Nickdfresh
03-29-2008, 09:53 PM
March 30, 2008
Shiite Militias Cling to Swaths of Basra and Stage Raids
By JAMES GLANZ and MICHAEL KAMBER
BAGHDAD — Shiite militiamen in Basra openly controlled wide swaths of the city on Saturday and staged increasingly bold raids on Iraqi government forces sent five days ago to wrest control from the gunmen, witnesses said, as Iraqi political leaders grew increasingly critical of the stalled assault.
Witnesses in Basra said members of the most powerful militia in the city, the Mahdi Army, were setting up checkpoints and controlling traffic in many places ringing the central district controlled by some of the 30,000 Iraqi Army and police forces involved in the assault. Fighters were regularly attacking the government forces, then quickly retreating.
Senior members of several political parties said the operation, ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had been poorly planned. The growing discontent adds a new level of complication to the American-led effort to demonstrate that the Iraqi government had made strides toward being able to operate a functioning country and keep the peace without thousands of American troops.
Mr. Maliki has staked his reputation on the success of the Basra assault, fulfilling a longstanding American desire for him to boldly take on militias.
But as criticism of the assault has risen, it has brought into question another American benchmark of progress in Iraq: political reconciliation.
Security has suffered as well.
Since the Basra assault began Tuesday, violence has spread to Shiite districts of Baghdad and other places in Iraq where Shiite militiamen hold sway, raising fears that security gains often attributed to a yearlong American troop buildup could be at risk. Any widespread breakdown of a cease-fire called by Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who founded the Mahdi Army, could bring the country back to the sectarian violence that strained it in 2006 and 2007.
“We don’t have to rush to military solutions,” said Nadeem al-Jabiri, a Parliament member from the Fadhila Party, a strong rival of Mr. Sadr’s party that would have been expected to back the operation, at least on political grounds. Instead of solving the problems in Basra, Mr. Jabiri said, Mr. Maliki “escalated the situation.”
For the third straight day, the American military was reported to be conducting airstrikes in support of Iraqi troops in Basra. Iraqi police officials reported that an American bombing run had killed eight civilians.
The American military did not immediately acknowledge the report. But Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said that the reports were being investigated and that he had no further information.
Major Holloway did say that “coalition air power,” meaning American or British jets, dropped two more precision-guided bombs just after noon on Saturday on what was identified as “an enemy stronghold” in Basra. Shortly afterward, British artillery fired on a militia mortar team. The mortar was destroyed, Major Holloway said.
At a news briefing in Basra on Saturday, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi , conceded that the assault had not gone according to expectations. “We were surprised by a very strong resistance that made us change our plans,” he said.
In Baghdad, the American military was also drawn deeper into the violence generated by the Basra assault. The military issued a statement saying that American soldiers had killed nine Iraqis that it called terrorists in firefights around Sadr City, the Shiite slum that forms Mr. Sadr’s base of support. The statement said seven of the Iraqis were killed after they attacked an American unit, and two more when they were caught placing roadside bombs. Later Saturday, the military announced that two American soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Shiite-controlled eastern Baghdad.
Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said they would extend a strict and citywide curfew indefinitely, in an attempt to keep the streets clear.
Mr. Maliki’s forces may also have lost ground in the battle for public opinion when, in a well-publicized event in Sadr City, 40 men who said they were Iraqi police officers surrendered their weapons to Sadr officials, who symbolically gave the officers olive branches and Korans. The weapons were returned after the officers pledged not to use them against Mahdi Army members.
“These weapons are for defending the country but not for fighting your brothers,” said Sheik Salman al-Fraji, head of the Sadr office there.
Although a citywide curfew remained in effect in Baghdad, the booms of rockets or mortars were heard in the morning. It was not immediately clear who had fired them or where they landed, although the fortified Green Zone, the nerve center of American and Iraqi governmental operations here, has been a frequent target since the Basra operation began.
Clashes between militias and Iraqi government security forces continued elsewhere. There was intense fighting for a second day north of Basra in Dhi Qar Province and its capital, Nasiriya, where officials said the toll on Saturday was 28 killed and 59 wounded. There were running battles on a main bridge in Nasiriya, an Iraqi police officer said, and gunmen controlled the town of Shatra, about 20 miles north.
There also appeared to be a major operation under way around Baquba, north of Baghdad, where government tanks blocked streets in at least three neighborhoods as troops sought out members of the Mahdi Army.
The Turkish military said Saturday that it had killed 15 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday using long-range land weapons, Reuters reported.
In Basra, mortar shells rained down in the late afternoon on the area of the Presidential Palace and the Shatt al Arab hotel, where the assault has its operations center. Groups of 10 to 12 militia members set up a dense net of checkpoints throughout the northern and western parts of the city, carrying out raids on remaining areas in the city center still controlled by government forces.
The government set up an Army recruitment center in the center of Basra. But anyone heading in that direction was stopped by Mahdi Army members, who questioned whether they were “Hakim’s people,” loyalists of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose armed wing, the Badr Organization, is a prime rival of the Mahdi Army on the streets of Basra. Few people were seen in front of the recruitment center itself.
“Unfortunately we were expecting one thing but we saw something else,” said Ali Hussam, 48, a teacher, who said that after Saddam Hussein the people of Basra had hoped for peace. “But unfortunately with the presence of this new government and this democracy that was brought to us by the invader, it made us kill each other.”
“And the war is now between us,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam, Mudafer al-Husaini, Hosham Hussein and other Iraqi employees of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?ref=middleeast) in Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriya and Diyala Province.
Some of the the indications in the thread tittled are from a NPR report stating that Iraq Pres. Maleki was forced to flee his Basra palace due to heavy fire and that whole sections of the Iraqi Army and Police (the ones we've trained for fucking five years now :rolleyes:) are deserting wholesale in the face of militia counterattacks...
Shiite Militias Cling to Swaths of Basra and Stage Raids
By JAMES GLANZ and MICHAEL KAMBER
BAGHDAD — Shiite militiamen in Basra openly controlled wide swaths of the city on Saturday and staged increasingly bold raids on Iraqi government forces sent five days ago to wrest control from the gunmen, witnesses said, as Iraqi political leaders grew increasingly critical of the stalled assault.
Witnesses in Basra said members of the most powerful militia in the city, the Mahdi Army, were setting up checkpoints and controlling traffic in many places ringing the central district controlled by some of the 30,000 Iraqi Army and police forces involved in the assault. Fighters were regularly attacking the government forces, then quickly retreating.
Senior members of several political parties said the operation, ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had been poorly planned. The growing discontent adds a new level of complication to the American-led effort to demonstrate that the Iraqi government had made strides toward being able to operate a functioning country and keep the peace without thousands of American troops.
Mr. Maliki has staked his reputation on the success of the Basra assault, fulfilling a longstanding American desire for him to boldly take on militias.
But as criticism of the assault has risen, it has brought into question another American benchmark of progress in Iraq: political reconciliation.
Security has suffered as well.
Since the Basra assault began Tuesday, violence has spread to Shiite districts of Baghdad and other places in Iraq where Shiite militiamen hold sway, raising fears that security gains often attributed to a yearlong American troop buildup could be at risk. Any widespread breakdown of a cease-fire called by Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who founded the Mahdi Army, could bring the country back to the sectarian violence that strained it in 2006 and 2007.
“We don’t have to rush to military solutions,” said Nadeem al-Jabiri, a Parliament member from the Fadhila Party, a strong rival of Mr. Sadr’s party that would have been expected to back the operation, at least on political grounds. Instead of solving the problems in Basra, Mr. Jabiri said, Mr. Maliki “escalated the situation.”
For the third straight day, the American military was reported to be conducting airstrikes in support of Iraqi troops in Basra. Iraqi police officials reported that an American bombing run had killed eight civilians.
The American military did not immediately acknowledge the report. But Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said that the reports were being investigated and that he had no further information.
Major Holloway did say that “coalition air power,” meaning American or British jets, dropped two more precision-guided bombs just after noon on Saturday on what was identified as “an enemy stronghold” in Basra. Shortly afterward, British artillery fired on a militia mortar team. The mortar was destroyed, Major Holloway said.
At a news briefing in Basra on Saturday, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi , conceded that the assault had not gone according to expectations. “We were surprised by a very strong resistance that made us change our plans,” he said.
In Baghdad, the American military was also drawn deeper into the violence generated by the Basra assault. The military issued a statement saying that American soldiers had killed nine Iraqis that it called terrorists in firefights around Sadr City, the Shiite slum that forms Mr. Sadr’s base of support. The statement said seven of the Iraqis were killed after they attacked an American unit, and two more when they were caught placing roadside bombs. Later Saturday, the military announced that two American soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Shiite-controlled eastern Baghdad.
Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said they would extend a strict and citywide curfew indefinitely, in an attempt to keep the streets clear.
Mr. Maliki’s forces may also have lost ground in the battle for public opinion when, in a well-publicized event in Sadr City, 40 men who said they were Iraqi police officers surrendered their weapons to Sadr officials, who symbolically gave the officers olive branches and Korans. The weapons were returned after the officers pledged not to use them against Mahdi Army members.
“These weapons are for defending the country but not for fighting your brothers,” said Sheik Salman al-Fraji, head of the Sadr office there.
Although a citywide curfew remained in effect in Baghdad, the booms of rockets or mortars were heard in the morning. It was not immediately clear who had fired them or where they landed, although the fortified Green Zone, the nerve center of American and Iraqi governmental operations here, has been a frequent target since the Basra operation began.
Clashes between militias and Iraqi government security forces continued elsewhere. There was intense fighting for a second day north of Basra in Dhi Qar Province and its capital, Nasiriya, where officials said the toll on Saturday was 28 killed and 59 wounded. There were running battles on a main bridge in Nasiriya, an Iraqi police officer said, and gunmen controlled the town of Shatra, about 20 miles north.
There also appeared to be a major operation under way around Baquba, north of Baghdad, where government tanks blocked streets in at least three neighborhoods as troops sought out members of the Mahdi Army.
The Turkish military said Saturday that it had killed 15 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday using long-range land weapons, Reuters reported.
In Basra, mortar shells rained down in the late afternoon on the area of the Presidential Palace and the Shatt al Arab hotel, where the assault has its operations center. Groups of 10 to 12 militia members set up a dense net of checkpoints throughout the northern and western parts of the city, carrying out raids on remaining areas in the city center still controlled by government forces.
The government set up an Army recruitment center in the center of Basra. But anyone heading in that direction was stopped by Mahdi Army members, who questioned whether they were “Hakim’s people,” loyalists of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose armed wing, the Badr Organization, is a prime rival of the Mahdi Army on the streets of Basra. Few people were seen in front of the recruitment center itself.
“Unfortunately we were expecting one thing but we saw something else,” said Ali Hussam, 48, a teacher, who said that after Saddam Hussein the people of Basra had hoped for peace. “But unfortunately with the presence of this new government and this democracy that was brought to us by the invader, it made us kill each other.”
“And the war is now between us,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam, Mudafer al-Husaini, Hosham Hussein and other Iraqi employees of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?ref=middleeast) in Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriya and Diyala Province.
Some of the the indications in the thread tittled are from a NPR report stating that Iraq Pres. Maleki was forced to flee his Basra palace due to heavy fire and that whole sections of the Iraqi Army and Police (the ones we've trained for fucking five years now :rolleyes:) are deserting wholesale in the face of militia counterattacks...