This is from wiredispatch.
Sadr it seems is safe in Iran and not part of the action in Sadr City. It seems clear that some groups had earlier rejected his leadership. Sadr was probably happy enough that the US and Maliki incursions into Sadr City helped eliminate them. Now it looks as if even more leaders on the ground are rejecting his leadership and feel betrayed. It may do little good that he urges unity. In fact he may find himself losing power within his own movement unless he can show that the truce is not being used by the Maliki govt. to dismantle his militia movement.
Sadr City truce strains as militia leaders grumble
Sadr City truce under strain as Shiite militia leaders grumble about mounting pressures
HAMZA HENDAWIAP News
May 28, 2008 15:49 EST
An angry Shiite militia commander complained Wednesday that "we were duped" into accepting a cease-fire in Sadr City — remarks that point to a potentially damaging rift within the movement of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The May 11 truce ended seven weeks of fierce fighting in Baghdad between U.S. and Iraqi forces and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which held nearly complete control of the Sadr City district.
Iraqi soldiers now have moved into most parts of Sadr City with little resistance. But the objections raised by the commander highlight apparent dissent by some Mahdi Army leaders.
A split among al-Sadr's followers — between those favoring a more militant path and others seeking compromise with Iraq's government — could threaten the relative calm in Baghdad and re-ignite Shiite-on-Shiite violence across Iraq's oil-rich south.
The commander, speaking to tribal sheiks and lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said that "we were duped and deceived" by the truce. "They are arresting many of us now."
The group had gathered in al-Sadr's main Baghdad office to discuss how to respond to what they consider cease-fire "violations" by Iraqi troops, such as arrests and house searches.
Some in the audience, however, took issue with the views of the commander, whose name was not made public for security reasons.
"You can be the winner without a military victory," said Falah Hassan Shanshal, a prominent Sadrist and one of two lawmakers who attended the meeting in Sadr City, home to about 2.5 million Shiites.
"We had to bow before the storm because it was uprooting everything and everyone standing in its path," he said.
Shanshal was referring to the punishing attacks by U.S. and Iraqi forces, which used tanks, helicopter gunships and Hellfire missiles fired from unmanned aircraft. The strikes killed and wounded hundreds and left parts of Sadr City in ruins.
The southern section of the district has been sealed off from the rest of Sadr City in an attempt to foil militia movements and rocket and mortar attacks on the U.S.-protected Green Zone. The battles in Sadr City were part of a wider Mahdi Army backlash to a government crackdown on armed groups launched in late March in the southern city of Basra.
Al-Sadr, who has been in Iran for at least a year, supported the Sadr City cease-fire, perhaps to save his Mahdi Army from further losses so it can continue the fight later.
But signs of opposition have been growing within the militia ranks. Last week, two Mahdi Army commanders said militiamen were divided over whether the cease-fire was in their interest.
They said some believed too many lives had been lost to quit the fight and allow their "enemies" to take control of Sadr City, the militia's largest stronghold.
The two commanders, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said some militia leaders had fled to Iran or southern Iraq to avoid arrest.
The U.S military claims Iran trains and arms militant Shiite militiamen loosely linked to the Mahdi Army. Tehran denies the charge.
The head of al-Sadr's office in Sadr City, Sheik Salman al-Freiji, suggested the truce may collapse if "violations" by the Iraqi army continue.
"There will not be any trust built between the two sides like that," al-Freiji warned. "The Mahdi Army was created to defend the Iraqi people. How can you do that without fighting the occupier?"
Shanshal, the Sadrist lawmaker, was more conciliatory. He criticized the Iraqi army for what he called heavy-handed tactics, but stressed that he did not want more fighting in Sadr City.
He suggested the government declare a 10-day grace period during which militia weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs would be handed over to the army.
"After that, they should arrest anyone who is found to possess this kind of weapons," Shanshal said.
Much of the devastation caused by the fighting is around the concrete barriers erected by U.S. troops to push militia gunners out of range of the Green Zone, which was hit by near daily salvos of rockets and mortar shells at the height of the fighting in April.
Entire blocks near the wall are now heaps of debris, twisted metal and rocks. Stores sit empty, their walls blackened and merchandise burned. Some residents on Wednesday were still hunting through the rubble to recover valuables.
Dozens of buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes. Some streets are strewn with the charred hulks of cars. Some stores remain shuttered, but residents are moving freely, negotiating their way on foot or in service taxis around Iraqi army tanks, Humvees and armored personnel carriers patrolling the area's dusty streets or stationed at major intersections.
New billboards compete with old ones bearing images of al-Sadr and his late father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr — the namesake of the district.
Some of the new, government-funded billboards, show images of men wanted for "crimes committed against the Iraqi people" and proclaiming that "criminals use your neighborhoods to launch attacks."
But new graffiti attacks Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. One message calls him a "traitor" and an "agent of the Americans." Another declares: "Al-Maliki is a coward."
Hymn-like songs praising al-Sadr and his late father, gunned down in 1999 by suspected Saddam Hussein agents, blare out from several stores.
But there are also signs of everyday life returning.
Municipal workers wearing bright yellow jerseys sweep streets and children play soccer on dirt fields. Women shop at outdoor food markets and men watch movies and smoke water pipes in coffee shops offering a respite from the unforgiving heat with ceiling fans powered by generators.
"Everything is going well, but there is tension still," said a woman who only wanted her nickname, Umm Sadiq, to be used. "I still have to walk a long way to work because of the traffic congestion, but at least I do so feeling safe."
Source: AP News
Showing posts with label Mahdi militia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mahdi militia. Show all posts
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
As Petraeus testifies, Baghdad teeters on edge of erupting
In effect there already is an eruption with a number of casualties resulting from rocket attacks on the Green Zone. They are provocative enough that even Iran condemned them. For its part the Iraqi government and the U.S. has in effect cordoned off Sadr City and blocked vehicular traffic. As my earlier post indicates the U.S. is even carrying out drone air attacks in parts of Baghdad. Meanwhile Sadr is threatening to break the truce that has kept peace for quite a while until the govt. and U.S. decided to rock the boats by challenging the militias. The problem is Sadr will probably make huge gains come election time and Maliki and the U.S. do not like that idea so they tried to put him in his place by disarming him. It is not clear what other Shiite militias have done if anything. This is from McClatchy via Yahoo.
As Petraeus testifies, Baghdad teeters on edge of erupting By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Apr 8, 11:06 AM ET
BAGHDAD — Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were critical of Iran when they testified Tuesday before the Senate , barely giving credit for an Iranian-brokered cease-fire that curbed the killing after a week of Shiite-on-Shiite bloodshed in southern Iraq and Baghdad .
As they spoke, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr threatened to unleash his Mahdi Army militia against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Once again, it was Iran that stepped into the political vacuum and urged a halt to militia attacks into the heavily fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi officials, including Petraeus and Crocker, have their offices.
The Iranian foreign ministry called for "restraint and prudence of various Iraqi groups," an implicit rebuke of Sadr, who is living and studying in Iran .
The violence began two weeks ago when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched an ill-prepared offensive against militias in the southern port city of Basra. It ebbed after a delegation of the Iraqi governing parties traveled to Iran for talks with a top commander of the Qods force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
This week, it transformed into a conflict largely between the Mahdi Army and U.S. forces. Twelve U.S. troops were killed since Sunday, at least eight of them in the capital, several of them from rocket and mortar attacks into the Green Zone.
Tuesday was the last day of Maliki's ultimatum for militias, mainly the Mahdi Army, to turn in weapons for cash or face a battle. Far from disarming itself and handing its weapons to forces dominated by Shiites in Maliki's Dawa party, Sadr threatened to end the ceasefire he declared in August.
"If it is required to lift the freeze (cease-fire) in order to carry out our goals, objectives, doctrines and religious principles and patriotism, we will do that later and in a separate statement," he said in a statement read by his aide, Salah al Obaidi.
Sadr also postponed his planned million-man march in Baghdad to protest the U.S. occupation on the five-year anniversary of the fall of the capital. The march was expected to bring more violence.
Petraeus acknowledged, though almost in passing, that the clash between the Iraqi government and militias loyal to Sadr and other Shiite leaders— known as "Special Groups"— is one of the biggest threats to Iraqi stability.
"Unchecked, the Special Groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq ," he said.
Although he was speaking in the context of the threat Iran posed through its support of militia groups, he did not mention that Iran also backs the Shiite-led government and that the government sanctions a variety of militias.
Nearly every party has its own militia, including Maliki's rival the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq , whose forces were largely absorbed into the ranks of the Iraqi Security Forces but remain loyal to the party. The Kurdish parties also have the peshmerga.
Besides playing down Iran's sometimes positive role in the Iraqi dynamics, Petraeus and Crocker seemed to overplay the political progress in Iraq during the period when "surged" U.S. forces and a new U.S. counter-insurgency strategy had contributed to a drop in overall violence.
One act of progress, according to Crocker, was the passage of a provincial powers law, passed days before Maliki's Basra offensive. But that law, calling for provincial elections in October, may have been a catalyst that led to the offensive.
Many Sadr loyalists viewed the offensive as an attempt by Maliki's Dawa party and the Shiite rivals of the Sadr movement to undercut the much more popular Shiite movement prior to elections in October.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo
As Petraeus testifies, Baghdad teeters on edge of erupting By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Apr 8, 11:06 AM ET
BAGHDAD — Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were critical of Iran when they testified Tuesday before the Senate , barely giving credit for an Iranian-brokered cease-fire that curbed the killing after a week of Shiite-on-Shiite bloodshed in southern Iraq and Baghdad .
As they spoke, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr threatened to unleash his Mahdi Army militia against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Once again, it was Iran that stepped into the political vacuum and urged a halt to militia attacks into the heavily fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi officials, including Petraeus and Crocker, have their offices.
The Iranian foreign ministry called for "restraint and prudence of various Iraqi groups," an implicit rebuke of Sadr, who is living and studying in Iran .
The violence began two weeks ago when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched an ill-prepared offensive against militias in the southern port city of Basra. It ebbed after a delegation of the Iraqi governing parties traveled to Iran for talks with a top commander of the Qods force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
This week, it transformed into a conflict largely between the Mahdi Army and U.S. forces. Twelve U.S. troops were killed since Sunday, at least eight of them in the capital, several of them from rocket and mortar attacks into the Green Zone.
Tuesday was the last day of Maliki's ultimatum for militias, mainly the Mahdi Army, to turn in weapons for cash or face a battle. Far from disarming itself and handing its weapons to forces dominated by Shiites in Maliki's Dawa party, Sadr threatened to end the ceasefire he declared in August.
"If it is required to lift the freeze (cease-fire) in order to carry out our goals, objectives, doctrines and religious principles and patriotism, we will do that later and in a separate statement," he said in a statement read by his aide, Salah al Obaidi.
Sadr also postponed his planned million-man march in Baghdad to protest the U.S. occupation on the five-year anniversary of the fall of the capital. The march was expected to bring more violence.
Petraeus acknowledged, though almost in passing, that the clash between the Iraqi government and militias loyal to Sadr and other Shiite leaders— known as "Special Groups"— is one of the biggest threats to Iraqi stability.
"Unchecked, the Special Groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq ," he said.
Although he was speaking in the context of the threat Iran posed through its support of militia groups, he did not mention that Iran also backs the Shiite-led government and that the government sanctions a variety of militias.
Nearly every party has its own militia, including Maliki's rival the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq , whose forces were largely absorbed into the ranks of the Iraqi Security Forces but remain loyal to the party. The Kurdish parties also have the peshmerga.
Besides playing down Iran's sometimes positive role in the Iraqi dynamics, Petraeus and Crocker seemed to overplay the political progress in Iraq during the period when "surged" U.S. forces and a new U.S. counter-insurgency strategy had contributed to a drop in overall violence.
One act of progress, according to Crocker, was the passage of a provincial powers law, passed days before Maliki's Basra offensive. But that law, calling for provincial elections in October, may have been a catalyst that led to the offensive.
Many Sadr loyalists viewed the offensive as an attempt by Maliki's Dawa party and the Shiite rivals of the Sadr movement to undercut the much more popular Shiite movement prior to elections in October.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Sadr Postpones Big Baghdad Protest.
This is from the NYtimes.
Given that the U.S. and Maliki seem hell bent on provoking what will be a limited civil war Sadr was probably wise to cancel a demonstration that would see many arrested. The Mahdi Army will be busy fending off a campaign against the Mahdi army in Sadr city. The supposed cease fire does not seem to be holding. Sadr city is sealed off to vehicular traffic. You can expect more U.S. casualties for sure and many more Iraqi casualties.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 9, 2008
Militant Cleric Postpones Big Baghdad Protest
By STEPHEN FARRELL
BAGHDAD — Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric in Iraq whose Mahdi Army militia has been engaged in fierce clashes with Iraqi and American troops in Baghdad over the past week, on Tuesday postponed a huge demonstration in the capital less than 24 hours before it was to take place.
In a press release distributed by his political organization in Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman said the planned Wednesday protest, which Mr. Sadr had proclaimed would draw 1 million participants to demonstrate anti-American opposition among Iraqis, had been postponed for unspecified “safety reasons.” No new date was set.
The postponement was announced as Iraqi and American military forces have been tightening a cordon around Sadr City, the vast Shiite district of Baghdad that is Mr. Sadr’s base of support, and where fighting has raged in recent days and where dozens of Iraqis have been killed.
At least three American soldiers were killed Monday in separate attacks in Baghdad, the American military announced late Monday without specifying where they were killed or who might have been responsible. At least 10 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Sunday.
Acting on the orders of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Iraqi security squads have been stopping young Shiite males from entering Baghdad at checkpoints around the city’s perimeter, Iraqi witnesses said Tuesday. They said the checkpoint sentries have been singling out men aged 15 to 35 and sometimes detaining them.
Mr. Maliki has warned Mr. Sadr’s organization that it must disarm the Mahdi Army militia, the largest Shiite militia in Iraq, or his representatives would not be allowed to participate in future elections. The ultimatum reflects the growing political tension between Mr. Maliki and Mr. Sadr, who represent rival political factions among Iraq’s majority Shiites.
The tension between the two escalated in late March when Mr. Maliki ordered the Iraqi military to occupy the southern port city of Basra, where Mr. Sadr’s militia had taken control.
Given that the U.S. and Maliki seem hell bent on provoking what will be a limited civil war Sadr was probably wise to cancel a demonstration that would see many arrested. The Mahdi Army will be busy fending off a campaign against the Mahdi army in Sadr city. The supposed cease fire does not seem to be holding. Sadr city is sealed off to vehicular traffic. You can expect more U.S. casualties for sure and many more Iraqi casualties.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 9, 2008
Militant Cleric Postpones Big Baghdad Protest
By STEPHEN FARRELL
BAGHDAD — Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric in Iraq whose Mahdi Army militia has been engaged in fierce clashes with Iraqi and American troops in Baghdad over the past week, on Tuesday postponed a huge demonstration in the capital less than 24 hours before it was to take place.
In a press release distributed by his political organization in Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman said the planned Wednesday protest, which Mr. Sadr had proclaimed would draw 1 million participants to demonstrate anti-American opposition among Iraqis, had been postponed for unspecified “safety reasons.” No new date was set.
The postponement was announced as Iraqi and American military forces have been tightening a cordon around Sadr City, the vast Shiite district of Baghdad that is Mr. Sadr’s base of support, and where fighting has raged in recent days and where dozens of Iraqis have been killed.
At least three American soldiers were killed Monday in separate attacks in Baghdad, the American military announced late Monday without specifying where they were killed or who might have been responsible. At least 10 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Sunday.
Acting on the orders of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Iraqi security squads have been stopping young Shiite males from entering Baghdad at checkpoints around the city’s perimeter, Iraqi witnesses said Tuesday. They said the checkpoint sentries have been singling out men aged 15 to 35 and sometimes detaining them.
Mr. Maliki has warned Mr. Sadr’s organization that it must disarm the Mahdi Army militia, the largest Shiite militia in Iraq, or his representatives would not be allowed to participate in future elections. The ultimatum reflects the growing political tension between Mr. Maliki and Mr. Sadr, who represent rival political factions among Iraq’s majority Shiites.
The tension between the two escalated in late March when Mr. Maliki ordered the Iraqi military to occupy the southern port city of Basra, where Mr. Sadr’s militia had taken control.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
U.S. Appears to take lead in fighting in Baghdad
This report seems a bit dated. If the U.S. is still attacking this will end the cease fire that Sadr offered. Maliki obviously lost his bid to destroy the Mahdi militia with help from the U.S. It may be that the U.S. will continue some operations anyway. If they do that is really asking for big trouble.
The operation was seen by Maliki and the rival Badr brigades in Basra and elsewhere as a means of weakening or destroying Al Sadr's power before the October election. Instead Maliki's weakness is revealed as well as his utter dependence upon U.S. support.
In my opinion Al Sadr is as much an opportunist as a radical. He will make peace temporarily with the U.S. if that will give him an opportunity to consolidate his power. This is what he was doing during the ceasefire. The media often portrays him as some sort of Iranian puppet. This seems far from the truth. He is basically a nationalist and even co-operates with Sunni when he can. U.S. commentators mistake the fact that Sadr may very well accept Iranian support for his being a tool of the Iranians. He accepts their help because it helps his own cause not that of the Iranians.
U.S. Appears to Take Lead in Fighting in Baghdad
U.S. Forces Battle Mahdi Army in Sadr City, Aircraft Target Basra
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; 9:58 AM
BAGHDAD, March 28 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in the vast Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, and military officials said Friday that U.S. aircraft bombed militant positions in the southern city of Basra, as the American role in a campaign against party-backed militias appeared to expand.
Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the Sadr City fighting, as U.S. troops took the lead.
Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of U.S. weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.
The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.
As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to "normalcy," administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.
U.S. forces were involved in about a dozen firefights Thursday in Baghdad alone, with fighting spread across six neighborhoods, according to information released by the U.S. military Friday morning.
U.S. ground patrols in such areas as Kadhamiyah and New Baghdad repeatedly came under attack from small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, responding with their own weapons and in one case calling in helicopter support. In that incident, the helicopter fired a hellfire missile into a group of militants that had attacked U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Kadhamiyah, killing three of them. When the militants renewed their attack, the helicopter returned and killed 10 more using a 30mm gun, according to a U.S. military release.
In all, U.S. troops killed 42 in Thursday's Baghdad fighting, a sign of their growing engagement in the Iraqi-designed offensive.
Thursday night, American aircraft dropped bombs on two locations in Basra in support of Iraqi ground forces, said Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman. He said coalition forces would continue to make airpower available at the request of Iraqi troops.
Coalition reconnaissance jets have been flying over the area for the past three days, but Thursday's action was the first airstrike.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, released details Friday on a fight that erupted Wednesday in Hillah, in which U.S. special forces joined with an Iraqi unit that had come under heavy assault. The Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics unit lost nine men after a large force of militants attacked a road checkpoint. U.S. troops joined the battle, and a U.S. helicopter tracked the militant force as it pulled back and regrouped near a mosque. A hellfire missile strike killed five of them, and the rest of the group dispersed, according to a U.S. military statement.
Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.
In Basra, three rival Shiite groups have been trying to position themselves, sometimes through force of arms, to dominate recently approved provincial elections.
The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said that they believe Iran has provided assistance in the past to all three groups: the Mahdi Army; the Badr Organization of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iraq's largest Shiite party; and forces loyal to the Fadhila Party, which holds the Basra governor's seat. But the officials see the current conflict as a purely internal Iraqi dispute.
Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing "the first salvo in upcoming elections," the administration official said.
"His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps" against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. "It's not a pretty picture."
Elements of Sadr's militia have fought fiercely, including rocketing the Green Zone, the huge fortified compound in Baghdad where the U.S. Embassy, Iraqi government offices and international agencies are located.
Starting about 5:25 p.m., the Post reporter heard the launch of 14 rockets, which Mahdi Army officers in the area said were aimed at the Green Zone. U.S. officials reported that 12 rounds hit the zone in that time frame, including six that fell inside the embassy compound. An American civilian contractor was killed in a residential area of the embassy compound, and another death was reported in the zone's U.N. compound.
Further volleys landed Friday, striking the office of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. A guard was killed. Hashemi was not in his office at the time. U.S. officials in the Green Zone have been advised to stay indoors and wear body armor when they venture out.
Several Mahdi Army commanders said they had been fighting U.S. forces for the past three days in Sadr City, engaging Humvees as well as the Strykers. By their account, an Iraqi special forces unit had entered Sadr City from another direction, backed by Americans, but otherwise the fighting had not been with Iraqis.
"If there were no Americans, there would be no fighting," said Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, 38, a senior Mahdi Army member.
In August, Sadr ordered his militia to observe a cease-fire, a move widely credited with helping to reduce violence across Iraq. In recent days, Sadr officials have said the cease-fire remains in force. But in practice, his fighters and Iraqi and U.S. forces are waging full-scale war in places. Further fighting with his men could slow U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.
American commanders said in recent days that their units were taking only a backup role in the offensive and that Iraqi forces were growing strong enough to shoulder the country's security needs.
Maj. Mark Cheadle, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said he could not make an accurate assessment of what the Post reporter saw without knowing the precise location. He underlined that U.S. troops were playing a backup role in the offensive but that on a battlefield that is "360 degrees," it might seem at times that they were out front. If an Iraqi unit was about to be overwhelmed by an enemy, "of course we are going to assist."
On Thursday, thousands of followers of Sadr turned out for a peaceful demonstration in Baghdad. Iraqi television channels carried crowd scenes in which people carried a coffin draped in flags and decorated with a portrait of Maliki. They denounced him as a "new dictator" and chanted: "Maliki, keep your hands off. People do not want you."
Gunmen wearing police commando uniforms stormed the Baghdad home of a well-known member of Maliki's government, Tahseen al-Sheikhli, and took him hostage, according to the Information Ministry. Sheikhli is a chief spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, in charge of building public support for government efforts to quell violence in the city.
As fighting continued in Basra, saboteurs blew up one of the city's main oil pipelines. Gunmen opened fire on the city's police chief, wounding him and killing three of his bodyguards.
Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammad, director of military operations at Iraq's Defense Ministry, said the Basra operation would continue until security forces captured the outlaws or wiped them out. He said the Iraqi military planned to seal and search every neighborhood to capture suspected criminals and confiscate weapons.
But an adviser to Iraqi security forces, who had predicted that the fight in Basra would take 10 days, said it could go on much longer. He also said Iraqi forces were calling on U.S. and British forces for help. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
"I think the government can't win this battle without interference of Americans or British," he said. "I think the aid or assistance is on the way." In his view, the Iraqi military needed air coverage and help with logistics and intelligence.
The fighters "are opening many, many fronts against the army," he said. The adviser said the militia's weapons, some of them made in Iran, are more powerful than those of the Iraqi army.
So far, casualties in Basra on all sides have totaled about 400 killed and 300 wounded, he said.
Holloway, the British military spokesman, said Iraqi security forces were "consolidating their current positions" and preparing for the next stage of the offensive. They were cordoning off areas and trying to gain control of the city "bite-size chunk by bite-size chunk."
Residents in Basra said they observed Mahdi Army militiamen gathering in their neighborhood stronghold of Jumhuriyah, assembling men and weapons while dodging gunfire from Iraqi army snipers at intersections.
Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Howard Schneider in Washington and special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Zaid Sabah, K.I. Ibrahim and Dalya Hassan in Baghdad contributed to this report.
The operation was seen by Maliki and the rival Badr brigades in Basra and elsewhere as a means of weakening or destroying Al Sadr's power before the October election. Instead Maliki's weakness is revealed as well as his utter dependence upon U.S. support.
In my opinion Al Sadr is as much an opportunist as a radical. He will make peace temporarily with the U.S. if that will give him an opportunity to consolidate his power. This is what he was doing during the ceasefire. The media often portrays him as some sort of Iranian puppet. This seems far from the truth. He is basically a nationalist and even co-operates with Sunni when he can. U.S. commentators mistake the fact that Sadr may very well accept Iranian support for his being a tool of the Iranians. He accepts their help because it helps his own cause not that of the Iranians.
U.S. Appears to Take Lead in Fighting in Baghdad
U.S. Forces Battle Mahdi Army in Sadr City, Aircraft Target Basra
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; 9:58 AM
BAGHDAD, March 28 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in the vast Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, and military officials said Friday that U.S. aircraft bombed militant positions in the southern city of Basra, as the American role in a campaign against party-backed militias appeared to expand.
Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the Sadr City fighting, as U.S. troops took the lead.
Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of U.S. weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.
The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.
As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to "normalcy," administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.
U.S. forces were involved in about a dozen firefights Thursday in Baghdad alone, with fighting spread across six neighborhoods, according to information released by the U.S. military Friday morning.
U.S. ground patrols in such areas as Kadhamiyah and New Baghdad repeatedly came under attack from small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, responding with their own weapons and in one case calling in helicopter support. In that incident, the helicopter fired a hellfire missile into a group of militants that had attacked U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Kadhamiyah, killing three of them. When the militants renewed their attack, the helicopter returned and killed 10 more using a 30mm gun, according to a U.S. military release.
In all, U.S. troops killed 42 in Thursday's Baghdad fighting, a sign of their growing engagement in the Iraqi-designed offensive.
Thursday night, American aircraft dropped bombs on two locations in Basra in support of Iraqi ground forces, said Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman. He said coalition forces would continue to make airpower available at the request of Iraqi troops.
Coalition reconnaissance jets have been flying over the area for the past three days, but Thursday's action was the first airstrike.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, released details Friday on a fight that erupted Wednesday in Hillah, in which U.S. special forces joined with an Iraqi unit that had come under heavy assault. The Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics unit lost nine men after a large force of militants attacked a road checkpoint. U.S. troops joined the battle, and a U.S. helicopter tracked the militant force as it pulled back and regrouped near a mosque. A hellfire missile strike killed five of them, and the rest of the group dispersed, according to a U.S. military statement.
Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.
In Basra, three rival Shiite groups have been trying to position themselves, sometimes through force of arms, to dominate recently approved provincial elections.
The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said that they believe Iran has provided assistance in the past to all three groups: the Mahdi Army; the Badr Organization of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iraq's largest Shiite party; and forces loyal to the Fadhila Party, which holds the Basra governor's seat. But the officials see the current conflict as a purely internal Iraqi dispute.
Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing "the first salvo in upcoming elections," the administration official said.
"His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps" against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. "It's not a pretty picture."
Elements of Sadr's militia have fought fiercely, including rocketing the Green Zone, the huge fortified compound in Baghdad where the U.S. Embassy, Iraqi government offices and international agencies are located.
Starting about 5:25 p.m., the Post reporter heard the launch of 14 rockets, which Mahdi Army officers in the area said were aimed at the Green Zone. U.S. officials reported that 12 rounds hit the zone in that time frame, including six that fell inside the embassy compound. An American civilian contractor was killed in a residential area of the embassy compound, and another death was reported in the zone's U.N. compound.
Further volleys landed Friday, striking the office of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. A guard was killed. Hashemi was not in his office at the time. U.S. officials in the Green Zone have been advised to stay indoors and wear body armor when they venture out.
Several Mahdi Army commanders said they had been fighting U.S. forces for the past three days in Sadr City, engaging Humvees as well as the Strykers. By their account, an Iraqi special forces unit had entered Sadr City from another direction, backed by Americans, but otherwise the fighting had not been with Iraqis.
"If there were no Americans, there would be no fighting," said Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, 38, a senior Mahdi Army member.
In August, Sadr ordered his militia to observe a cease-fire, a move widely credited with helping to reduce violence across Iraq. In recent days, Sadr officials have said the cease-fire remains in force. But in practice, his fighters and Iraqi and U.S. forces are waging full-scale war in places. Further fighting with his men could slow U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.
American commanders said in recent days that their units were taking only a backup role in the offensive and that Iraqi forces were growing strong enough to shoulder the country's security needs.
Maj. Mark Cheadle, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said he could not make an accurate assessment of what the Post reporter saw without knowing the precise location. He underlined that U.S. troops were playing a backup role in the offensive but that on a battlefield that is "360 degrees," it might seem at times that they were out front. If an Iraqi unit was about to be overwhelmed by an enemy, "of course we are going to assist."
On Thursday, thousands of followers of Sadr turned out for a peaceful demonstration in Baghdad. Iraqi television channels carried crowd scenes in which people carried a coffin draped in flags and decorated with a portrait of Maliki. They denounced him as a "new dictator" and chanted: "Maliki, keep your hands off. People do not want you."
Gunmen wearing police commando uniforms stormed the Baghdad home of a well-known member of Maliki's government, Tahseen al-Sheikhli, and took him hostage, according to the Information Ministry. Sheikhli is a chief spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, in charge of building public support for government efforts to quell violence in the city.
As fighting continued in Basra, saboteurs blew up one of the city's main oil pipelines. Gunmen opened fire on the city's police chief, wounding him and killing three of his bodyguards.
Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammad, director of military operations at Iraq's Defense Ministry, said the Basra operation would continue until security forces captured the outlaws or wiped them out. He said the Iraqi military planned to seal and search every neighborhood to capture suspected criminals and confiscate weapons.
But an adviser to Iraqi security forces, who had predicted that the fight in Basra would take 10 days, said it could go on much longer. He also said Iraqi forces were calling on U.S. and British forces for help. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
"I think the government can't win this battle without interference of Americans or British," he said. "I think the aid or assistance is on the way." In his view, the Iraqi military needed air coverage and help with logistics and intelligence.
The fighters "are opening many, many fronts against the army," he said. The adviser said the militia's weapons, some of them made in Iran, are more powerful than those of the Iraqi army.
So far, casualties in Basra on all sides have totaled about 400 killed and 300 wounded, he said.
Holloway, the British military spokesman, said Iraqi security forces were "consolidating their current positions" and preparing for the next stage of the offensive. They were cordoning off areas and trying to gain control of the city "bite-size chunk by bite-size chunk."
Residents in Basra said they observed Mahdi Army militiamen gathering in their neighborhood stronghold of Jumhuriyah, assembling men and weapons while dodging gunfire from Iraqi army snipers at intersections.
Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Howard Schneider in Washington and special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Zaid Sabah, K.I. Ibrahim and Dalya Hassan in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army
This is from the CSmonitor. This is the end of the ceasefire. Sadr was just about to retire to contemplate for a while when this attack on the Mahdi militia was mounted. Now Sadr is back and leading against the Maliki government and the U.S. The relative calm is now ended. Of course not much attention is being paid to this back in the U.S. or to the fact that the 4,000 mark has now been surpassed in U.S. casualties. Unless the Maliki govt. and the U.S. stand down and stop these attacks there may be a bloody civil war.
Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought US, Iraqi forces in Baghdad and Basra on Tuesday.
By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Baghdad
The Mahdi Army's seven-month-long cease-fire appears to have come undone.
Rockets fired from the capital's Shiite district of Sadr City slammed into the Green Zone Tuesday, the second time in three days, and firefights erupted around Baghdad pitting government and US forces against the militia allied to the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
At the same time, the oil-export city of Basra became a battleground Tuesday as Iraqi forces, backed by US air power, launched a major crackdown on the Mahdi Army elements. British and US forces were guarding the border with Iran to intercept incoming weapons or fighters, according to a senior security official in Basra.
The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City. This same man, when interviewed in January, had stated that he was abiding by the cease-fire and that he was keeping busy running his cellular phone store.
Sadr City residents say they saw fighting Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in several parts of the district. One eyewitness, in the adjacent neighborhood of Baghdad Jadida, who wished to remain anonymous, said he saw a heavy militia presence on the streets, with two fighters planting roadside bombs on a main thoroughfare.
Lt. Col. Steve Stover of the Baghdad-based 4th Infantry Division said that in the span of 12 hours Tuesday 16 rockets were fired at the Green Zone and nine rockets and 18 mortar rounds fell on US bases and combat outposts on the east side of Baghdad. A mortar round hit a US patrol in the northern Adhamiyah district, killing one US soldier. A roadside bomb set a US Humvee on fire in Sadr City but all soldiers inside survived. He said clashes broke out between American forces and militiamen when they attacked several government checkpoints in the district and that some of these posts are now manned by both US and Iraqi forces.
Almost exactly four years ago, American forces and Mr. Sadr's loyalists clashed on the streets of Baghdad's Sadr City and the holy city of Najaf shortly after the US shuttered his newspaper for allegedly inciting violence. That round of fighting lasted several months and at one point the Americans were aiming to arrest Sadr, a cleric whose religious credentials come from his father who was widely influential and loved.
The fighting burnished Sadr's standing among fellow Shiites wary of the US occupation. Over the years, the US has repeatedly accused elements within the Sadrist movement of having ties with Iran and even Lebanon's Hizbullah.
After rockets hit the Green Zone Sunday, US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus said the weapons had been provided by Iran.
On Tuesday, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, spokesman for US-led multinational forces in Iraq, blamed the elite Quds units of Iran's Revolutionary Guards for supplying the 22 107-mm and 122-mm rockets that hit the heavily fortified area of Baghdad that is home to the US Embassy.
"We believe the violence is being instigated by members of special groups that are beholden to the Iranian Quds Force and not Sadr.... Although we are concerned, we know that very few Iraqis want a return to the violence they experienced before the surge," he says.
Admiral Smith says US and Iraqi forces were facing two distinct enemies in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Iranian-trained and supplied special groups. But he adds, "AQI is still Iraq's No. 1 enemy."
There is growing concern, however, that Iran could respond to such US accusations. "This is pretty serious, and if the Iranians do not back down rapidly this will escalate," says Martin Navias, an analyst at Britain's Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London. "The US has a number of problems with Iran, mainly the nuclear program and its behavior in Iraq. There are many people in the Bush administration who want to hit Iran."
While Iraqi troops fought with Shiite militants in Basra Tuesday, a contingent of Coalition troops, including British and US forces, mobilized at Basra's border with Iran to prevent militiamen from escaping or smuggling in ammunition and weapons, according to a senior security source in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his remarks.
The US military refused to comment on this, citing "security reasons" during ongoing operations, while another spokesman, Col. Bill Buckner, said the Basra operation was Iraqi-led and that the US was providing "limited assistance" mainly in "intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and ... support aircraft."
The US military has regularly accused Iran of smuggling weapons into Iraq over this border, particularly armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFP) that have been blamed for the deaths of many US soldiers in Iraq.
"This is a major operation aimed at outlaws and removing all heavy weapons and explosives from the hands of militias inside the city. It has now escalated into fighting between the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army because they are resisting," the security official said by phone from Basra, a few hours after the start of the offensive dubbed "The Knights' Assault."
The Basra-based official said that fighting is now centered in Mahdi Army strongholds in the neighborhoods of Tamimiyah, Hayaniyah, and Five Miles, and that there was also fighting in the neighboring provinces of Nasiriyah and Maysan.
A curfew has also been imposed in Nasiriyah and other southern cities, such as Samawa and Kut, the scene of clashes involving the Mahdi Army over the past two weeks.
One Basra resident reached by phone said he was holed up at his office at the local branch of the ministry of trade, and described the sound of explosions and gunfire as "terrifying."
Two Iraqi Army battalions and five battalions of the National Police's quick-reaction force were dispatched to Basra, where an entire Army division is already stationed.
"The lawlessness is going on under religious or political cover along with oil, weapons, and drug smuggling. These outlaws found support from inside government institutions either willingly or by coercion ... turning Basra into a place where no citizen can feel secure for his life and property," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a statement read on state television, which reported that Mr. Maliki along with the ministers of defense and interior were all in Basra to oversee the operation.
The reaction from Sadr's camp was swift. At a press conference in the holy city of Najaf, three of the cleric's top lieutenants condemned the government offensive and accused Maliki, a Shiite, of carrying out a US agenda. They also threatened a nationwide campaign of protests and civil disobedience if US and Iraqi forces continued to fight the Mahdi Army.
Smith, the military spokesman, said the US would not stop this campaign if it remained peaceful.
One of the movement's leaders, Liwa Smaisim, described as "preposterous" US claims that it was only targeting splinter elements of the Mahdi Army.
Hazem al-Aaraji, another leader usually based in Baghdad, said the current fighting was a continuation of a campaign by the movement's Shiite rivals in the Iraqi government to finish it off – a drive it began last fall in southern Iraq.
Sadr's influence was felt throughout Baghdad Tuesday, highlighting the risk that the fight in Basra may spread to the capital, home to a large segment of his supporters. On Tuesday, witnesses reported that gun battles broke out in the capital's Sadr City district between the militia and rivals from the Badr Organization, which is part of Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition.
The offices of one of the branches of Maliki’s Dawa Party was torched in Sadr City, according to the US military.
On Monday evening, pickup trucks filled with chanting Mahdi militiamen, within sight of Iraqi forces, were forcing shopkeepers in many parts of Baghdad's west side to close in protest of US and Iraq Army raids.
On Tuesday, all shops in the Mahdi Army stronghold neighborhoods – Bayiaa, Iskan, Shuala, and Washash – were shuttered. Leaflets saying "No, no to America" were plastered on each storefront. Anti-American banners hung right next to Iraqi government checkpoints.
Several people interviewed in the Amel neighborhood said they were forced by militiamen to return home when they tried to go to work this morning. "This is anarchy," says Ali al-Yasseri.
• Awadh al-Taiee in Baghdad and a Najaf-based Iraqi journalist contributed reporting.
© 2008 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought US, Iraqi forces in Baghdad and Basra on Tuesday.
By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Baghdad
The Mahdi Army's seven-month-long cease-fire appears to have come undone.
Rockets fired from the capital's Shiite district of Sadr City slammed into the Green Zone Tuesday, the second time in three days, and firefights erupted around Baghdad pitting government and US forces against the militia allied to the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
At the same time, the oil-export city of Basra became a battleground Tuesday as Iraqi forces, backed by US air power, launched a major crackdown on the Mahdi Army elements. British and US forces were guarding the border with Iran to intercept incoming weapons or fighters, according to a senior security official in Basra.
The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City. This same man, when interviewed in January, had stated that he was abiding by the cease-fire and that he was keeping busy running his cellular phone store.
Sadr City residents say they saw fighting Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in several parts of the district. One eyewitness, in the adjacent neighborhood of Baghdad Jadida, who wished to remain anonymous, said he saw a heavy militia presence on the streets, with two fighters planting roadside bombs on a main thoroughfare.
Lt. Col. Steve Stover of the Baghdad-based 4th Infantry Division said that in the span of 12 hours Tuesday 16 rockets were fired at the Green Zone and nine rockets and 18 mortar rounds fell on US bases and combat outposts on the east side of Baghdad. A mortar round hit a US patrol in the northern Adhamiyah district, killing one US soldier. A roadside bomb set a US Humvee on fire in Sadr City but all soldiers inside survived. He said clashes broke out between American forces and militiamen when they attacked several government checkpoints in the district and that some of these posts are now manned by both US and Iraqi forces.
Almost exactly four years ago, American forces and Mr. Sadr's loyalists clashed on the streets of Baghdad's Sadr City and the holy city of Najaf shortly after the US shuttered his newspaper for allegedly inciting violence. That round of fighting lasted several months and at one point the Americans were aiming to arrest Sadr, a cleric whose religious credentials come from his father who was widely influential and loved.
The fighting burnished Sadr's standing among fellow Shiites wary of the US occupation. Over the years, the US has repeatedly accused elements within the Sadrist movement of having ties with Iran and even Lebanon's Hizbullah.
After rockets hit the Green Zone Sunday, US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus said the weapons had been provided by Iran.
On Tuesday, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, spokesman for US-led multinational forces in Iraq, blamed the elite Quds units of Iran's Revolutionary Guards for supplying the 22 107-mm and 122-mm rockets that hit the heavily fortified area of Baghdad that is home to the US Embassy.
"We believe the violence is being instigated by members of special groups that are beholden to the Iranian Quds Force and not Sadr.... Although we are concerned, we know that very few Iraqis want a return to the violence they experienced before the surge," he says.
Admiral Smith says US and Iraqi forces were facing two distinct enemies in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Iranian-trained and supplied special groups. But he adds, "AQI is still Iraq's No. 1 enemy."
There is growing concern, however, that Iran could respond to such US accusations. "This is pretty serious, and if the Iranians do not back down rapidly this will escalate," says Martin Navias, an analyst at Britain's Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London. "The US has a number of problems with Iran, mainly the nuclear program and its behavior in Iraq. There are many people in the Bush administration who want to hit Iran."
While Iraqi troops fought with Shiite militants in Basra Tuesday, a contingent of Coalition troops, including British and US forces, mobilized at Basra's border with Iran to prevent militiamen from escaping or smuggling in ammunition and weapons, according to a senior security source in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his remarks.
The US military refused to comment on this, citing "security reasons" during ongoing operations, while another spokesman, Col. Bill Buckner, said the Basra operation was Iraqi-led and that the US was providing "limited assistance" mainly in "intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and ... support aircraft."
The US military has regularly accused Iran of smuggling weapons into Iraq over this border, particularly armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFP) that have been blamed for the deaths of many US soldiers in Iraq.
"This is a major operation aimed at outlaws and removing all heavy weapons and explosives from the hands of militias inside the city. It has now escalated into fighting between the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army because they are resisting," the security official said by phone from Basra, a few hours after the start of the offensive dubbed "The Knights' Assault."
The Basra-based official said that fighting is now centered in Mahdi Army strongholds in the neighborhoods of Tamimiyah, Hayaniyah, and Five Miles, and that there was also fighting in the neighboring provinces of Nasiriyah and Maysan.
A curfew has also been imposed in Nasiriyah and other southern cities, such as Samawa and Kut, the scene of clashes involving the Mahdi Army over the past two weeks.
One Basra resident reached by phone said he was holed up at his office at the local branch of the ministry of trade, and described the sound of explosions and gunfire as "terrifying."
Two Iraqi Army battalions and five battalions of the National Police's quick-reaction force were dispatched to Basra, where an entire Army division is already stationed.
"The lawlessness is going on under religious or political cover along with oil, weapons, and drug smuggling. These outlaws found support from inside government institutions either willingly or by coercion ... turning Basra into a place where no citizen can feel secure for his life and property," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a statement read on state television, which reported that Mr. Maliki along with the ministers of defense and interior were all in Basra to oversee the operation.
The reaction from Sadr's camp was swift. At a press conference in the holy city of Najaf, three of the cleric's top lieutenants condemned the government offensive and accused Maliki, a Shiite, of carrying out a US agenda. They also threatened a nationwide campaign of protests and civil disobedience if US and Iraqi forces continued to fight the Mahdi Army.
Smith, the military spokesman, said the US would not stop this campaign if it remained peaceful.
One of the movement's leaders, Liwa Smaisim, described as "preposterous" US claims that it was only targeting splinter elements of the Mahdi Army.
Hazem al-Aaraji, another leader usually based in Baghdad, said the current fighting was a continuation of a campaign by the movement's Shiite rivals in the Iraqi government to finish it off – a drive it began last fall in southern Iraq.
Sadr's influence was felt throughout Baghdad Tuesday, highlighting the risk that the fight in Basra may spread to the capital, home to a large segment of his supporters. On Tuesday, witnesses reported that gun battles broke out in the capital's Sadr City district between the militia and rivals from the Badr Organization, which is part of Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition.
The offices of one of the branches of Maliki’s Dawa Party was torched in Sadr City, according to the US military.
On Monday evening, pickup trucks filled with chanting Mahdi militiamen, within sight of Iraqi forces, were forcing shopkeepers in many parts of Baghdad's west side to close in protest of US and Iraq Army raids.
On Tuesday, all shops in the Mahdi Army stronghold neighborhoods – Bayiaa, Iskan, Shuala, and Washash – were shuttered. Leaflets saying "No, no to America" were plastered on each storefront. Anti-American banners hung right next to Iraqi government checkpoints.
Several people interviewed in the Amel neighborhood said they were forced by militiamen to return home when they tried to go to work this morning. "This is anarchy," says Ali al-Yasseri.
• Awadh al-Taiee in Baghdad and a Najaf-based Iraqi journalist contributed reporting.
© 2008 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire with a Deadly Purge
To a considerable extent the decrease in violence in Iraq has little to do with the surge and much more to deal with changed tactics by both sides. The anti-U.S. Sunnis have been paid by the U.S. to deal with Al Qaeda and Sadr has decided to consolidate his power while declaring a ceasefire against the U.S. The U.S. has in effect helped him destroy some rebels against Sadr's leadership. These are allies of convenience both basically anti-U.S. and if conditions change they will once again turn against the occupiers. There are also indications that at the grassroots level many want the "freeze" to end.
It is interesting how U.S. attitudes can reverse direction in the blink of an eye. Al Sadr has all of a sudden become "honorable" etc. and is flattered simply because he is pursuing policies that the U.S. approves. He is just as radical and brutal as ever but that means nothing. Stand by a month from now he make be back in his original media role as a big threat a radical, etc. etc.
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire With a Deadly Purge
By Amit R. PaleyWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, February 21, 2008; A10
BAGHDAD -- The Mahdi Army fighters recalled dragging the 25-year-old man into a dark house where, while verses were chanted from the Koran, he was hanged from a hook in the ceiling.
The execution, carried out last month by Iraq's largest Shiite militia, would have been unexceptional but for one fact: The victim was one of its own.
The man, a Mahdi Army commander whose nom de guerre was Hamza, had killed and kidnapped scores of people despite what was then a five-month-old order to militia members to lay down their weapons, group leaders said. So after Hamza confessed to his crimes during repeated interrogations, a three-page death sentence was issued by the office of the militia's leader, anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, they said.
"We were ordered to eliminate him and we did," said Mohammed Ali, 24, a commander of the militia in the Sholeh neighborhood who took part in the operation and described how it took place. "This is how we have been cleaning the Mahdi Army."
Hundreds of Mahdi Army members have been similarly executed, jailed or excommunicated by the militia since the freeze was ordered by Sadr in late August, part of a nationwide reorganization that has dramatically altered the group's public image in Iraq and has been a crucial reason for the recent downturn in violence, according to senior militia leaders and U.S. officials.
The purge has boosted Sadr's reputation -- particularly among American commanders who once considered him an enemy but now refer to him respectfully -- while also helping Sadr exert more control over his sprawling irregular army. At the same time, members say, the freeze has made the Sadrist movement more vulnerable to attacks and repression by rival Shiite groups.
Sadr is expected to announce by Saturday whether the freeze will be extended, his aides said. But interviews with more than a dozen leaders of the Sadrist movement suggest that whether or not it is continued, the freeze has already transformed the militia and its place in Iraqi society.
"The freeze brought many secrets to the surface," said Ahmed Abdul Hussein, 33, a Mahdi Army leader from Sadr City, a vast Shiite district of Baghdad. "Now we know who is good and who is bad. Now everyone thinks of the Mahdi Army in a new light. I think everything will be different now."
Last summer, Mahdi Army members were widely viewed as having carried out some of the most vicious violence against Sunnis, pushing the country to the brink of civil war. The militia clashed often with U.S. and British forces.
The militia's public image reached its nadir when more than 50 people were killed in the holy city of Karbala because of fierce fighting between the Mahdi Army and forces loyal to its chief Shiite political rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The next day, on Aug. 29, Sadr declared a six-month suspension of the militia's operations.
Sadr's office said at the time that the aim of the freeze was to push out elements not under the cleric's control.
"The freeze has helped us to distinguish and push out the bad figures," said Salah al-Obaidi, a top Sadr aide, who added that the militia now has more than 100,000 followers.
Abu Jaffar, 31, a day laborer from the Shaab area of Baghdad, was one of those purged, according to current Mahdi Army members.
Shortly after the freeze was declared, Abu Jaffar said in a telephone interview, he received a summons from a Mahdi Army unit known as the Golden Battalion, often described as an intelligence service that maintains internal discipline. Abu Jaffar said the battalion members blamed him for allowing the 100 or so men under his command to commit crimes against civilians.
"They came to me and said, 'Why didn't you know about the mistakes of your people when you are the commander of this company?' " said Abu Jaffar, who, like others interviewed for this article, would not give his full name for fear that it would lead to his arrest by U.S. or Iraqi forces. "They said, 'You are not capable to command.' And because of that I was fired."
Abu Jaffar said he learned that his men had kidnapped and fought with people, though he declined to give details and said he had no knowledge of their actions. Other Mahdi Army leaders, however, said that the company was also linked to killings of civilians and that Abu Jaffar was aware they were taking place.
"The Mahdi Army was strict with me because it is controlled by a strict law," Abu Jaffar said. "It doesn't permit any mistakes."
Signs of the purge dot the sewer-filled streets of Sadr City, which the Mahdi Army controls.
During some Friday afternoon prayers, the names of those expelled from the militia are read aloud. Many of those identified flee their neighborhoods and sometimes the country to avoid punishment.
Some walls bear posters announcing who has been purged and why, though these are often quickly ripped down by friends and family members of the accused.
One flier, addressed to "All Mahdi Army Members" from the militia's Baghdad Battalion, reported the firing of one member because of his "immoral actions" and "use of the blessed name of the army to loot, kidnap and bargain."
Elegant calligraphy at the top of the flier read: "Lions in the day and priests in the night."
In many Sadrist strongholds, the militia's focus has shifted from militancy to providing services to residents, as the Mahdi Army continues recasting itself as a political and social force.
On a recent afternoon at the main Sadr office in Sadr City, a woman dressed in a black head-to-toe abaya arrived and began explaining that her husband was beating her.
"I have problems!" wailed the woman, who gave her name as Um Mohammed. "I need the help of the Sadr office."
After about 15 minutes, an official scribbled a note requesting that her husband come to the office for mediation.
"We solve hundreds of problems like this," said the official, Abu Haider. "This is what the Mahdi Army is doing now."
But many residents grumble that robberies, car thefts and other crimes in some parts of the city have gone up since the militia was ordered to lay down its weapons. And in southern Iraq, Sadrists have complained that they have been victimized by rival forces, leading many to demand that the freeze be lifted.
Amar Jabar Saadoon, 35, a Karbala resident who fled to Sadr City, said security forces linked to the armed wing of the Supreme Council destroyed his house and threatened his family.
"We pray to God that the freeze will end soon," he said.
U.S. military commanders, who have fought some of their bloodiest battles of the war against the militia, now praise Sadr and say the Mahdi Army is no longer participating in violence. Anyone disobeying the freeze, they say, cannot be a member in good standing of the militia. The military refers to splinter elements as "special groups" and links them primarily to Iran.
U.S. officials and some Mahdi Army members view the freeze as Sadr's attempt to cleanse Iranian elements from the militia.
"They said, 'Look, we have two foreign influences that are battling for control of Iraq: Iran and the American occupation,' " said a senior U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under diplomatic ground rules. " 'And of the two, we need to be more concerned with Iran. We can deal with the U.S. politically and they are going to withdraw soon anyways.' "
Although American officials say they do not have direct contact with Sadr, they convey messages to him through intermediaries and have publicly flattered him.
The commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond, whose soldiers were killed in fighting with the Mahdi Army during his first tour in Iraq, now refers to the militia's leader as "the honorable Moqtada al-Sadr."
"His decision to order the freeze has been a most honorable decision," Hammond said.
Sunni leaders, who as recently as last year were accusing Mahdi Army members of sectarian cleansing, said the freeze has ended most of the horrific violence by the militia. "We are not afraid of them now," Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni and one of the country's two vice presidents, said in an interview. "Now we don't have eye-catching sectarian strife."
But there are still areas where men professing to be Mahdi Army members continue to engage in sectarian violence.
In December, a dozen Mahdi Army fighters on motorcycles stormed into an ice factory in the capital's Tobji neighborhood and kidnapped its Sunni owner, Maath Salman Feneer, a 30-year-old with three children, according to his family.
When the family complained to the Sadr office in Tobji, officials there said the attack had been carried out by Mahdi Army fighters in the neighboring Hurriyah area, according to Feneer's cousin, Ahmed Abdullah. He said the office in Tobji told the kidnappers to return Feneer or a complaint would be made to the main Sadr office in Najaf.
In discussions with the family about a ransom, the kidnappers disregarded the threat and used an expletive to refer to Sadr. "We don't take orders from anyone," they said, Abdullah recalled. His cousin's bullet-riddled body was found a few days later.
"I don't trust anyone in the Mahdi Army," said Abdullah, 37, a plumbing store owner. "They are all killers."
At the Sadr office in Sadr City, Salman al-Fareji, the local head of the organization, disagreed. "The main reason for the freeze is to save the Iraqi blood," he said. "This is our goal. This is our brightest hope."
It is interesting how U.S. attitudes can reverse direction in the blink of an eye. Al Sadr has all of a sudden become "honorable" etc. and is flattered simply because he is pursuing policies that the U.S. approves. He is just as radical and brutal as ever but that means nothing. Stand by a month from now he make be back in his original media role as a big threat a radical, etc. etc.
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire With a Deadly Purge
By Amit R. PaleyWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, February 21, 2008; A10
BAGHDAD -- The Mahdi Army fighters recalled dragging the 25-year-old man into a dark house where, while verses were chanted from the Koran, he was hanged from a hook in the ceiling.
The execution, carried out last month by Iraq's largest Shiite militia, would have been unexceptional but for one fact: The victim was one of its own.
The man, a Mahdi Army commander whose nom de guerre was Hamza, had killed and kidnapped scores of people despite what was then a five-month-old order to militia members to lay down their weapons, group leaders said. So after Hamza confessed to his crimes during repeated interrogations, a three-page death sentence was issued by the office of the militia's leader, anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, they said.
"We were ordered to eliminate him and we did," said Mohammed Ali, 24, a commander of the militia in the Sholeh neighborhood who took part in the operation and described how it took place. "This is how we have been cleaning the Mahdi Army."
Hundreds of Mahdi Army members have been similarly executed, jailed or excommunicated by the militia since the freeze was ordered by Sadr in late August, part of a nationwide reorganization that has dramatically altered the group's public image in Iraq and has been a crucial reason for the recent downturn in violence, according to senior militia leaders and U.S. officials.
The purge has boosted Sadr's reputation -- particularly among American commanders who once considered him an enemy but now refer to him respectfully -- while also helping Sadr exert more control over his sprawling irregular army. At the same time, members say, the freeze has made the Sadrist movement more vulnerable to attacks and repression by rival Shiite groups.
Sadr is expected to announce by Saturday whether the freeze will be extended, his aides said. But interviews with more than a dozen leaders of the Sadrist movement suggest that whether or not it is continued, the freeze has already transformed the militia and its place in Iraqi society.
"The freeze brought many secrets to the surface," said Ahmed Abdul Hussein, 33, a Mahdi Army leader from Sadr City, a vast Shiite district of Baghdad. "Now we know who is good and who is bad. Now everyone thinks of the Mahdi Army in a new light. I think everything will be different now."
Last summer, Mahdi Army members were widely viewed as having carried out some of the most vicious violence against Sunnis, pushing the country to the brink of civil war. The militia clashed often with U.S. and British forces.
The militia's public image reached its nadir when more than 50 people were killed in the holy city of Karbala because of fierce fighting between the Mahdi Army and forces loyal to its chief Shiite political rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The next day, on Aug. 29, Sadr declared a six-month suspension of the militia's operations.
Sadr's office said at the time that the aim of the freeze was to push out elements not under the cleric's control.
"The freeze has helped us to distinguish and push out the bad figures," said Salah al-Obaidi, a top Sadr aide, who added that the militia now has more than 100,000 followers.
Abu Jaffar, 31, a day laborer from the Shaab area of Baghdad, was one of those purged, according to current Mahdi Army members.
Shortly after the freeze was declared, Abu Jaffar said in a telephone interview, he received a summons from a Mahdi Army unit known as the Golden Battalion, often described as an intelligence service that maintains internal discipline. Abu Jaffar said the battalion members blamed him for allowing the 100 or so men under his command to commit crimes against civilians.
"They came to me and said, 'Why didn't you know about the mistakes of your people when you are the commander of this company?' " said Abu Jaffar, who, like others interviewed for this article, would not give his full name for fear that it would lead to his arrest by U.S. or Iraqi forces. "They said, 'You are not capable to command.' And because of that I was fired."
Abu Jaffar said he learned that his men had kidnapped and fought with people, though he declined to give details and said he had no knowledge of their actions. Other Mahdi Army leaders, however, said that the company was also linked to killings of civilians and that Abu Jaffar was aware they were taking place.
"The Mahdi Army was strict with me because it is controlled by a strict law," Abu Jaffar said. "It doesn't permit any mistakes."
Signs of the purge dot the sewer-filled streets of Sadr City, which the Mahdi Army controls.
During some Friday afternoon prayers, the names of those expelled from the militia are read aloud. Many of those identified flee their neighborhoods and sometimes the country to avoid punishment.
Some walls bear posters announcing who has been purged and why, though these are often quickly ripped down by friends and family members of the accused.
One flier, addressed to "All Mahdi Army Members" from the militia's Baghdad Battalion, reported the firing of one member because of his "immoral actions" and "use of the blessed name of the army to loot, kidnap and bargain."
Elegant calligraphy at the top of the flier read: "Lions in the day and priests in the night."
In many Sadrist strongholds, the militia's focus has shifted from militancy to providing services to residents, as the Mahdi Army continues recasting itself as a political and social force.
On a recent afternoon at the main Sadr office in Sadr City, a woman dressed in a black head-to-toe abaya arrived and began explaining that her husband was beating her.
"I have problems!" wailed the woman, who gave her name as Um Mohammed. "I need the help of the Sadr office."
After about 15 minutes, an official scribbled a note requesting that her husband come to the office for mediation.
"We solve hundreds of problems like this," said the official, Abu Haider. "This is what the Mahdi Army is doing now."
But many residents grumble that robberies, car thefts and other crimes in some parts of the city have gone up since the militia was ordered to lay down its weapons. And in southern Iraq, Sadrists have complained that they have been victimized by rival forces, leading many to demand that the freeze be lifted.
Amar Jabar Saadoon, 35, a Karbala resident who fled to Sadr City, said security forces linked to the armed wing of the Supreme Council destroyed his house and threatened his family.
"We pray to God that the freeze will end soon," he said.
U.S. military commanders, who have fought some of their bloodiest battles of the war against the militia, now praise Sadr and say the Mahdi Army is no longer participating in violence. Anyone disobeying the freeze, they say, cannot be a member in good standing of the militia. The military refers to splinter elements as "special groups" and links them primarily to Iran.
U.S. officials and some Mahdi Army members view the freeze as Sadr's attempt to cleanse Iranian elements from the militia.
"They said, 'Look, we have two foreign influences that are battling for control of Iraq: Iran and the American occupation,' " said a senior U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under diplomatic ground rules. " 'And of the two, we need to be more concerned with Iran. We can deal with the U.S. politically and they are going to withdraw soon anyways.' "
Although American officials say they do not have direct contact with Sadr, they convey messages to him through intermediaries and have publicly flattered him.
The commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond, whose soldiers were killed in fighting with the Mahdi Army during his first tour in Iraq, now refers to the militia's leader as "the honorable Moqtada al-Sadr."
"His decision to order the freeze has been a most honorable decision," Hammond said.
Sunni leaders, who as recently as last year were accusing Mahdi Army members of sectarian cleansing, said the freeze has ended most of the horrific violence by the militia. "We are not afraid of them now," Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni and one of the country's two vice presidents, said in an interview. "Now we don't have eye-catching sectarian strife."
But there are still areas where men professing to be Mahdi Army members continue to engage in sectarian violence.
In December, a dozen Mahdi Army fighters on motorcycles stormed into an ice factory in the capital's Tobji neighborhood and kidnapped its Sunni owner, Maath Salman Feneer, a 30-year-old with three children, according to his family.
When the family complained to the Sadr office in Tobji, officials there said the attack had been carried out by Mahdi Army fighters in the neighboring Hurriyah area, according to Feneer's cousin, Ahmed Abdullah. He said the office in Tobji told the kidnappers to return Feneer or a complaint would be made to the main Sadr office in Najaf.
In discussions with the family about a ransom, the kidnappers disregarded the threat and used an expletive to refer to Sadr. "We don't take orders from anyone," they said, Abdullah recalled. His cousin's bullet-riddled body was found a few days later.
"I don't trust anyone in the Mahdi Army," said Abdullah, 37, a plumbing store owner. "They are all killers."
At the Sadr office in Sadr City, Salman al-Fareji, the local head of the organization, disagreed. "The main reason for the freeze is to save the Iraqi blood," he said. "This is our goal. This is our brightest hope."
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Does Maliki face an internal crisis?
As this article points out al-Sadr's support is crucial to the Maliki government yet Maliki has now said he will not protect al-Sadr's militia. Sadr has 30 members of the legislature supporting him and even six cabinet ministers. Maliki has agreed to take up the issue of a timetable for US withdrawal and Iraqi takeover of security but a timetable for withdrawal is just what the US refuses absolutely to give. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few days. If the people recently arrested were a renegade group this would explain Sadr's lack of response and peace overtures to Maliki.
January 21st, 2007 2:22 pm
25 U.S. troops killed in Iraq Saturday
By Bushra Juhi / Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military on Sunday reported six more American troops killed in fighting the day before, raising the toll to 25 in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Iraq in two years.
Four U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed Saturday during combat in Anbar, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, the military said. A roadside bomb also struck a security patrol northeast of Baghdad, killing one soldier.
Saturday's carnage also included 12 soldiers killed in a Blackhawk helicopter crash northeast of Baghdad, five killed in a militant attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala and two others slain elsewhere in roadside bombings.
The parliamentary bloc loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, ended its nearly two-month political boycott after reaching a compromise in which a parliamentary committee would take up the group's demands for a timetable for Iraqi forces to take over security and the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
"We announce our return to parliament, we will attend today's session, and the ministers will resume their work to serve the people," Bahaa al-Araji, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said during a news conference attended by Sunni parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. Al-Sadr also has six loyalist ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.
The decision appeared to be a way for both sides to save face while allowing al-Sadr's bloc, whose support is crucial to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to regain legislative influence ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.
"We are on the verge of a new era. We will be victorious and we will achieve the major change through unity and fraternity and be our army's regain of its strength, taking responsibility and fighting terrorism," al-Maliki said separately during a ceremony for military academy students.
The first reinforcements of U.S. troops have already started to flow into the region. A brigade of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, part of the buildup, has arrived in Baghdad and its 3,200 soldiers will be ready to join the fresh drive to quell sectarian violence in the capital by the first of the month, the American military said Sunday.
But the deadly toll among U.S. forces comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to President Bush's decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict.
The U.S. military statement about the Karbala attack said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the provincial headquarters building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually means mortars or rockets.
"A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura commemorations," said a statement from Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy commander of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
Thousands of Shiite pilgrims are flocking to the city to mark the 10-day Ashoura festival commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred saints, Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Provincial Gov. Akeel al-Khazaali, who was not at the security meeting, said the gunmen, dressed in military uniforms, were able to drive their black SUVs — similar to those driven by foreign dignitaries — through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, 50 miles south of Baghdad, because police assumed it was a diplomatic 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, then fled," the governor said, adding that Iraqi troops later found one of the SUVs with three bodies of uniformed men.
The U.S. military, which has said that five U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded while repelling the attack, denied that two U.S. troops were kidnapped.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, said all American forces "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 to the media, said the gunmen drove to Babil province after the attack. The Babil police commander confirmed that they entered the region before disappearing.
Although Babil province is predominantly Shiite, some parts of it, just south of Baghdad, are Sunni and insurgents are known to be active there.
Saturday was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in two years. It was also the third-highest of any single day since the war began in March 2003, eclipsed only by 37 U.S. deaths on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion. U.S. authorities also announced two American combat deaths from Friday.
In violence reported by police on Sunday:
• A bomb left in a bag struck a small bus carrying people to work in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing seven passengers and wounding 15.
• A parked car bomb also exploded outside a restaurant in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, according to police.
• A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one woman and wounded five other people in the northern city of Mosul.
January 21st, 2007 2:22 pm
25 U.S. troops killed in Iraq Saturday
By Bushra Juhi / Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military on Sunday reported six more American troops killed in fighting the day before, raising the toll to 25 in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Iraq in two years.
Four U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed Saturday during combat in Anbar, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, the military said. A roadside bomb also struck a security patrol northeast of Baghdad, killing one soldier.
Saturday's carnage also included 12 soldiers killed in a Blackhawk helicopter crash northeast of Baghdad, five killed in a militant attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala and two others slain elsewhere in roadside bombings.
The parliamentary bloc loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, ended its nearly two-month political boycott after reaching a compromise in which a parliamentary committee would take up the group's demands for a timetable for Iraqi forces to take over security and the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
"We announce our return to parliament, we will attend today's session, and the ministers will resume their work to serve the people," Bahaa al-Araji, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said during a news conference attended by Sunni parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. Al-Sadr also has six loyalist ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.
The decision appeared to be a way for both sides to save face while allowing al-Sadr's bloc, whose support is crucial to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to regain legislative influence ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.
"We are on the verge of a new era. We will be victorious and we will achieve the major change through unity and fraternity and be our army's regain of its strength, taking responsibility and fighting terrorism," al-Maliki said separately during a ceremony for military academy students.
The first reinforcements of U.S. troops have already started to flow into the region. A brigade of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, part of the buildup, has arrived in Baghdad and its 3,200 soldiers will be ready to join the fresh drive to quell sectarian violence in the capital by the first of the month, the American military said Sunday.
But the deadly toll among U.S. forces comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to President Bush's decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict.
The U.S. military statement about the Karbala attack said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the provincial headquarters building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually means mortars or rockets.
"A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura commemorations," said a statement from Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy commander of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
Thousands of Shiite pilgrims are flocking to the city to mark the 10-day Ashoura festival commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred saints, Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Provincial Gov. Akeel al-Khazaali, who was not at the security meeting, said the gunmen, dressed in military uniforms, were able to drive their black SUVs — similar to those driven by foreign dignitaries — through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, 50 miles south of Baghdad, because police assumed it was a diplomatic 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, then fled," the governor said, adding that Iraqi troops later found one of the SUVs with three bodies of uniformed men.
The U.S. military, which has said that five U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded while repelling the attack, denied that two U.S. troops were kidnapped.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, said all American forces "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 to the media, said the gunmen drove to Babil province after the attack. The Babil police commander confirmed that they entered the region before disappearing.
Although Babil province is predominantly Shiite, some parts of it, just south of Baghdad, are Sunni and insurgents are known to be active there.
Saturday was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in two years. It was also the third-highest of any single day since the war began in March 2003, eclipsed only by 37 U.S. deaths on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion. U.S. authorities also announced two American combat deaths from Friday.
In violence reported by police on Sunday:
• A bomb left in a bag struck a small bus carrying people to work in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing seven passengers and wounding 15.
• A parked car bomb also exploded outside a restaurant in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, according to police.
• A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one woman and wounded five other people in the northern city of Mosul.
Maliki drops protection of Mahdi militia
The change in Maliki's position is not all that puzzling. The US is clearly intent on attacking the Mahdi army with or without Maliki's approval. They are not about to allow Maliki to shield al-Sadr's group any more. By agreeing to US demands it looks as if he is not relinquishing sovereignty. It appears he has just changed him mind because of US evidence. Highly unlikely. Reports about what US intelligence have found are often suspect and often leaked as part of the psychological warfare that is going on and the media seems to blithely ignore or perhaps it co-operates in many cases.
It will be interesting to see what the returned Sadrists will do within the government. I have seen one report that says that the aide of al Sadr who was arrested was a rebel against al-Sadr so that Sadr will not rush to protect him or even complain.
Iraqi leader drops protection of militia By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
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.
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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.
It will be interesting to see what the returned Sadrists will do within the government. I have seen one report that says that the aide of al Sadr who was arrested was a rebel against al-Sadr so that Sadr will not rush to protect him or even complain.
Iraqi leader drops protection of militia By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.
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