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| Thu, 08-12-2004 - 1:56pm |
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FH13Ak06.html
Bush gambles as Najaf burns
By Michael Schwartz
The administration of US President George W Bush has embarked on a desperate military adventure in hopes of creating the appearance of a pacified Iraq. The assault on the holy city of Najaf, with its attendant slaughter of combatants and civilians, its destruction of whole neighborhoods, and its threat to Shi'ite holy cities, is fraught with the possibility of another major military defeat.
But the military commanders are hoping it will instead produce a rare military victory, since they are fighting lightly armed and relatively inexperienced members of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. Nevertheless, even such a victory would be short-lived at best, since the fighting itself only serves to consolidate the opposition of the Shi'ite population. The Bush administration is apparently hoping that a sufficiently brutal suppression of the Sadrists will postpone the now almost inevitable national uprising until after the November presidential elections in the United States.
To understand this desperate strategic maneuver, we must review the origins of the new battle of Najaf.
A truce in May ended the first round of armed confrontation between US marines and Muqtada's militia, the Mehdi Army, but was never fully honored by either side. US troops were supposed to stay out of Najaf, and Muqtada's militiamen were supposed to disband as an army. In the intervening months of relative peace, neither side made particularly provocative moves, but the US still mounted patrols and the Mehdi Army continued to stockpile arms, notably in the city's vast holy cemetery. Lots of threats were proffered on both sides.
The new confrontation began after the Americans replaced army troops with marines in the area outside Najaf and then sent two armed patrols, including local police, to Muqtada's home. The arrival of the second patrol led to a firefight, with casualties on both sides. In the meantime, the marines and the Iraqi police detained at least a dozen Mehdi Army members.
The Mehdi soldiers retaliated by attacking a local police station. Previously, there had been a modest pattern of peaceful coexistence between the police and Muqtada's followers, except when the Sadrists were directly attacked. They also took policemen as hostages, a new tactic that they justified by pointing to the detained Sadrists and calling for an exchange of prisoners.
On August 5, the US counterattacked in force - with the official blessing of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - using a remarkably similar military strategy to the one that had created an international crisis in Fallujah in April. After first surrounding the city, they assaulted Mehdi positions with long-range weapons, notably helicopter gunships armed with rockets, and even jets. They then sent marines and Iraqi security forces into the cemetery at the heart of Najaf to root out dug-in Mehdi soldiers and capture their weapons caches. This fierce attack produced two days of heavy fighting, widely reported in the press, and evidently destroyed significant portions of the downtown area. A tank, for instance, was described in one report as firing directly into hotels where Mehdi fighters were said to be holed up.
In the three days that followed, the marines penetrated ever further into the city (at a cost of five dead, 19 wounded and one helicopter downed) and for a period even took the cemetery itself, though in a description which had a Vietnam-era ring to it, "A marine spokesman said insurgents had fled the cemetery after an assault on Friday. But when US forces withdrew from the area, the insurgents moved back in."
By Day 6, US tanks had moved into the cemetery and helicopters were strafing the area. The Sadrists warned that further attacks would be met by extending the fight to other cities (as had happened in the previous round of fighting in April and May) and Muqtada himself swore he would never leave the city but would defend it to "the last drop of my blood", calling for a more general uprising. At least some Shi'ite clerics supported this call for general insurrection.
As the fighting continued, it became ever clearer that this was anything but a small incident that had spun out of control; it was, on the US side, a concerted effort to annihilate the Sadrist forces. The development of the battle points strongly to this conclusion:
· The original patrols to Muqtada's house and the arrest of his followers were unprovoked, distinctly provocative acts. They occurred just after the marines replaced army troops on the scene and are among numerous indicators of a planned new campaign against Sadrist forces.
· Once the city was surrounded, the helicopter and jet attacks on "suspected positions" of Mehdi soldiers would hardly have been needed to rebuff the modestly mounted Sadrist attack on one police station, but fit perfectly with a larger strategy of "softening up" the resistance after preventing it from escaping. So do a number of other US acts, including the commandeering of Najaf's major trauma center (ostensibly for a military staging area), clearly a punitive measure of a kind previously used in Fallujah, meant to maximize suffering and expected to hasten surrender.
· Instead of denying or apologizing for the initial attack on the cemetery, the marine commander on the scene justified it in a public statement. ("The actions of the Muqtada militia make the cemetery a legitimate military objective.") The same statement also implied that the marines would destroy the Imam Ali Shrine if the Mehdi occupied it.
· Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, left Najaf just as hostilities erupted. Though he gave what may have been valid medical reasons for his departure for Lebanon and then England, his timing as well as other factors made it appear that he had been informed by the Americans of what was to come and had made a decision to avoid being caught, in every sense, in a major battle for Najaf. (It's possible as well that the Americans, through intermediaries, informed him that they could not guarantee his safety.)
· Public statements by Iraqi officials of Iyad Allawi's Baghdad government and of US military commanders made it clear that their goal was to take control of the entire city away from the Sadrists. The national police commander, for instance, told the press that "the interim government ordered a combined operation ... with the task of regaining control of the city". The governor of the province in which Najaf is situated, Adnan al-Zurufi, told a press briefing, "This operation will never stop before all the militia leave the city." And the marine commander left no doubt that this conquest would involve the physical occupation of those areas currently controlled by the Mehdi Army, including the cemetery that had previously been "off limits to the American military for religious reasons". He told New York Times reporters Sabrina Tavenese and John Burns, "We are fighting them on close terrain but we are on schedule. You have to move very slowly because the cemetery has a lot of mausoleums and little caves ." (The words "on schedule", by the way, have a particularly ominous ring; they suggest a battle plan for conquering all parts of the city on a street-by-street basis, a strategy that annihilated whole neighborhoods in Fallujah.)
This well-planned attack thus constituted the beginning of a major US offensive almost certainly aimed at making Najaf into the showcase military victory that Fallujah was once supposed to be. A rapid and thorough defeat of the insurgents, followed by an uncontested occupation of the entire city, was undoubtedly expected, especially since the lightly armed Mehdi soldiers had previously proved a relatively uncoordinated fighting force. Huge and well-publicized casualties, as well as heavy physical destruction, were, as in Fallujah, undoubtedly part of the formula, since they provide an object example to other cities of the costs of resistance.
The immediate goals of the ongoing battle were summarized by Alex Berenson and John F Burns in the New York Times, in response to an offer of a ceasefire by the Sadrists: "There was little sign a ceasefire would be accepted by the Iraqi government and American commanders. Instead, the indications at nightfall were that the American and Iraqi units intended to press the battle, in the hope of breaking the back of Mr Sadr's force in Najaf."
The reporters characterized the more general goals of the offensive in this way: "In effect, the battle appeared to have become a watershed for the new power alignment in Baghdad, with the new government, established when Iraq regained formal sovereignty on June 28, asserting political control, and American troops providing the firepower to sustain it."
In their attempt to achieve a noteworthy victory, the Bush administration and its Iraqi allies have created a potential watershed for both the war and the US presidential election. To understand why this might be so, consider the following:
· This major offensive was probably motivated by the increasing possibility that the US and its allies were losing all control over most of the major cities in Iraq. In the Sunni parts of the country, city after city has in fact adopted the "Fallujah model" - refusing to allow a US presence in its streets and establishing its own local government. As a recent TomDispatch report succinctly summarized the situation: "Think of Sunni Iraq - and possibly parts of Shi'ite Iraq as well - as a 'nation' of city-state fiefdoms, each threatening to blink off map of 'sovereignty', despite our 140,000 troops and our huge bases in the country." The attack in Najaf is certainly an attempt to stem this tide before it engulfs the Shi'ite areas of Iraq as well, and it validates historian Juan Cole's ironic description of Allawi as "really ... just the mayor of downtown Baghdad".
· The US and its Iraqi clients probably chose Najaf because it represented their best chance of immediate success. Unlike the mujahideen in Fallujah (and other Sunni cities), the Mehdi soldiers were generally not members of Saddam Hussein's army and are therefore more lightly armed and considerably less disciplined as fighters; nor do they enjoy the unconditional support of the local population. An ambivalent city is easier to conquer, even if victory results in a sullen hatred of the conquerors. A quick victory would therefore be a noteworthy achievement and might have some chance of convincing rebels in other Shi'ite cities not to follow the Fallujah model - at least not immediately.
However, a loss in Najaf (which could occur even with a military "victory") would be catastrophic for the US and for its interim administration in Baghdad, which is now indelibly identified with the Najaf offensive (and has ostensibly "ordered" it). Even a victory would, at least in the long run, undermine the already strained tolerance of the country's deeply suspicious Shi'ite population. The Americans inside the Green Zone in Baghdad (and assumedly in Washington) are, however, banking on the possibility that an immediate victory might be worth the negative publicity. It might establish the interim administration (and its US muscle) as a formidable, if brutal, adversary, worthy of fear if not respect. A defeat, on the other hand, would make it nothing more than an impotent adjunct of the US occupation.
For the Bush administration, the battle of Najaf shapes up as a new Fallujah: if it doesn't win quickly, it will likely be a major disaster. A quick victory might indeed make it look, for a time, as if the occupation, now in new clothes, had turned some corner, particularly if it resulted in temporary quiescence throughout the Shi'ite south. But a long and brutal fight, or even an inconclusive victory (which led to further fighting elsewhere in Shi'ite Iraq or renewed low-level fighting in Najaf), would almost certainly trigger yet more problems, not just in Iraq but throughout the Middle East. And this would lead in turn to another round of worldwide outrage, and so to yet another electoral problem at home.
A loss after a long bloody battle would yield all of the above, while reducing the US military to the use of air power against cities, without any real hope of pacifying them.
The US presidential election could be decided by this battle. Bush's approval ratings dropped 10% during the April and May battles, creating the opening for a victory by his rival John Kerry. Since then they have neither recovered, nor deteriorated further. If the battle for Najaf dominates the headlines for as long as a week, it will likely be the next big event in the presidential campaign.
A resounding victory for US forces could be exactly what Bush's top political aide Karl Rove has been dreaming of - proof that the tide has turned in Iraq. At the very least, it might remove the subject from the front pages of US papers and drop it down the nightly network prime-time news for a suitable period of time. But a defeat as ignominious as Fallujah - or even a bloody and destructive victory bought at the expense of worldwide outrage - would almost certainly drive away many remaining swing voters (and might weaken the resolve of small numbers of Republican voters as well). This would leave Bush where his father was going into the electoral stretch - in too deep a deficit for any campaign rhetoric to overcome.
One has to wonder why the Bush administration has selected such a risky strategy, fraught with possibly disastrous consequences. The only explanation that makes sense is that the administration is desperate. In Iraq, US control is slipping away one city at a time, a process that actually accelerated after the "transfer of sovereignty" on June 28. A dramatic military offensive may be the only way the administration can imagine - especially since its thinking is so militarily oriented - to reverse this decline.
In the US, the administration's electoral position is not promising: its hope for a dramatic economic turnaround has been dashed; a post-sovereignty month of quiescence in the US media about Iraq did not reduce opposition to the war; and recently there has been a further erosion of confidence in Bush's anti-terrorist policies. No incumbent president (the Harry S Truman miracle of 1948 excepted) has won re-election with a less-than-50% positive job rating. (The president's now stands somewhere around 47%.) A dramatic military victory, embellished with all sorts of positive spin, might reverse what has begun to look like irretrievable erosion in his re-election chances. The Bush administration appears to have decided that it must take a huge risk to generate a military victory that can turn the tide in both Iraq and in the US.
The agony of the current US offensive begins with the death and destruction it is wreaking on an ancient and holy city. Beyond that, the primary damage may lie in the less visible horror that animates this new military strategy. The US is no longer capable either of winning the "battle for the hearts and minds" of the Iraqis or governing most of the country. But by crushing the city of Najaf, the marines might be able quiet the rebellion for long enough to spin the November election back to Bush.
Other articles:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0E7841EF-96D6-4BAB-BCFA-86D5FD2D04FA.htm

Pages
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1081571.htm
Shi'ite leader declared an outlaw by US Iraq administrator
PM - Monday, 5 April , 2004 18:10:00
Reporter: Peter Cave
MARK COLVIN: Iraq's US administrator Paul Bremer has told reporters that the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is effectively attempting to overthrow the legitimate authority.
Mr Bremer said the US would not tolerate this.
His remarks came as Baghdad was counting the dead and wounded on both sides after the clashes which erupted in rioting by Shi'ites in the suburb of Sadr City.
At least nine Coalition troops are known to have been killed. A hospital official in Sadr City says 28 Iraqis were killed and 74 injured.
Meanwhile the Shi'ite uprising has spread. In the last few hours militiamen have occupied the Governor's house in the southern city of Basra.
The British, who administer that city, have confirmed the occupation, with a reported 1,000 supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr inside and around the house of the Governor.
So why is this uprising happening now, and why under the banner of Moqtada al-Sadr?
I spoke a short time ago to our Foreign Affairs Editor Peter Cave on the line from Baghdad.
PETER CAVE: Moqtada and his supporters are quite strong in a number of areas. They have a large constituency in Baghdad, mainly based on the slum on the outskirts of Baghdad that used to be known as Saddam City. That vast sprawling slum is now named after Moqtada's father. It's called Sadr City. They also, he has his mosque near the town of Najaf, the holy city of Najaf. They have a large number of supporters in Basra, where they have taken over buildings, various other Shi'ite towns in the south.
MARK COLVIN: What was the political and spiritual significance of Moqtada Sadr's father? Why is he so important and why has his son become such an important symbol to these people?
PETER CAVE: His father was murdered by Saddam's henchmen, he's a martyr, he's revered, the whole, the family stretches way back, it's a very, very influential Shi'ite family.
Moqtada himself suddenly appeared after the fall of Saddam. He was virtually unknown until then. People here say he speaks with an Iranian accent. He probably spent his formative years in Iran and has come back after the fall of Saddam. He's not high on the educated ranks of Shi'ite clerics, but he's formed a constituency for himself amongst the poor and the unemployed, people who live in slums like Sadr City.
And a lot of the elder statesmen of the Shi'ite are looking a little bit nervously at him. He's only 30, in his early 30s, which is very young for a Shi'ite cleric and I think that some of his elders within the Shi'ite hierarchy are looking at him just as nervously as are the Americans at the moment.
MARK COLVIN: But do you think that he is now mounting a full-blown coup, or is this in some way a test of strength?
PETER CAVE: I think he's probably seized the moment. Until now he's been a bit of a minor annoyance. He's been an annoyance to the Americans because of his avowed support of Hezbollah and Hamas and groups like that. He had a newspaper which was constantly railing against the American occupation.
When that newspaper was closed down in the middle of last week, suddenly a lot of people took to the streets, and that momentum has built and built and built, and from being somewhat of a minor figure, he's suddenly become a figure of national attention and he's been drawing a lot of support from people who don't feel particularly well off under the American occupation. You know, the poor, the unemployed and the people who aren't really getting much benefit out of the change in the situation in Iraq.
I think he's probably seizing on that sudden burst of support to try and build his own position.
MARK COLVIN: How surprised should the Americans be about this, because essentially aren't these the same people who felt deeply betrayed by the Americans' failure to go on and finish the job and liberate them back in the first Gulf War?
PETER CAVE: Indeed they are, and they're the sort of people who've been badly, badly ignored.
I was at the Housing Ministry yesterday before all this blew up and speaking to the Minister for Housing. There is something like two million people who don't have homes in this country. At the moment the combined effort by the Coalition and the interim government is to build something like 10,000 houses. So these sort of people are having very little done for them and see very little hope in what is going to be done in the near future.
MARK COLVIN: Now last week obviously the big disaster for the Americans was in the Sunni triangle. Now there's this uprising in the Shi'ite areas. How impractical now does the handover date of June the 30th look? Is it looking more and more likely as if it'll have to be put off 'til the end of the year?
PETER CAVE: Well certainly a few of the American politicians have been saying that on the Sunday talk shows over there.
The American administrator here, Paul Bremer, has said look we're not going to let this sort of thing happen, we're going to strike back, we're going to work more with the Iraqis, and to that end he appointed a defence minister and a new head of intelligence here, and the Americans are training thousands and thousands of local police and local army, and what Paul Bremer hopes to do is to start moving his soldiers out of the front line and put in these local people who not only have better relations with the community but better intelligence.
MARK COLVIN: But in view of the events of the last couple of weeks, are they going to be able to realistically do that? I mean they're trying to put together a non-sectarian defence and police force and yet the country seems to be increasingly divided along sectarian lines.
PETER CAVE: Well you know, as I said, the politicians in America, you know, are coming to the belief that maybe they're not going to achieve that date.
Paul Bremer himself is sticking to his guns. He said it will be achieved at the end of June.
MARK COLVIN: Foreign Affairs Editor Peter Cave on the line from Baghdad, and as I mentioned the top US official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, who he was just talking about has declared Moqtada al-Sadr an outlaw this evening.
******
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/11/1086749902272.html?from=storylhs&oneclick=true
Shi'ite groups clash in Najaf
June 12, 2004
Fistfights broke out yesterday around Najaf's most sacred shrine a day after US troops refused to intervene when gunmen loyal to a radical cleric ransacked an Iraqi police station there. Coalition forces came under fire in another Shi'ite city south of Baghdad.
In the capital, a car bomb exploded yesterday on a highway in the Sayediya district as a US patrol passed nearby. Two US Humvees were slightly damaged but there was no US confirmation of any casualties.
The trouble in Najaf started in the morning when hundreds of protesters marched toward the Imam Ali Shrine to express support for a peace plan which was threatened by clashes the day before.
Supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr supporters blocked their way and fights broke out between the two groups. The shrine was evacuated and its doors closed as a security precaution, witnesses said.
Despite the incident, the city was generally quiet following gunbattles in which al-Sadr's fighters seized and ransacked a police station. Hospital officials said six Iraqis were killed and 29 wounded, including eight children.
It was the first outbreak in fighting in Najaf since a truce mediated by Shi'ite clerics and politicians ended eight weeks of clashes between US troops and al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia.
Al-Mahdi Army fighters remained in their positions around the city's main mosque yesterday, inspecting cars and checking identification papers. But there was no sign of weapons.
US troops refused to intervene because the fighting was too close to Shi'ite shrines and because it was unclear whether al-Sadr was trying to subvert the truce. Al-Sadr aides said the fighting broke out when relatives of a man killed by police sought revenge.
American forces are trying to lower their profile in Iraq and hand over more responsibility.
Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, who took command of the new Multinational Corps Iraq headquarters last month, said yesterday the military was changing its focus from fighting guerrillas to training Iraqi troops and protecting the fragile interim government.
Nevertheless, American soldiers clashed on Thursday with other militants loyal to al-Sadr in Baghdad's Shi'ite district Sadr City. At least one militant was shot and killed by a US tank as he prepared to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the Americans.
Elsewhere, the US command announced yesterday that an American soldier died of wounds suffered in an ambush in eastern Baghdad. Four other soldiers were wounded in the Wednesday night attack. More than 820 US service members have died since the Iraq conflict began on March 2003.
Assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades on Thursday night at coalition troops near the Shi'ite city of Hillah about 100 kilometres south of Baghdad. Polish officials said there were no casualties and the attackers fled when troops returned fire.
Polish Lieutenant Colonel Robert Strzelecki wouldn't divulge the nationality of the coalition troops involved but soldiers from Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia operate in the area.
In Najaf, Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st armoured Division, told CNN that Iraqi police, who deserted when al-Sadr's rebellion began in April, fought well despite losing control of a station. Dempsey said it was too early to tell whether the truce, mediated last week by Shi'ite clerics and politicians to end nearly eight weeks of fighting, had collapsed.
But the US-appointed governor of Najaf province, Adnan al-Zurufi, warned if the violence continued "there won't be a truce." He gave the militia 24 hours to clear armed men off the streets.
Al-Sadr's spokesman, Qais Al-Khazali, warned the governor against "following the Americans" or sending forces near the holy shrines "because this could lead to fighting."
In Sadr City, the crackle of gunfire rattled through the streets as knots of young, black-clad militiamen fired machine guns, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades at American positions, while US Army Apache helicopters roamed the skies seeking targets. A flock of terrified sheep scampered down one street past Shi'ite gunmen.
A roadside bomb exploded on Thursday evening in Sadr City near a convoy of sport utility vehicles favoured by Westerners in Iraq. There was no official conformation of casualties, but pools of blood could be seen around a wrecked vehicle.
In Seoul, the South Korean government said it would send 3,600 troops to a Kurdish area of northern Iraq in late August despite pressure to reconsider the long-delayed deployment.
South Korea, which already has 600 military medics and engineers in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, had planned to send its troops to the ethnically contested city of Kirkuk in April. The plan was cancelled because of fears the troops might be caught up in fighting.
Opposition to sending troops to Iraq has been rising amid increasing violence in Iraq. Seoul has portrayed the dispatch as a way of winning US support for a peaceful end to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
AP
**********
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44653-2004Aug6_2.html
300 Shiite Militiamen Killed in Iraqi South
Three U.S. Troops Slain; Clerics Call for Uprising
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 7, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Aug. 6 -- Shiite Muslim militias clashed with Iraqi and foreign forces Friday in several cities, and officials said the fighting, which began Thursday, has killed at least 300 militiamen, three U.S. troops and uncounted Iraqi civilians.
Spurred by impassioned calls to arms at Friday prayer services in Baghdad and other cities, masked militia members loyal to the firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, armed with rifles and rocket launchers, roamed freely through Najaf, 90 miles south of Baghdad, and Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum in the capital.
Spokesmen for Sadr said Friday that the radical cleric, who has marshaled thousands of rebellious young Shiites, wanted to restore a truce established in early June. That cease-fire followed two months of heavy fighting between his militia and U.S. and allied forces. Mahmoud Soudani, Sadr's spokesman in Baghdad, said: "We have no objections to entering negotiations to solve this crisis. . . . We want a resumption of the truce."
But other Shiite clerics openly called on their followers to kill Americans and join a nationwide uprising against Iraqi authorities, accusing coalition forces of attacking sacred Shiite sites and occupying Iraq.
"The Americans have attacked Najaf and the shrine of Ali. I don't want to hear people say this is wrong, I want them to come here and fight," Hazim Araaji, a local sheik, thundered in a sermon in the central mosque in Kadhimiya, a large Shiite district in Baghdad. "Our god says you must prepare yourself to fight the occupiers. . . . You do not need our permission to fight the Americans. You should do it directly."
As the violence spread, a potential voice of reason among Shiite leaders was absent. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, 73, an influential moderate cleric, was reported to have left Iraq on Friday to seek medical treatment in London for a heart condition.
The most intense conflict was in Najaf, the site of the tomb of Imam Ali, one of Shiism's most revered figures. During 36 hours of sustained fighting, U.S. Marines battled militiamen from Sadr's Mahdi Army, while U.S. helicopters, F-16s and AC-130 gunships circled the city.
Most of the fighting took place in the area of Najaf's vast Shiite cemetery, which had been off-limits to U.S. forces under the June cease-fire agreement. U.S. military officials said hundreds of militia members had taken cover and hidden weapons in the graveyard, which is near the shrine.
"Najaf is being subjected to . . . total destruction," said Ahmed Shaibany, an aide to Sadr in Najaf. "We call on the Islamic world, and on the entire civilized world, to intervene to save the city."
There were conflicting reports of casualties in Najaf. Iraqi officials said at least 400 people had been killed and more than 1,000 militiamen had been arrested. Officers from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit based outside Najaf said 300 militia fighters and two unidentified Marines had been killed, but they gave no estimate of casualties among Iraqi security forces or civilians. A U.S. soldier was also killed in the fighting, the Associated Press reported.
Lt. Col. Gary Johnston, the operations officer for the unit, said Marine forces had not broken the truce but had responded late Thursday to a request for help from overwhelmed Iraqi security forces after militia fighters began massing in the cemetery and repeatedly attacking the city. Iraqi officials said the fighting began when militia forces attacked a police station Thursday morning.
"We received heavy fire and were attacked, and we attacked back," Johnston said. He also stressed that U.S. troops were not pursuing Sadr, saying: "Our mission is not focused on any particular individual, it is to support the governor of Najaf. We are not at war with ; we are here to support the Iraqi forces and the Iraqi people."
In Sadr City, Iraqi health officials said at least 19 people had been killed and 100 injured in two days of clashes. Residents said U.S. forces had surrounded the community with tanks and had fired from helicopters but had not entered on the ground.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, officials said militia fighters attacked Italian troops with automatic weapons during fighting that began Thursday and lasted until dawn Friday. Iraqi officials said Iraqi and coalition forces were in control of key sectors of the city by midday, although Sadr's forces were moving freely in one area.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials said Friday that four Lebanese truck drivers had been reported missing in Iraq. They were believed to be the latest victims in a rash of kidnappings in which Islamic militant groups and criminal gangs have abducted drivers as well as other foreigners.
Iraqi officials said Friday that they were confident they could contain the violence in the south, and they referred to the Shiite militiamen as terrorists and criminals. Georges Sada, a spokesman for Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said the government "will fight them and will not allow their criminal actions in the various cities, irrespective of who they are or how big they are."
But other comments made Thursday by Interior Minister Falah Naqib appeared to have further inflamed the Shiite populace and were invoked in rousing sermons. Falah advised Sadr and his troops to stop "killing yourselves" and said it was "good news" that several militiamen had been killed.
Several Shiite leaders asserted that coalition forces had attacked sacred sites without provocation and that the dome of the Imam Ali shrine had been damaged. But Iraqi and U.S. officials said Sadr's forces had instigated the violence by attacking the police station.
"We did not want to escalate the situation . . . but the actions of the American troops have enraged the sons of these cities," said Soudani, Sadr's spokesman in Baghdad.
The previous flare-up of Shiite violence, in April, led to two months of intense fighting and was triggered when U.S. authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sadr and shut down his movement's newspaper in March.
Another object of Shiite anger was the Najaf governor, Adnan Zurfi, a close U.S. ally. In speeches and sermons, Shiite clerics have called him a "lunatic" and a "lackey" of U.S. forces.
Soudani said Sadr's movement held U.S. troops and Zurfi "totally accountable for the state the crisis has reached to now." Late Friday, Zurfi issued an ultimatum to Sadr's forces, giving them 24 hours to leave the city.
It isn't the article that upsets my sensibilities, it is use of military hardware such as helicoptor gunships and tanks to fight an unorganized group of angry young men. This is what Saddam did in the early 90s when Bush sr urged them to rise up. We are being used by Allawi who is a thug just like Saddam, we are preparing Iraq for a tyranny.
By the way, I don't post any thing as the "gospel". I put forth articles that present various perspectives. While I am sure you will disagree because it doesn't follow the neo-con line, it is still worth knowing both sides of a story.
"The fact that the agreement between the Najaf militia and trusted political groups was violated, indicates that a dangerous scenario has been planned to suppress and isolate the country's Shia majority. The provocative acts came shortly after the illogical remarks of the Iraqi defence and interior ministers, who claimed that the Islamic Republic was interfering in Iraq's internal affairs.
Iran - editorial in Tehran Times"
I have recently found this blog on Iraq, for those interested in information.
http://www.juancole.com/109237286614040284
Edited 8/14/2004 1:47 pm ET ET by hayashig
That is interesting. Thanks.
This is from the link you posted.
Into the breach
>" TARGET="_blank">http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/703/re9.htm>>
This took me a bit off memory. I had to re-read the article before I got the intent of the sentence. Yes, that was a particularly interesting article, and yes, Sadr should be thankful for his rivals, or lack thereof. I think the following explains much:
"Contrary to their previous expectations, the interim government -- or privileged clique -- has garnered little sympathy at grassroots level. Meanwhile, angry young men have no meaningful occupation or even the hope of gainful employment in the near future. Thus they join the ranks of Al-Sadr, not because of his charm but simply because they have been shunned by all others. The leadership of the Shia community must travel the only path towards claiming a wider constituency and a complete return to the people. Failing to do so deprives the people of Iraq of any true alternative to the otherwise untenable support for Moqtada Al-Sadr. They must also realise that calling on the Americans to bomb holy cities on their behalf is not the way to garner support and cultivate favour ahead of future elections."
This is an article joywriter needs to read.
I am really happy you read the article. However, I disagree with your conclusion. The US is putting itself in a position of supporting a dictator to maintain stability. This is exactly the course of action that caused radical Islamists to attack us. Illawi is another Saddam!
What a load. We did not "cause" 9/11. Our behavior did not prompt 19 wackos to fly planes into buldings and kill 3,000 people, and the suggestion that the US is somehow at fault for that despicable act is distasteful and disingenuous. But I do encourage you to keep making it -- because the longer y'all talk, the worse it gets for you.
Fundamentalist extremist groups have been attacking Israel for decades, and attacked us in 1993 at the WTC, and more recently at our embassies and in an attack on the USS Cole, before the 9/11 terror. It was precisely because we did not answer the previous attacks -- esp the one against the Cole, which I viewed as an act of war that should have immediately provoked a full military response -- these heartless, soul-less animals were even more emboldened. They plotted and planned for many years to execute that plot. Why? Because they hate America, plain & simple. You don't wage a "sensitive, thoughtful war" against an enemy that will stop at nothing in its work for your ultimate destruction.
As for the comment about Allawi and Saddam, I will ask you to prove that Allawi murdered tens of thousands of his own people, gassed the Kurds, attempted to take over Kuwait, and flauted the authority of 14 UN resolutions. If not, then the statement that "Allawi is another Saddam" is inaccurate.
We did not fly the airplanes into the WTC, however, as OBL has said, the reason he wants revenge on the US is because we remained in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War. I am tired of arguing this point.
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He hasen't exterminated his opponets YET. His brutality is well recorded. I don't have to prove anything, time will do it for me.
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