Slum that welcomed U.S. now fires at its

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Slum that welcomed U.S. now fires at its
12
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:11pm
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
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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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 11:20am
This is an excerpt that gives a view into the Iraqi attitude. What I find interesting about this dialogue is its humanity. Had the circumstances been reversed, this could be Americans talking about an Arab occupying force.

We drive along the virtually empty streets but are unable to find any restaurant or cafés open. But there is one ice cream parlour.

So there we stood, eating ice cream on a sidewalk, only a few kilometres away from an intense firefight talking about the situation facing the country.

"Aren’t you scared to be out?" I asked.

"Yes," said Said, a 24-year-old student at the University of Baghdad. "But if God deems it is your time to leave, then it is your time to leave, and God willing you will go to heaven."

His attitude reflects what many in this war-torn country feel.

There is an overwhelming look of exhaustion in people's faces. After three wars, 13-years of sanctions, and the humiliation of having foreign troops on their land, Iraqis are exhausted.

They are tired of war, tired of the crippled economy, tired of being afraid.

But they are also fed up with the US occupation of their country.

"What America doesn’t understand is that they cannot take over our mosques, our institutions, our cities, and think that Iraqis will just sit by and watch," says Hatim, a 28-year-old newly-wed.

"Look at the people in Falluja, they, like all Iraqis, are a proud people. They do not like having foreigners invading their land and forcing them into their homes. That is our new democracy? That is our new freedom?" he adds.

Two US tanks drive by as we are talking, and Abd al-Razak, a 26-year-old engineer, jumps into the conversation.

"Look at them. They drive around our streets like they own the country; they have no respect for us, no respect for our culture, no respect for our traditions, or our religion," he says.

The conversation ends abruptly as another blast punctures the quiet night sky. This time it is much closer, a signal that it's time to go home

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D082FB59-82D3-4B6D-B07B-33F91A3A604B.htm

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 12:25pm

"Look at them. They drive around our streets like they own the country; they have no respect for us, no respect for our culture, no respect for our traditions, or our religion," he says.


They were actually talking about this on the news this morning...saying that one of the big problems is having a 'Christian military' in control of a 'Muslim country'.


I could see Americans saying the same things under similar circumstances...

cl-nwtreehugger



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