki. Shiites, long oppressed by Iraqi's Sunni minority, and vaulted to power with the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

    Many of the leading Shiite figures in Iraq have deep historical ties to Iran, also a majority Shiite state, whose growing muscle in the Middle East is deeply threatening to the autocratic Sunni regimes in the region.

    As the Saturday death toll among American troops was mounting, the military reported five soldiers had been killed in an attack on a security meeting in provincial government building in Karbala, south of the capital.

    Thousands of pilgrims have arrived in the holy city to mark Ashoura, the festival at the start of the Islamic new year that marks the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the most-revered Shiite saints.

    Iraqi officials said on Sunday that the gunmen who attacked the meeting wore military uniforms and arrived in black sport utility vehicles commonly used by foreign dignitaries — an apparent attempt to impersonate American forces.

    The local governor, Akeel al-Khazaali, was not at the security meeting but said security officials told him the SUVs were able to get through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, 50 miles south of Baghdad, because local police assumed the vehicles were a diplomatic or official convoy and informed headquarters that it was coming.

    "The group used percussion bombs and broke into the building, killed five Americans and kidnapped two others," the governor said. Iraqi troops later found one of the SUVs with the three dead bodies dressed in military uniforms, he said.

    Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, denied any Americans were kidnapped and said all "were accounted for after the action."

    A security official in Karbala, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information, also said the gunmen who carried out the attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center were using SUVs similar to ones used by the U.S. authorities.

    The official said the convoy of gunmen fled into neighboring Babil province. The Babil police commander confirmed that the suspects entered the region before disappearing.

    Saturday's deaths of the 25 U.S. troops was eclipsed only by the one-day toll 37 U.S. fatalities on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion.

    Across Iraq on Sunday, police and morgue officials reported 46 people were killed or found dead, 29 of them bodies, most showing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad.
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    I hope it lasts!

    And anyway, the Mahdis have gone South to re-group!


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

    Comment


    • #3
      I hope al Sadr and his militia are totally defeated. In Sadr city women who do not dress according to the warped version of Islam are routinely harrassed. This is a huge difference from before the US invasion, when Iraqi women enjoyed more freedoms than in most Middle East nations.
      "Peace, Order and Good Government"

      Comment


      • #4
        U.S. Forces Clash With Baghdad Insurgents
        Associated Press | January 24, 2007
        BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with gunmen firing heavy weapons from concrete high-rises in a Sunni insurgent stronghold north of the heavily fortified Green Zone on Wednesday. Iraqi's defense ministry said as many as 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.

        Apache attack helicopters buzzed past the tall buildings and radio towers, with several Humvees on the tree-lined street below. Gunfire rang in the background as shells fell, according to AP Television News footage.

        Black smoke rose from the area, on the west bank of the Tigris River about two kilometers (a mile) north of the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government headquarters. The clashes were the second major fighting to break out in the area in less than a month.

        There were conflicting numbers of insurgents reported killed and captured in the fighting, which began before dawn. Iraq's Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told The Associated Press 30 insurgents were killed and 27 were arrested, including four Egyptians and a Sudanese man.

        The U.S. military said seven suspected insurgents were detained and rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank rounds and 155 mm artillery rounds were seized. The American statement did not mention deaths.

        The military reported separately that an American soldier was killed Wednesday in clashes near the city's center, but officials declined to give more specifics or say whether it was connected to the Haifa Street fighting.

        U.S. and Iraqi troops are gearing up for a broader security crackdown to quell the sectarian violence in the capital. Al-Askari said the fighting on Wednesday was not part of that plan.

        A spokesman at the Cultural Ministry, Jabbar al-Mashhadani, told the AP that U.S. and Iraqi forces rushed into the building on the edge of Haifa Street and told all the employees to go home as they fanned out and sent snipers to the roof.

        At least one civilian was killed and seven were wounded in the clashes, according to hospital and police officials.

        Haifa Street, a major avenue in central Baghdad, was built in the late 1970s and former leader Saddam Hussein had several concrete high-rises built for loyalists as well as Arab dissidents, mainly Syrians who defected from the rival Baath Party branch in Damascus and moved to Iraq. Some university professors, presidential advisers and actors, also had homes there.

        It has been the site of numerous clashes, including a major battle on Jan. 9, just three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced his new security plan for pacifying Baghdad.

        At the beginning of Haifa street stands a bronze statue of Iraq's late King Faisal riding a horse.

        The street cuts through the neighborhood where Saddam attended school as a teenager. He lived with his maternal uncle and future father-in-law.

        During a visit to the neighborhood after the 1991 Gulf war, residents complained to Saddam about their poverty, prompting him to order homes demolished and new apartment complexes built.

        Just off Haifa Street is a square where a large statue for Saddam's cousin and brother-in-law, Adnan Khairallah, stand to this day. It was widely believed that Saddam was behind a helicopter crash in 1989 in which Khairallah was killed because the late defense minister was becoming popular among Iraqis.
        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

        Leibniz

        Comment


        • #5
          I wonder if the Iraqi Army and police can actually crack down on the Shia militants considering they're heavily infiltrated by the very same militants
          "Peace, Order and Good Government"

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm really interested in how this all pan's out. This directly affects me since 90% of our attacks come directly from the Mahdi army in either the form of roadside IED's or indirect fire incidents. Mostly though, I want them to stop harrassing the local population and terrorizing everywhere they go. Stop kidnapping and murdering prominent figures in the community and demanding ransoms via extorition to finance their illegal activities. Prior to all this, we've only had minimal engagement against Al Sadr, one of the most recent bigger engagements being in Diwaniyah earlier this fall. Didn't we also have him in custody in 2004 at some point and let him go? But another problem that we must reflect upon, is that some of Al Sadr's followers have split from him and are no longer under his control.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by TheChosenOne View Post
              I'm really interested in how this all pan's out. This directly affects me since 90% of our attacks come directly from the Mahdi army in either the form of roadside IED's or indirect fire incidents. Mostly though, I want them to stop harrassing the local population and terrorizing everywhere they go. Stop kidnapping and murdering prominent figures in the community and demanding ransoms via extorition to finance their illegal activities. Prior to all this, we've only had minimal engagement against Al Sadr, one of the most recent bigger engagements being in Diwaniyah earlier this fall. Didn't we also have him in custody in 2004 at some point and let him go? But another problem that we must reflect upon, is that some of Al Sadr's followers have split from him and are no longer under his control.
              He was declared an outlaw at one stage and they had him cornered in Najaf for a while but the usual "I'll be a good boy" truce let him off the hook again. Every time he comes close to being taken out, Maliki's stepped in.
              In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

              Leibniz

              Comment


              • #8
                I'm still in shock months after finding out that Al Sadr has absolutely no credentials!!! I didn't know this until I started looking into after getting in country and recieving reports on him. His dad was a prominent religious leader but Muqtada has absolutely nothing to back up his name except the fact that his father was popular. I mean, talk about a THUG!

                Comment


                • #9
                  And yet, Al Sadr and his militia are creating havoc!


                  "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                  I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                  HAKUNA MATATA

                  Comment

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