Iraqi Soldiers Draw Fire On Ride Into Basra

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 3, 2008 Sadr backers say the troops violated a deal that ended clashes. Some fear a new round of fights.
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi soldiers rolled through a Shiite-militia stronghold in Basra yesterday, drawing scattered bombs and bullets that wounded a television-camera operator and narrowly missed the commander of government troops in the city.
Followers of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the army of violating an Iranian-brokered agreement that ended last week's fighting, which erupted in Basra and quickly spread to Baghdad and major cities of the Shiite south.
Those complaints raised concern that fighting could flare again as the Iraqi government and Shiite militias maneuver for control of Basra, the country's oil capital 340 miles southeast of Baghdad and a major commercial center of two million people.
Iraqi troops met no significant resistance as a dozen-vehicle convoy drove into the Hayaniyah district of central Basra, scene of fierce clashes last week with Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters.
Troops set up checkpoints and searched a few houses before leaving the neighborhood after a couple of hours.
Iraqi cameraman Mazin al-Tayar, working for the U.S.-funded Alhurra satellite television station, was shot in the leg as he filmed the operation in Hayaniyah. Later, he told Alhurra that soldiers faced "many roadside bombs and mortar rounds" during the operation, but there were no reports of military casualties.
One of the bombs exploded near a vehicle carrying the local Iraqi army commander, Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji, but caused no injuries.
Basra provincial governor Mohammed al-Waili said that overall, the situation in the oil-rich city was "very calm and stable" and that normalcy was returning. "We issued orders to all government employees to go to their offices starting from today," he said.
But Basra residents said many people were fearful that the truce might not last. Underscoring those fears, clashes broke out hours later after Iraqi troops raided Basra's Maakal area, another Mahdi Army stronghold, according to local police.
A Mahdi Army spokesman in Basra, Abu Liqa al-Basri, said militiamen were keeping a low profile on Sadr's orders. He accused Iraqi security forces of creating a "crisis of trust" by mounting "provocative raids" and arresting Sadr supporters. "If the Iraqi army continues in its provocative raids, the consequences will be bad," he said.
Despite an end to heavy fighting, the Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said that security operations were continuing and that an April 8 deadline for gunmen to surrender their weapons remained in effect.
Violence surged March 25 when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched a major operation to wrest control of Basra from the militias, which had effectively ruled the city since 2005.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say the crackdown was directed at criminals and renegade militiamen, not the Sadrist movement, which holds 30 of the 275 seats in the national parliament and is a major political force. Sadrists believe the operation was aimed at weakening their movement before provincial elections this fall.
The failure to gain a quick and decisive victory over the militias left Maliki politically battered, raising doubts about Iraqi military capability a week before the top U.S. commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, briefs Congress about prospects for further U.S. troop cuts.
 
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