Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: SINAN SALAHEDDIN
Date: 21 October 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq_Shops and government offices reopened and army units manned
checkpoints Saturday around a southern Iraqi city where gunmen loyal to an
anti-American Shiite cleric briefly seized control in a bold confrontation
with local security forces.
Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army held Amarah for several hours in an
embarrassingly strong showing against security forces largely controlled by
Iraq's other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade.
Twenty-five gunmen and police died in gunbattles before the Iraqi army moved
in to retake the city of 750,000 people at the head of Iraq's famous
marshlands where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers draw close together.
The fighting came as Sunni insurgents staged audacious military-style
parades in a pair of cities west of Baghdad, advertising their defiance of
U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
British forces who had turned over control of Amarah in August said they had
500 soldiers on standby Saturday if the government called for help. The day
before the Iraqi military had sent about 600 troops to retake the city.
Sunni and Shiite religious leaders met in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, this
week and issued a series of edicts forbidding violence between Iraq's two
Muslim sects _ an effort supported on Saturday by Iraq's main Sunni Arab
party.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said the edicts
signed Friday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca could pull the country back
from a potential civil war. He also called for a ceasefire between American
forces and insurgent groups during upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks
the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
"We praise this step and call upon all Iraqis and the government to respond
to this blessed event and support it," said al-Dulaimi, whose party holds 44
seats in the 275-member parliament and several positions in the struggling
Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Al-Dulaimi's endorsement was echoed by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who
issued a statement urging Iraqis to do "everything possible to stop the
killing of the innocent."
On Saturday, the situation in Amarah appeared relatively calm, and residents
began to emerge.
Haider Ali Abdullah, 35, said he wasted no time in reopening his tiny
restaurant after hearing that fighting had ended.
"We were terrified," Abdullah said by phone. "The last two days had a major
effect on our lives since we depend on this business to make a living."
Abdullah blamed both the local authorities and militiamen for allowing the
situation to deteriorate.
The Amarah showdown between the two virtual private armies highlighted the
potential for an all-out conflict between the factions, both with large
blocs in parliament that are important to the survival of al-Maliki's shaky
4-month-old government.
Amarah lies just 30 miles from the border with Iran, where the Shiite
theocracy is reputed to be funding, arming and training both factions.
With the death toll rising among U.S. forces in the country, a policy review
is under way among Bush administration political and military officials.
Polls ahead of congressional elections next month show shrinking support for
the war and leading Republicans have urged for changes in the
administration's approach to Iraq.
The U.S. combat death toll in October alone stood at 75 _ likely to be the
highest for any month in nearly two years. Friday casualties included a U.S.
soldier and a Salvadoran army captain whose vehicles were hit by explosive
devices in separate attacks south of Baghdad.
In other violence, clashes Friday between Shiite and Sunni tribes just south
of Baghdad killed four people, said Lt. Mohamed Al-Shemeri of the police
force in the city of Kut.
Two people were killed when a car bomb blew up near the Sarafiyah bridge
across the Tigris river in northern Baghdad, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq
said. The bomb apparently missed its intended target, an Iraqi police
patrol.
The bodies of four electric company workers kidnapped Friday from the
Hafriyah area, 25 miles south of Baghdad, were turned in to the morgue in
Kut, said morgue official Hadi Al-Atabi.
In Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, local groups rallied in
support of recent efforts to reconcile Shiite and Sunni groups sponsored by
the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Differences between the two sides deepened when parliament adopted a
Shiite-backed law this week allowing provinces in the Shiite and oil-rich
south to establish an autonomous region like the Kurdish one in the north.
Sunni Arabs and some Shiites oppose the law, arguing that federalism would
lead to the eventual breakup of Iraq.
Byline: SINAN SALAHEDDIN
Date: 21 October 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq_Shops and government offices reopened and army units manned
checkpoints Saturday around a southern Iraqi city where gunmen loyal to an
anti-American Shiite cleric briefly seized control in a bold confrontation
with local security forces.
Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army held Amarah for several hours in an
embarrassingly strong showing against security forces largely controlled by
Iraq's other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade.
Twenty-five gunmen and police died in gunbattles before the Iraqi army moved
in to retake the city of 750,000 people at the head of Iraq's famous
marshlands where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers draw close together.
The fighting came as Sunni insurgents staged audacious military-style
parades in a pair of cities west of Baghdad, advertising their defiance of
U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
British forces who had turned over control of Amarah in August said they had
500 soldiers on standby Saturday if the government called for help. The day
before the Iraqi military had sent about 600 troops to retake the city.
Sunni and Shiite religious leaders met in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, this
week and issued a series of edicts forbidding violence between Iraq's two
Muslim sects _ an effort supported on Saturday by Iraq's main Sunni Arab
party.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said the edicts
signed Friday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca could pull the country back
from a potential civil war. He also called for a ceasefire between American
forces and insurgent groups during upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks
the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
"We praise this step and call upon all Iraqis and the government to respond
to this blessed event and support it," said al-Dulaimi, whose party holds 44
seats in the 275-member parliament and several positions in the struggling
Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Al-Dulaimi's endorsement was echoed by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who
issued a statement urging Iraqis to do "everything possible to stop the
killing of the innocent."
On Saturday, the situation in Amarah appeared relatively calm, and residents
began to emerge.
Haider Ali Abdullah, 35, said he wasted no time in reopening his tiny
restaurant after hearing that fighting had ended.
"We were terrified," Abdullah said by phone. "The last two days had a major
effect on our lives since we depend on this business to make a living."
Abdullah blamed both the local authorities and militiamen for allowing the
situation to deteriorate.
The Amarah showdown between the two virtual private armies highlighted the
potential for an all-out conflict between the factions, both with large
blocs in parliament that are important to the survival of al-Maliki's shaky
4-month-old government.
Amarah lies just 30 miles from the border with Iran, where the Shiite
theocracy is reputed to be funding, arming and training both factions.
With the death toll rising among U.S. forces in the country, a policy review
is under way among Bush administration political and military officials.
Polls ahead of congressional elections next month show shrinking support for
the war and leading Republicans have urged for changes in the
administration's approach to Iraq.
The U.S. combat death toll in October alone stood at 75 _ likely to be the
highest for any month in nearly two years. Friday casualties included a U.S.
soldier and a Salvadoran army captain whose vehicles were hit by explosive
devices in separate attacks south of Baghdad.
In other violence, clashes Friday between Shiite and Sunni tribes just south
of Baghdad killed four people, said Lt. Mohamed Al-Shemeri of the police
force in the city of Kut.
Two people were killed when a car bomb blew up near the Sarafiyah bridge
across the Tigris river in northern Baghdad, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq
said. The bomb apparently missed its intended target, an Iraqi police
patrol.
The bodies of four electric company workers kidnapped Friday from the
Hafriyah area, 25 miles south of Baghdad, were turned in to the morgue in
Kut, said morgue official Hadi Al-Atabi.
In Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, local groups rallied in
support of recent efforts to reconcile Shiite and Sunni groups sponsored by
the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Differences between the two sides deepened when parliament adopted a
Shiite-backed law this week allowing provinces in the Shiite and oil-rich
south to establish an autonomous region like the Kurdish one in the north.
Sunni Arabs and some Shiites oppose the law, arguing that federalism would
lead to the eventual breakup of Iraq.