Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
April 5, 2008
Pg. 9
By Ernesto Londono, Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, April 4 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday aborted plans to continue raiding Shiite militia strongholds, an apparent attempt to avoid a protracted standoff with powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Maliki, who on Thursday had vowed to send troops into Sadr City and other largely lawless parts of the capital to root out what he called criminal gangs, said in a statement that he decided against it to maintain a cease-fire reached Sunday after several days of fierce fighting sparked by a government offensive in the southern port city of Basra.
The offensive, and a series of clashes it triggered in Basra and elsewhere in the country, exposed weaknesses among Iraqi troops and led to a level of violence the country had not seen since last spring. The fighting stopped Sunday after Sadr asked his men to put down their weapons; his deputies had reached a cease-fire agreement with a delegation of Iraqi Shiite politicians.
The violence was felt intensely in the fortified Green Zone, where a barrage of rockets fired from eastern Baghdad killed two Americans.
The United Nations said this week that at least 713 people were killed during the clashes, which lasted from March 25 to April 1. The fighting left at least 1,541 people wounded, according to the organization. The majority of victims were civilians, it said.
In his statement, Maliki promised financial assistance to relatives of those slain during the offensive and offered to help resettle those who had to flee.
Also Friday, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 33 in Kamrin, in eastern Iraq, during a policeman's funeral, the U.S. military said in a statement. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Col. Abdullah Salman, put the death toll at 22.
U.S. military officials blamed the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq for the attack.
"This is the latest example of al-Qaeda's desperate strategy to regain control of the population through fear and intimidation," said a U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Mike Garcia.
In Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, Abdul Basit al-Abasi, a tribal leader working with U.S. and Iraqi forces to fight insurgent cells in the area, was killed Friday, said Maj. Muhammad Omar, an Iraqi army spokesman based at a security station that the Iraqi army shares with U.S. troops. Six of the man's bodyguards were also slain, and three of their vehicles were set on fire.
Also on Friday, Sadr announced that a march set for April 9 to protest the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq will take place in Baghdad rather than the holy city of Najaf, as originally planned. The demonstration, which organizers are calling a "million-man" protest, will coincide with the second day of testimony on Capitol Hill of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.
Special correspondent Muhanned Saif Aldin in Samarra contributed to this report.
April 5, 2008
Pg. 9
By Ernesto Londono, Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, April 4 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday aborted plans to continue raiding Shiite militia strongholds, an apparent attempt to avoid a protracted standoff with powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Maliki, who on Thursday had vowed to send troops into Sadr City and other largely lawless parts of the capital to root out what he called criminal gangs, said in a statement that he decided against it to maintain a cease-fire reached Sunday after several days of fierce fighting sparked by a government offensive in the southern port city of Basra.
The offensive, and a series of clashes it triggered in Basra and elsewhere in the country, exposed weaknesses among Iraqi troops and led to a level of violence the country had not seen since last spring. The fighting stopped Sunday after Sadr asked his men to put down their weapons; his deputies had reached a cease-fire agreement with a delegation of Iraqi Shiite politicians.
The violence was felt intensely in the fortified Green Zone, where a barrage of rockets fired from eastern Baghdad killed two Americans.
The United Nations said this week that at least 713 people were killed during the clashes, which lasted from March 25 to April 1. The fighting left at least 1,541 people wounded, according to the organization. The majority of victims were civilians, it said.
In his statement, Maliki promised financial assistance to relatives of those slain during the offensive and offered to help resettle those who had to flee.
Also Friday, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 33 in Kamrin, in eastern Iraq, during a policeman's funeral, the U.S. military said in a statement. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Col. Abdullah Salman, put the death toll at 22.
U.S. military officials blamed the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq for the attack.
"This is the latest example of al-Qaeda's desperate strategy to regain control of the population through fear and intimidation," said a U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Mike Garcia.
In Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, Abdul Basit al-Abasi, a tribal leader working with U.S. and Iraqi forces to fight insurgent cells in the area, was killed Friday, said Maj. Muhammad Omar, an Iraqi army spokesman based at a security station that the Iraqi army shares with U.S. troops. Six of the man's bodyguards were also slain, and three of their vehicles were set on fire.
Also on Friday, Sadr announced that a march set for April 9 to protest the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq will take place in Baghdad rather than the holy city of Najaf, as originally planned. The demonstration, which organizers are calling a "million-man" protest, will coincide with the second day of testimony on Capitol Hill of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.
Special correspondent Muhanned Saif Aldin in Samarra contributed to this report.