Posted on 04/19/2008 7:45:12 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters.
By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad.
Despite the apparent concession of Basra, Mr. Sadr issued defiant words on Saturday night. In a long statement read from the loudspeakers of his Sadr City Mosque, he threatened to declare “war until liberation” against the government if fighting against his militia forces continued.
But it was difficult to tell whether his words posed a real threat or were a desperate effort to prove that his group was still a feared force, especially given that his militia’s actions in Basra followed a pattern seen again and again: the Mahdi militia battles Iraqi government troops to a standstill and then retreats.
Why his fighters have clung to those fight-then-fade tactics is unknown. But American military and civilian officials have repeatedly claimed that Mahdi Army units trained and equipped by Iran had played a major role in the unexpectedly strong resistance that government troops met in Basra.
Whether to counter those allegations or simply because, as many Iraqis have recently speculated, Mr. Sadr’s stock has recently fallen in Iranian eyes, the Iranian ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, on Saturday expressed his government’s strong support for the Iraqi assault on Basra. He even called the militias in Basra “outlaws,”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But everyone knows Basrah was lost. Just ask the press...
MSM = Iranian propagandists.
This can’t be true. I heard that the Mahdi Army was surprisingly strong!
/s
A concession to reality by the mullahs, and a confirmation of Mao's famous statement that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Heeheeeheeeee! I love this. God bless our soldiers.
Why his fighters have clung to those fight-then-fade tactics is unknown.
I know why. Because they are cowards and can’t stand up to us in a real fight. al-Sadr is a piece of crap that needs a good flushing.
Spin job.
And like most political spin it has some truth.
1. 52nd IA Bde should never have been fielded that soon and it broke.
2. The 1300 was not all IA, it was ISF. 1300 out of 30,000.
3. It was about 500 IA from the green 52nd Bde (3000). About 3 percent of the IA there at that point and all from the greenest Bde in the IA at the time.
4. Just under 800 Police, almost all local or about 4 percent.
5. Surprisingly, concidering the INP’s reputation, only 44 from the INP’s 1000 man BPPF deserted.
6. What is not mentioned is what was done when it became apparent they had bit off too much. The Iraqis moved an entire division into Basrah within five days.
- 1st IA Div HQ from Anbar.
- 3rd IA Bde from Diyala.
- half of 1st IA Bde from Anbar.
- 14th IA Bde from Salahadin.
- Karbala IP Emergency Response Bde.
- INP ERU Bn (equivalent to FBI HRT).
- Hillah SWAT Bn.
That is difficult for any force.
The last time the US did a comparable move (without any prior planning), the 82nd and 101st were eating at Burger King and only had their personal ammo for the two weeks it took for the USMC’s MPS equipment and ammo to arrive for the Army to borrow from (Saudi-1990)...
Is but a Flesh Wound, come back and fight!!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Ummm, because when a ragtag militia stands and fights against an organized and equipped military force, it gets it's butt kicked? The MSM is still grasping at straws to find a victory in what looks more and more like a crushing defeat for their heros.
Time to JDAM that fat tub of shit!
The message was “read”...I suspect the fat tub has decamped to Iran.
Just speculating...I have no inside info on that.
Losing will do that.
Was it Political correctness?
If we would have followed the advice of many on this board, his legacy would be growing, not diminishing over time.
The worse thing you could have done was martyr this lightweight. He’s an Iraqi Kennedy alright, but he’s not “Jack”.
If we killed this guy, everytime someone stubbed a toe in “Sadr” City, they would have blamed it on his death and seen the US as the cause of their toe stub. Now they can’t use that flimsy excuse for whatever displeases them because their hero is still around and can change it. But he can’t and is a fraud. Dead he’s a hero.
See #18....
same story, different headline (’:
Iraqi Army Seizes Basra From Militia as Cleric Threatens New Uprising
nyt | April 20, 2008 | JAMES GLANZ and ALISSA J. RUBIN
Posted on 04/19/2008 3:45:32 PM PDT by Red Steel
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2004120/posts
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