Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 21, 2008 By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Followers of hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes yesterday in the showdown with Iraq's government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he would not back down in his confrontation with Shiite militias, even as mortar shells fired from Shiite areas struck the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
In a sign of that resolve, Iraqi soldiers took control yesterday of the last stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra, where an Iraqi offensive last month triggered the current wave of Shiite fighting.
Maliki, a Shiite, has demanded that Sadr disband his Mahdi Army, the country's biggest Shiite militia, or his followers will not be allowed to run in provincial elections this fall.
Sadr's followers, who control 30 of the 275 parliament seats, rejected that demand yesterday and instead called for an end to U.S.-Iraqi military operations in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, and Shula, another Shiite district of the capital.
"All must know that disbanding the Mahdi Army means the end of Maliki's government," Sadrist lawmaker Fawzi Akram told reporters.
He called the government campaign against the Mahdi Army a "filthy military and media campaign" planned and supported by the Americans. He urged the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations and human-rights groups to intervene.
"Random air strikes, killings and bloodletting will not help but rather will increase hatred and enmity," he said, adding that if operations continue, "all options are open for us."
That could include the formal scrapping of a unilateral truce Sadr called in August - a move that American officials credit with helping dramatically reduce violence over the last year.
Since the Basra crackdown began March 25, that truce is in tatters, with fighting in the Baghdad area and scattered clashes still under way throughout the Shiite south.
The U.S. military announced yesterday that U.S.-backed Iraqi soldiers killed 40 militiamen and arrested 40 others in fighting this weekend near Nasiriyah, a Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
A U.S. statement said the fighting broke out Saturday when "criminal militia members" attacked Iraqi security forces. Iraqi troops with U.S. special operations advisers counterattacked the militiamen in a local Sadrist office, where they found various weapons including Iranian-made penetrator bombs, the statement said.
In the latest fighting, U.S. soldiers killed 12 militants yesterday in a series of engagements in Shiite areas of Baghdad, the military said.
Nine of them died after gunmen attacked a U.S. checkpoint in Sadr City with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar shells, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Stover, said. There was no report of U.S. casualties.
The deaths were in addition to seven armed "criminals" reported killed by the military Saturday in Sadr City - two in gun battles and five in two separate air strikes.
Iraqi police and hospital officials also said six civilians - four men and two boys ages 8 and 10 - died in fighting in Sadr City after midnight.
Sadr's followers believe the military campaign is aimed at weakening their movement to prevent it from winning provincial council seats at the expense of Shiite parties that work with the United States in the national government.
However, the U.S. military insists the campaign is not aimed at the Sadrist movement but against criminals and Iranian-backed splinter groups.
"We've made it very clear that the Mahdi Army itself . . . is not the enemy," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division, which controls a large region south of the capital. "The enemy is Sunni extremists, Shiite extremists and Iranian influence."
April 21, 2008 By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Followers of hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes yesterday in the showdown with Iraq's government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he would not back down in his confrontation with Shiite militias, even as mortar shells fired from Shiite areas struck the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
In a sign of that resolve, Iraqi soldiers took control yesterday of the last stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra, where an Iraqi offensive last month triggered the current wave of Shiite fighting.
Maliki, a Shiite, has demanded that Sadr disband his Mahdi Army, the country's biggest Shiite militia, or his followers will not be allowed to run in provincial elections this fall.
Sadr's followers, who control 30 of the 275 parliament seats, rejected that demand yesterday and instead called for an end to U.S.-Iraqi military operations in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, and Shula, another Shiite district of the capital.
"All must know that disbanding the Mahdi Army means the end of Maliki's government," Sadrist lawmaker Fawzi Akram told reporters.
He called the government campaign against the Mahdi Army a "filthy military and media campaign" planned and supported by the Americans. He urged the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations and human-rights groups to intervene.
"Random air strikes, killings and bloodletting will not help but rather will increase hatred and enmity," he said, adding that if operations continue, "all options are open for us."
That could include the formal scrapping of a unilateral truce Sadr called in August - a move that American officials credit with helping dramatically reduce violence over the last year.
Since the Basra crackdown began March 25, that truce is in tatters, with fighting in the Baghdad area and scattered clashes still under way throughout the Shiite south.
The U.S. military announced yesterday that U.S.-backed Iraqi soldiers killed 40 militiamen and arrested 40 others in fighting this weekend near Nasiriyah, a Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
A U.S. statement said the fighting broke out Saturday when "criminal militia members" attacked Iraqi security forces. Iraqi troops with U.S. special operations advisers counterattacked the militiamen in a local Sadrist office, where they found various weapons including Iranian-made penetrator bombs, the statement said.
In the latest fighting, U.S. soldiers killed 12 militants yesterday in a series of engagements in Shiite areas of Baghdad, the military said.
Nine of them died after gunmen attacked a U.S. checkpoint in Sadr City with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar shells, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Stover, said. There was no report of U.S. casualties.
The deaths were in addition to seven armed "criminals" reported killed by the military Saturday in Sadr City - two in gun battles and five in two separate air strikes.
Iraqi police and hospital officials also said six civilians - four men and two boys ages 8 and 10 - died in fighting in Sadr City after midnight.
Sadr's followers believe the military campaign is aimed at weakening their movement to prevent it from winning provincial council seats at the expense of Shiite parties that work with the United States in the national government.
However, the U.S. military insists the campaign is not aimed at the Sadrist movement but against criminals and Iranian-backed splinter groups.
"We've made it very clear that the Mahdi Army itself . . . is not the enemy," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division, which controls a large region south of the capital. "The enemy is Sunni extremists, Shiite extremists and Iranian influence."