Posted on 02/02/2007 7:17:50 AM PST by TexKat
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. military helicopter went down in Iraq Friday, the third in a month, an officer confirmed. Maj. David Small, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said he had no details on possible casualties, what mission the helicopter was supporting, nor how many were in the crew.
Two other military helicopters and one civilian helicopter crashed in Iraq in January. All were believed shot down, although the military says it has not confirmed that.
U.S. forces said meanwhile they killed 18 insurgents after coming under attack in a volatile city west of the capital.
Three helicopters have been lost in Iraq in the past two weeks, including one that went down on Sunday during fighting near Najaf, killing the two crew members, and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed in Diyala province, killing 12 soldiers aboard. Both were believed to have been shot down, but the military has not confirmed the cause of the crash.
The U.S. military relies heavily on air transportation in Iraq to avoid roadside bombs and insurgent attacks and the recent spate of losses underscores the dangers facing American troops as they prepare to step up security operations in the capital and surrounding areas.
Witnesses and local police said two helicopters were flying together Friday morning when gunmen opened fire, downing one of the aircraft near Taji, an air base 12 miles north of Baghdad.
"I can confirm that we are looking into reports that a helicopter went down north of Baghdad," U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle said.
Some witnesses described two helicopters going down, but police said only that the wreckage from one aircraft had been found near a fuel storage complex in the rural area of Mashhada, near Taji.
American forces sealed off the area and U.S. planes were flying overhead, witnesses said.
Since May 2003, the U.S. military has lost 54 helicopters in Iraq, about half of them to hostile fire, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution.
U.S. forces, meanwhile, said 18 insurgents were killed in fighting Thursday night and Friday after insurgents opened fire on the Americans from several positions in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. No civilian or U.S. casualties were reported, the military said.
Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar where Sunni insurgents remain well-entrenched, has seen some of the bloodiest street battles of the war.
Iraqi officials in Hillah, a Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, announced a three-day mourning period after Thursday's devastating suicide attack. Police spokesman Capt. Muthanna Khaled said at least 73 people were killed and 163 wounded.
Police and witnesses said the two bombers strolled into the central Maktabat market about 6 p.m. when the area was packed with shoppers buying food for the evening meal.
Police said an officer, Ahmed Abed Majood, became suspicious and grabbed one of the bombers but he managed to detonate his explosives. His partner then blew himself up too.
The blasts sent bodies hurling through the air and set fire to wooden stalls where vendors sold fruits and vegetables, witnesses said. Some shoppers fled screaming, while others stopped to help rescuers carry away the wounded.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but many residents blamed Sunni insurgents. The Shiite city, located in a religiously mixed province, was the scene of one of Iraq's deadliest attacks — a February 2005 suicide car bombing that killed 125 people.
"I was hit by the first explosion. I fell on the ground and that is the reason that I was saved from the second explosion," one wounded man said from his hospital bed.
In violence Friday, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing one officer, police said.
But the capital was relatively calm amid a weekly three-hour vehicle ban to prevent car bombings during the traditional Islamic religious services.
Authorities also imposed a daytime vehicle ban Friday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf following last weekend's battle between Iraqi-U.S. troops and a messianic Shiite cult that left more than 200 people dead, said Ahmed Duaebil, spokesman for the Najaf province.
Officials have said the cultists planned attacks during Tuesday's Ashoura commemoration to try to bring back the "Hidden Imam," a descendant of Islam's Prophet Muhammad who disappeared as a child in the 9th century. Shiites believe that he will return one day to bring justice and peace.
Much conflicting information has emerged about the cult — the "Soldiers of Heavan" — including several names for the so-called leader, who Iraqi authorities said was among those killed in the fighting.
Shiite cleric Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said the cult leader was a member of Saddam Hussein's feared security agency, the Mukhabarat.
He claimed the group was established in 1993 and supported by Saddam's ruling Baath Party to exploit internal rivalries among Shiites.
"What happened in Najaf represented an attempt to bring down the new situation in Iraq by occupying and bringing down the religious capital," al-Qubanji said during his Friday sermon in Najaf. "The Baath Party has been saving this person in order to create a Shiite-Shiite sedition."
He also said two other groups with offices in Najaf have adopted the same ideology as the cult and called upon security forces to keep them from plotting any similar attacks.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The term "civil war" accurately describes some of the main elements of the violence in Iraq, concludes a U.S. intelligence report released on Friday.
"The term "civil war" does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq," said a new national intelligence estimate on Iraq. "Nonetheless, the term "civil war" accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070202/ts_nm/iraq_usa_report_dc_4;_ylt=AvDKuRIPXvHjTIdnvFlKxtrmWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
Why is the label so important?...it doesn't change anything.
"Victories mean nothing if they don´t last"
I agree...but who gets to determine that amount of time?
Also here, TK. It was posted under a different title in BN and then pulled.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1777846/posts
If they can successfully label it a "civil war" then they can continue to claim this is all a big sectarian grudge we can't do anything about, that has gone on for 100's of years and will continue to go on for 100's more, so we may as well just pull out and go home and leave them to it. It's just one part of the Big Lie.
Meanwhile in the US are plentiful bomb hoaxes going "on".
There isn't a big sectarian grudge between the Sunni and the Shia?
Yes there is, but Sunni and Shia are also able to co-exist without constantly killing each other (as we are told by CNN/ABC/ETC is all they do), and not just because "Saddam kept them in line". Credit to FReeper WPtG as he researched the following:
"Sunnis and Shiites do co-exist in the Muslim world. Yemen is evenly split, 53% Shiite/47% Sunni. When was the time time you heard about any sectarian violence in Yemen? How about Kuwait (70% Sunni/30% Shia)?
Pakistan, on the other hand, is 77% Sunni and 20% Shia, and has seen its share of sectarian fighting. But the attacks have greatly diminished in recent years, dropping from 274 reported incidents in 1990 to just 19 reported incidents in 2004. Since the attacks of 9/11/01, sectarian attacks in Pakistan have dropped dramatically (154 in 2001, 62 in 2002, 22 in 2003, 19 in 2004). Right around the time the mujahadeen put up the "Help Wanted" sign for the coming jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq, the irreconcilable differences between Sunnis and Shiites were suddenly reconciled. Imagine that.
There has been a good deal of sectarian fighting in Lebanon (41% Shia/27% Sunni), especially in recent months. Similar in nature -- but not scope -- to Iraq, the violence is manufactured on-demand by the Iranian regime via its state-sponsored terror entity Hezbollah. And it's usually to divert the world's attention from Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The reality of the situation is, yes, Sunnis and Shiites are rival sects. But they are also fully capable of co-existence, and in the area of jihad, cooperation."
Apparently, they are not capable of co-existing where our troops are.
[Disclaimer: As long as the music sounds good I don´t care whether they´re leftists or whatever.]
>>The reality of the situation is, yes, Sunnis and Shiites are rival sects. But they are also fully capable of co-existence, and in the area of jihad, cooperation."<<
That is, unless a "civil war" is being promoted, funded and fueled by Iran.
Those places where you are listing are Sunni majority, and the Sunni rule. There are plenty of Sunni in Iran, but they accept Shia dominance in a similar fashion. The only exception is Yemen, which has a relatively large Shia minority. That land is stable due to a very strict tribal structure, not any egalatarian pan-Islamic sentiment.
Iraq, on the other hand, had a small minority dominating the overwhelming majority. That's a recipie for conflict anywhere, and especially in a land of ancient grudges.
They co-existed during the election, didn't they.
Iran is doing what they're doing to influence people like yourself. It's working.
The region may have a history of sectarian violence, but that doesn't mean it's natural. It just means the powers that be stoke this sort of violence when it's convenient for them and turn it off when there's a great threat to their rule in the region (Russians, Americans, etc.).
If it were natural thing, it wouldn't have required the bombing of the most sacred mosque in all of Shia Islam to kick-start it. It would have spontaneously happened after the fall of Baghdad.
Iran's fueling this because it benefits Iran.
My opinions, and what I am influenced by, means very little in this matter. Obviously, co-existence is a changing thing.
Then they are wasting their money, as I am nothing more than a voice in an anonymous web forum.
Which is a model of peaceful rulership by a minority over a majority, if you exclude the massacre at Hama in 1982. Hama was a Sunni town that was flattened by Syrian artillery, to the tune of 30-40 thousand villagers dead.
The region may have a history of sectarian violence, but that doesn't mean it's natural. It just means the powers that be stoke this sort of violence when it's convenient for them and turn it off when there's a great threat to their rule in the region (Russians, Americans, etc.).
Did you get that gem from? A Saudi cleric? An Egyptian textbook? Violence in that region predates the dread specter of "colonialism" by centuries. This sort of reasoning is apologetic, at best.
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