Slum that welcomed U.S. now fires at its
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| Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:11pm |
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/167862_baghdad06.html
Slum that welcomed U.S. now fires at its soldiers
Baghdad area sees worst fighting since the fall of Saddam
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Exhaustion was evident yesterday on the faces of American soldiers poised beside their tanks on a thoroughfare in Baghdad's Sadr City slum. One wore a uniform with a pant leg stained with his own blood from a wound in a fierce firefight the night before.
He was in a battle the likes of which the city had not seen since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the face of advancing U.S. troops last April. Then, nearly a year ago, the Shiites of Sadr City were throwing flowers at the U.S. tanks that rumbled into Baghdad and ended the rule of their longtime oppressor.
But yesterday, many Iraqis were filling plain wooden coffins with the corpses of their kin and neighbors, killed in a firefight with U.S. armored forces that now patrol their impoverished neighborhood.
"After American forces ended the regime, we wanted to welcome them," said Mohsin Ghassab, 42, an unemployed Iraqi, who is a resident of the predominantly Shiite district. "But now there is no stability."
"They have to withdraw," Ghassab said. "To have them in tanks on our streets is unacceptable."
Over seven hours of sporadic fighting, more than 1,000 U.S. troops flooded into the district to take on at least 500 militia fighters, said Army accounts provided yesterday. The soldiers were caught in a series of three fierce ambushes and called in the support of 14 tanks, sent in a few hours after the fighting began.
The Americans in the fight were a mix of one-year veterans from the 1st Armored Division on their way out of the country and newcomers from the 1st Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas. Some plunged into the firefight two or three times to back up comrades before they were wounded themselves, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division.
In the end, eight Americans died and 40 were wounded in the deadliest and longest battle in Baghdad since the city was captured by U.S. troops. Iraqis said about 30 Iraqis were killed, including at least a few civilians caught out in the densely populated neighborhood, and more than 100 were injured.
Sadr City, with its grid streets and low-rise shops and apartments on the capital's northern edge, was a place where U.S. soldiers could feel relatively relaxed -- shop and get haircuts -- until a few months ago. But tension has grown between the troops and about 2 million Shiite Muslims there. Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has fired up crowds with anti-American rhetoric. He also recruited young Iraqis to his growing militia, offering them monthly salaries and an outlet for their frustration that more moderate clerics do not address.
On Sunday afternoon, the Army picked up intelligence and reports from Iraq police that al-Sadr's militia fighters were gathering around town and threatening police stations. About 30 U.S. troops were sent on a "focused reconnaissance" patrol to check out a couple dozen fighters gathered on a street. But as they approached, they were ambushed on several sides by rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Dempsey said.
Fire rained down from rooftops and the echoes from Sadr City's closely set buildings made it difficult to pinpoint the source, Dempsey said.
Most of the American deaths came from the first ambush, he said.
Two contingents of "quick response" forces -- about 150 troops -- were sent to reinforce the reconnaissance unit, whose survivors had taken cover in nearby buildings, Dempsey said. The response teams also came under fire. "It was a very calculated activity," Dempsey said.
About the same time, Iraqi police pulled out of three small police stations they believed were going to be attacked and most went to a central police station, the Army said. Al-Sadr's insurgents moved to occupy the three empty police stations and held them until U.S. troops retook them in the early morning.
Yesterday, a day after the combat, two charred U.S. military vehicles were being picked apart by impoverished scavengers. Soldiers kept watch on crowds of gawkers as a speaker at a nearby mosque called out the demands al-Sadr's forces for the coalition: Reopen al-Sadr's newspaper closed last week by U.S. authorities, free an al-Sadr adviser in custody for murder and agree to a public trial for "the tyrant Saddam."
Much of the fighting took place just a couple of blocks from a hospital, where officials reported receiving 28 dead and more than 90 wounded. By yesterday afternoon, there were only a few wounded still there. The rest, said supervisor Haleed Risan al-Khafaji were "demonstrators" who were taken elsewhere so they would not be arrested by U.S. troops.
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I heard on the news last night that Al-Sadr has military support of 10,000. I will post link if I find it.
More on Al-Sadr..........
Sources: Al-Sadr supporters take over Najaf.
Supporters of maverick Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controlled government, religious and security buildings in the holy city of Najaf early Tuesday evening, according to a coalition source in southern Iraq.
The source said al-Sadr's followers controlled the governor's office, police stations and the Imam Ali mosque, one of Shia Muslim's holiest shrines.
Iraqi police were negotiating to regain their stations, the source said.
The source also said al-Sadr was busing followers into Najaf from Sadr City in Baghdad and that many members of his outlawed militia, Mehdi's Army, were from surrounding provinces.
Business people are closing their shops and either leaving the city or hoarding their wares in their homes, the source said. "<
>"In Baghdad, firefights continued Tuesday, particularly in the Shiite area of Sadr City. Reports also indicated that Italian troops were battling al-Sadr supporters in Nasiriyah.
As the fighting flared, al-Sadr, who sparked the violent clashes between his supporters and U.S. troops, was planning to take refuge in Imam Ali mosque, according to a posting on his Web site.
Al-Sadr also called for a general strike, demanding that the coalition pull back its troops from populated areas and release prisoners taken into custody in recent demonstrations.
Twelve coalition soldiers -- 11 Americans and a Salvadoran -- and dozens of Iraqis have been killed in three days of battles in Baghdad and Najaf, while firefights have erupted in other cities and towns as well.
Seven Marines were killed in the same time period in al Anbar province, west of Baghdad, along with two more soldiers in northern Iraq.
Despite the rising death toll, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said "there is no question we have control over the country." "<
>" The clashes began over the weekend when demonstrations supporting al-Sadr and his deputy -- who was arrested Saturday in connection with the killing last year of a moderate Shiite cleric by a mob of Sadr followers -- turned violent, first in Najaf against Spanish forces and then in Sadr City, named for al-Sadr's father, Mohammed al-Sadr. "<
>" The coalition announced Monday that a warrant had also been issued for al-Sadr's arrest in connection with Abdul Majeed al-Khoei's death April 10, 2003, outside the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, where al-Sadr is now reported to have taken refuge.
Twelve people were arrested last fall when an Iraqi judge issued 25 warrants in the case, including the ones for al-Sadr and his deputy, Mustafa al-Yaqoubi, arrested in Najaf on Saturday and turned over to Iraqi police Monday, coalition officials said.
Bremer, who said Monday that al-Sadr and his supporters have "basically placed (themselves) outside the legal authorities," described al-Sadr on Tuesday as "a guy who has a fundamentally inappropriate view of the new Iraq."
"He believes that in the new Iraq, like in the old Iraq, power should be to the guy with guns," Bremer said. "That is an unacceptable vision for Iraq."
A spokesman for al-Sadr, Qais al-Khazaal, said in Najaf that al-Sadr had "received many letters from other religious leaders" supporting him, mentioning Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani -- Iraqi Shia's most senior cleric.
"Sistani said in his letter that he supported us for standing for what we believe ... but that he also thought that we should try to resolve this matter in a more calm and civil way," Khazaal said.
Referring to a letter sent by Bremer shutting down the pro al-Sadr -- and anti-coalition -- Al-Hawza, Khazaal said lawyers have determined the action was "illegitimate and against all laws."
"We will form a case and fight this," he said. Pentagon sources said the military would exercise caution in seeking Sadr in an attempt to avoid giving him more stature among radicalized Iraqis.
Pentagon sources also said that U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid had asked for options from his staff for bringing additional troops to bear against Sadr's militia if they are needed.
But the fight against al-Sadr and his followers wasn't the only clash facing coalition forces.
Two more U.S. soldiers died Sunday, both in northern Iraq. Since the start of the war, 622 U.S. troops have died, 428 of them in hostile fire. Since President Bush announced the end of major combat in Iraq, 313 U.S. troops have been killed in hostile action. "<
Quotes from............
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/06/iraq.main/index.html
Edited 4/6/2004 4:08 pm ET ET by cl-libraone
Shi'ite militiamen battled Italian soldiers in southern Iraq on Tuesday as Washington vowed to arrest radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who has led a wave of bloody confrontations with U.S.-led occupying troops.
Sadr, holed up in his office and guarded by militiamen in the holy city of Najaf 100 miles south of Baghdad, said he would make a statement at 2 p.m. on his increasingly violent campaign against the U.S.-led occupation.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad on Monday and Tuesday, the U.S. army said. The attacks raised to 11 the number of U.S. troops killed since Sunday in the Baghdad district.
About 15 Iraqi civilians and Iraqi soldiers were killed in the clashes between Italian troops and Shi'ite militiamen in the southern town of Nassiriya, the Italian news agency Ansa quoted an official as saying.
President Bush said the confrontation with Sadr would not derail Washington's plans for Iraq.
"This is one person who's deciding that rather than allow democracy to flourish, he's going to exercise force, and we just can't let it stand," he said. "The message to the Iraqi citizens is, they don't have to fear that America will turn and run."
U.S. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, a key backer of John Kerry's bid to unseat Bush in November elections, said Iraq had become "George Bush's Vietnam."
A Pew Research Center poll released on Monday said Bush's job approval rating on Iraq had slumped to a low of 40 percent from 59 percent in January. The poll said 44 percent of Americans wanted U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq.
A senior U.S. army official said the Pentagon was looking at sending more troops to Iraq if the situation deteriorated, but believed it already had enough soldiers in place.
More.............
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040406_87.html
President Bush said the confrontation with Sadr would not derail Washington's plans for Iraq.
What about Iraq's plans for Iraq?
GWB is stubborn and can't admit when he's wrong. A cartoon I saw today had cowboy bush precariously perched, with back to the edge, on a "Very Steep Cliff", "Yo, Mr. Muqtada, you're under arrest"
I also heard this morning on C-SPAN that Wolfowitz wanted Breamer's job.
What a great cartoon!
That's what I thought at first, then I thought who better to clean up the mess than the instigator.
That's what I thought at first, then I thought who better to clean up the mess than the instigator.
Very valid point!
cl-nwtreehugger
Militiamen control parts of 3 Iraq cities. 4/8/2004, 9:46 a.m. ET
Informative overview.........
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/lateststories/index.ssf?/base/international-12/1081426744258041.xml
Shiite Muslim militias held partial control Thursday over three southern Iraqi cities, while Sunni insurgents killed a U.S. Marine in the battle for Fallujah. In escalating violence, gunmen kidnapped three Japanese and eight South Korean civilians.
The militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has full control over the city of Kut and partial control in Najaf, but coalition forces will move soon to break their hold, said Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq said. Residents of Kufa said militiamen also control that southern city by holding police stations and government buildings.
In a videotape broadcast to the Arab world by Al-Jazeera, kidnappers armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened to kill the blindfolded Japanese hostages unless Tokyo removed its troops from Iraq. Japan said it had "no reason" to withdraw.
Three explosions rocked central Baghdad, with smoke rising from the Green Zone — the sealed-off neighborhood where the U.S.-led coalition has its headquarters. The military did not immediately report any casualties.
Iraq's interior minister, who leads police and security forces, resigned at the request of top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, to maintain balance between Sunni and Shiite factions on the governing council. It was unclear if the resignation of Nuri al-Badran was also connected with the failure of Iraqi police to confront insurgents that coalition forces are battling on two fronts.
Sanchez said there appeared to be links "at the lowest levels" between the Shiite militia — which has been battling coalition forces in at least a half-dozen southern cities this week — and Sunni Arab insurgents who have long fought U.S. troops in central Iraq cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from their bases in Kut on Wednesday, but Sanchez said coalition forces would retake it "imminently."
He suggested that the presence of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims in Najaf for a religious occasion this weekend was hampering coalition forces from moving against militiamen there.
"We are very cognizant of the religious ceremonies," he said.
Polish and Bulgarian soldiers drove off Shiites who attacked them near the municipal hall in Karbala south of Baghdad during all-night battles, a Polish spokesman said.
Coalition forces suffered no casualties but killed nine attackers and wounded about 20 others, Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki in an interview from Iraq.
The attacks began about 11 p.m. Wednesday and continued until nearly sunrise, Strzelecki said. The attackers, loyal to al-Sadr, used machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms during fighting that the spokesman described as heavy.
In the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah, U.S. Marines fought insurgents for a second day. One U.S. Marine was reported killed by the military, although it released no details.
Marines battled again around the Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque, which Marine Capt. James Edge said insurgents were again using as a base despite a six-hour battle Wednesday to uproot them. Helicopters were deployed to support the Marines, he said.
Capping Wednesday's battle, a U.S. Cobra helicopter fired a missile at the base of the mosque's minaret, and an F-16 dropped a laser-guided bomb at the wall, allowing Marines to move in and seize the site, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.
Fighting this week in Fallujah, Ramadi and elsewhere has left 36 Americans and at least 459 Iraqis dead. The director of the city's hospital, Taher Al-Issawai, said the figure included more than 280 Iraqis killed since the Marines' siege against insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, began early Monday.
Lawmakers in Tokyo said the Japanese civilians — identified as two male journalists and a female aid worker — were kidnapped by a terrorist-related group, according to the Japanese news agency Kyodo.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said the government was still trying to confirm the reports about the hostages, but he added that Japan was standing firm in its commitment to Iraq, adding there was "no reason" to withdraw.
In the videotape, obtained by The Associated Press, three Japanese were shown blindfolded and crouched on the floor of a concrete walled room with an iron door standing behind them are four masked gunmen in black, holding automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
The gunmen made the Japanese lie on the floor, pointing swords and knives at their chests and throats. The woman's lips could be seen moving as if she was speaking.
One gunman put a knife to the throat of a man, whose eyes widened in panic, and he struggled against his captor. The woman wept and hid her eyes as another gunman tried to pull her hands away from her face and he pressed a knife toward her throat.
The Japanese were blindfolded and surrounded by gunmen. The video showed the hostages' passports, confirming their nationality.
Tokyo has sent 530 ground troops to the southern city of Samawah, part of a planned deployment of 1,100 on a noncombat mission to purify water and help rebuild Iraq — Japan's first deployment of troops since World War II.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been one of the strongest backers of the U.S.-led invasion, a stance that has raised concern Japanese troops could be targeted by insurgents.
The Japanese were taken by a group identifying itself as the "Mujahedeen Squadrons," which Al-Jazeera said gave a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce it will withdraw its troops or they would be killed.
The eight South Koreans were detained by unidentified "armed men," but one was later released, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported.
The eight evangelical Christians were traveling in two cars from Amman, Jordan, when they were seized about 155 miles east of Baghdad, said the escapee, identified by Yonhap as Kim Sang Mik, from a church in Incheon.
Yonhap did not say how Kim escaped. The South Korean Foreign Ministry told the AP it did not know who was responsible for the capture of the South Koreans.
Earlier this week, two South Korean aid workers were briefly detained by Shiite Muslim forces during a gunbattle with Italian peacekeepers. They were released unharmed.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year. They will come home after South Korea sends the new deployment of up to 3,600 troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=US%20Iraq%20Intelligence
Concern mounts over growing unrest in Iraq
By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials and outside experts are increasingly concerned about the deteriorating security situation in Iraq despite Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's assurances that the insurgency is limited to a relatively small number of malcontents.
Current and former U.S. officials are monitoring whether a Shiite militia has gained enough popular support to become a more widespread uprising, and whether Shiites and Sunnis - normally rival Muslim sects - are working together in some instances to oppose the U.S.-led coalition.
So far, U.S. officials generally don't see a widespread uprising, nor coordination among Sunnis and Shiites. However, one defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is some evidence from the field that some Iraqi Shiite demonstrators, disgruntled with a lack of electricity and water, have joined recent episodes of violence after being caught up in a mob mentality.
If there is a unifying goal among Iraq's diverse population, outside experts say, it may be a desire to push the U.S.-led coalition out. Some fear the violence stretching across cities outside Baghdad to well into southern Iraq could complicate months of work to establish a stable government in those parts of Iraq.
Rumsfeld has attributed the insurgency to a few "thugs, gangs and terrorists," not a widespread uprising.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commands coalition ground forces in Iraq, has said he believes linkages between Sunnis and Shiites may be occurring at the lowest levels. There is some evidence from the field that the connections are "a pile on," said another defense official, also speaking anonymously, as insurgents watch what others are doing and take advantage of opportunities.
U.S. officials say they do not yet have a clear sense of the Iraqi opposition. But so far they have publicly identifed two broad categories of fighters.
The first - in Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad - consists of Sunnis who have joined a mix of transnational terrorists, foreign fighters and former Saddam Husseim regime loyalists to challenge the U.S.-led coalition, according to U.S. officials including Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
More geographically widespread are the 3,000 or so fighters supporting the young, radical Shiite cleric, Muhab al-Sadr, who have a presence in at least a half-dozen towns in southern Iraq.
U.S. officials indicate that some Shiites have joined with Sadr's fighters, but they say there is little evidence that his message has resonated broadly across the Shiite population. The first defense official, who cited indications that some demonstrators have gotten caught up in violence, said there is little evidence those people are ideological supporters of Sadr.
Sadr's following is believed to be mostly the poor and uneducated, with his strongest support in Sadr City, an impoverished Baghdad district named for his father. But the creation of Sadr's militia last summer is thought to have eroded his support.
It is believed that other Shiite clerics have not thrown their support behind Sadr, concerned that such action could spark violence within the Shiite community. Iraq's top Shiite cleric, the moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, stayed silent on the standoff between Sadr and the Americans until a statement Wednesday condemning both the methods of the U.S. occupation force and the militia's disturbances of order.
Meanwhile, intelligence experts outside government caution that the U.S. has much work to do to regain control of the security situation and prevent a widespread rebellion.
Milt Bearden, who retired after 30 years with the CIA's directorate of operations, notes that in the last 100 years any insurgency that has taken on a nationalist character - for instance, a shared goal of getting rid of Americans - has succeeded.
Other former intelligence officials familiar with the region caution that outside Shiite groups, acting more covertly than the Sadr militia, could prove to be formidable problems.
Bob Baer, a former CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East, said he met with Islamic fighters in Lebanon just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq who told him they were preparing to fight a long-term war with the West in Iraq. They included members of Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.
Baer said the resistance groups warned then that a Shiite uprising in Iraq would come in April, and promised kidnappings and bombings in southern Iraq. Then, he dismissed the timing, but "it indeed happened in April."
"I think we are facing the possibility of a Shiite insurrection," said Baer, who has been critical of the U.S. government since he left the agency in 1997. "Muhab al-Sadr is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Shiite."
---
Associated Press writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this report.
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