Posted on 04/25/2004 5:24:11 AM PDT by AntiGuv
NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. troops will likely enter parts of Najaf soon in a move to clamp down on the rebel militia of a radical Shiite cleric but will stay away from sensitive holy sites in the center of the city to avoid rousing the anger of Shiites, a U.S general said Sunday.
Shiite leaders have warned of a possible explosion of anger among the country's Shiite majority if U.S. troops enter Najaf, and until now U.S. commanders have been saying troops would not go in.
With the new move, the military seeks to impose a degree of control in Najaf, while hoping that a foray limited to the modern parts of the ancient holy city would not inflame Shiites. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling did not say when troops would move in, or how many.
American officials were attempting a similar limited step in the war-torn city of Fallujah, the other main front of fighting in Iraq this month.
U.S. troops will begin patrols alongside Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, a top Iraqi negotiator, Hachim al-Hassani, said Sunday — an apparent attempt to restore control over the insurgent stronghold without a full-scale Marine assault, which would spark new bloodshed.
But like a previous agreement aimed at reducing the violence in the city, the new step hinged greatly on the response of Sunni guerrillas, who are called on to turn in their heavy weapons and not carry any weapons in public.
"We hope the U.S. soldiers will not be attacked when they enter the city. If they are attacked, they will respond and this will lead to problems," al-Hassani told The Associated Press.
He said Fallujah residents have promised no attacks will take place. But U.S. officials have questioned whether Fallujah civic leaders who have been negotiating with the Americans have enough influence with the city's guerrillas. Guerrillas have not been abiding by a previous call from the civil leaders to surrender their heavy weapons, U.S. commanders say.
Violence across the country flared Saturday, killing 33 Iraqis in various attacks and four U.S. soldiers whose base was hit by two rockets north of Baghdad.
On Sunday, a rocket hit near a hospital in the northern city of Mosul, killing three people — including two women working at the hospital — doctors said. Elsewhere the city, a mortar hit a residential area, killing one Iraqi.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in an eastern neighborhood, setting a Humvee on fire. Witnesses reported U.S. casualties, but there was no immediate confirmation from the military.
Meanwhile, U.S. military officials in the Gulf were trying to determine the launching point of an unprecedented suicide boat attack on two offshore oil terminals that are the sole outlet of Iraqi crude from the south. The attacks, using explosive-packed dhows, killed two U.S. Navy sailors and forced the shutdown of the two terminals for several hours.
Asked if the attackers came from inside Iraq or neighboring Iran or Kuwait, Navy Commander James Graybeal, of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said, "That's what were trying to determine."
Insurgents often attack oil pipelines in Iraq and have repeatedly shut down exports from northern oil fields to Turkey.
Saturday's bombings were the first such maritime attack on the industry and appeared to be a new tactic in the Iraqi conflict — resembling al-Qaida-linked attacks in 2000 and 2002 against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.
The blasts Saturday caused little damage to the facilities, and Sunday morning tankers resumed loading crude at the two terminals, al-Basra and Khawr al-Amara, about 100 miles in Gulf waters off the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, said Shamkhi Faraj, head of the State Oil Marketing Organization.
The new steps in Najaf and Fallujah came after President Bush held a conference call Saturday with his top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, over the situation in Iraq.
U.S. commanders have been threatening a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah and uproot insurgents unless guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons within days.
But a new assault would revive bloody fighting that killed hundreds of Iraqis this month, helped set off a surge of guerrilla attacks across the country that killed at least 109 U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April — the deadliest period ever in Iraq for the Americans.
The Fallujah siege also fueled anti-U.S. sentiment, rallying the Sunni minority and angering even U.S. allies among the Iraqi leadership.
Al-Hassani told The Associated Press that joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols would begin in the city on Tuesday, when orders will be issued forbidding Fallujah residents from carrying weapons in the streets.
He said 75 families who fled Fallujah during the fighting will be allowed to return on Sunday. "If things go well, all families will be allowed to return," he said. Nearly a third of the city's 200,000 residents fled the city since the siege began on April 5.
The attempt to have guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons will continue, he said. So far, insurgents have only turned in a small number of weapons, most of them rusted, broken or otherwise unusable, U.S. commanders have said.
The new U.S. intention to move into parts of Najaf also carried heavy risks
"We probably will go into the central part of the city. Will we interfere in the religious institutions? Absolutely not," Hertling, a deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters outside Najaf.
He did not say when the move would occur, but it appeared unlikely for several days.
Hertling said the move aimed to tighten the clampdown on radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
"It's not going to be large-scale fighting, the likes of other places, but it's going to be critical," he said. "We're going to drive this guy into the dirt."
"Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns — or he's going to find a lot of them killed," he said.
Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, according to a statement Saturday from the Department of Defense. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.
The latest deaths brought to 109 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. At least 718 servicemembers have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April — depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.
...Violence across the country flared Saturday, killing 33 Iraqis in various attacks and four U.S. soldiers whose base was hit by two rockets north of Baghdad.
On Sunday, a rocket hit near a hospital in the northern city of Mosul, killing three people — including two women working at the hospital — doctors said. Elsewhere the city, a mortar hit a residential area, killing one Iraqi.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in an eastern neighborhood, setting a Humvee on fire. Witnesses reported U.S. casualties, but there was no immediate confirmation from the military.
Meanwhile, U.S. military officials in the Gulf were trying to determine the launching point of an unprecedented suicide boat attack on two offshore oil terminals that are the sole outlet of Iraqi crude from the south. The attacks, using explosive-packed dhows, killed two U.S. Navy sailors and forced the shutdown of the two terminals for several hours.
The new steps in Najaf and Fallujah came after President Bush held a conference call Saturday with his top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, over the situation in Iraq.
U.S. commanders have been threatening a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah and uproot insurgents unless guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons within days.
But a new assault would revive bloody fighting that killed hundreds of Iraqis this month (opinion passes for news at AP...and AP won't mention the news - stubborn facts - the thousands of children saved this month by OUR troops, and last year - an estimated 5000 per month died BECAUSE of Saddam Hussein. Our troops removed Iraq's #1 evildoer, brought the children needed medicine, food, clean water...and our troops killed enemies that once (and still) brutally murdered and tortured Iraqi children).
Fallujah - Al-Hassani told The Associated Press that joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols would begin in the city on Tuesday, when orders will be issued forbidding Fallujah residents from carrying weapons in the streets.
Najaf - Hertling said the move aimed to tighten the clampdown on radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
"It's not going to be large-scale fighting, the likes of other places, but it's going to be critical," he said. "We're going to drive this guy into the dirt."
"Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns — or he's going to find a lot of them killed," he said.
Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, according to a statement Saturday from the Department of Defense. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.
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Iraq news recap, with apologies for posting AP.
Sunday rest day, few graphics....
Prayers going out for the families of our fallen Soldier in the Baghdad IED attack, our two Sailors - and a member of the Coast Guard - hit by lowlifes using boats packed with explosives.
Prayers for the friends and loved ones of Sgt. Elmer Krause, now confirmed dead.
May God protect our Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard, Reserve, civilian, coalition and native allies, comfort those who mourn, defeat this enemy!
Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier In Baghdad
We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!
As post number 4 HERE says, time to resolve it once and for all.
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Today: April 26, 2004 at 2:21:24 PDT
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -
U.S. soldiers rolled into a base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Monday to replace withdrawing Spanish troops and put pressure on a radical anti-American Shiite militia that controls parts of the city.
The base is about three miles from the Shiite holy shrines at Najaf's heart, which the U.S. military has vowed to steer clear of to avoid outraging Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims.
The move deploys U.S. troops within the Najaf urban area for the first time since a large force massed outside the city earlier this month to put down the Al-Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
About 200 troops and Military Police rolled into the base Monday morning, in part to prevent the site from falling into the militia's hands after Spanish troops withdraw. Col. Paul White said the Spanish would be leaving in the next few days.
Overnight, al-Sadr's forces shelled the base with 21 mortars, wounding at least one Salvadoran soldier, said Col. Paul White, commander of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment, which moved into the base.
"We are going in to allow the Spanish troops to leave safely and so that the compound is not left empty," said White, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment, which moved into the city. "We don't want al-Sadr's militia to take it over. It is not an offensive operation."
Spain, with some 1,300 troops, leads the Plus Ultra brigade in Iraq, a command that also includes forces from El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
Last week, newly elected Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who opposes the U.S.-led war in Iraq, ordered Spanish troops home as soon as possible. Zapatero's Socialists won the elections three days after the March 11 terrorist bombings of a Madrid commuter train, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 2,000.
The limited move into the base also gives U.S. forces a foothold in Najaf from which to pressure al-Sadr, who is holed up in the center of the city near the shrines, where his militiamen largely control the streets.
The base - actually two adjacent bases called Baker and Golf, one with Salvadoran troops, the other with Spaniards - lie in the modern part of Najaf, an urban extension that melds with the neighboring city of Kufa.
U.S. officials said they would start "economic, military and psychological" operations to pressure al-Sadr. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of the 1st Armored Division, said U.S. troops would build up Iraqi security forces in Najaf.
"We're going to drive this guy into the dirt," Hertling said of al-Sadr on Sunday. "Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns - or he's going to find a lot of them killed," he said.
Shiite leaders have warned of a possible explosion of anger if U.S. forces enter the holy sites.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said Sunday that weapons were being stockpiled in mosques, shrines and schools in Najaf and demanded an end to the practice. He said that Amb. L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, met with Iraqi journalists Sunday and warned that the practice threatened stability in the area.
Al-Sadr's militia launched a bloody uprising on April 4, and took control of police stations and government buildings in several cities in largely Shiite southern Iraq. Al-Sadr is based in Najaf, home to the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
Al-Sadr's gunmen left the stations and buildings a week after the uprising, but his militiamen can still be seen in the streets of Najaf and the nearby city of Kufa, carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
U.S. forces have been surrounding Najaf since shortly after the uprising but commanders have been reticent to launch an attack in which they could end up fighting militiamen hiding out in shrines and mosques that are considered sacred by Shiites.
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