Posted on 05/16/2004 2:53:21 AM PDT by AntiGuv
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Most of the civilian staff of the U.S.-led coalition was evacuated from their headquarters in the southern city of Nasiriyah because of growing threats from Muqtada al-Sadr's militiamen, a coalition official said Sunday.
The official, Andrea Angeli, said only two civilians remain in the coalition headquarters, which was attacked Friday by al-Sadr militiamen. Coalition forces regained control of the building before dawn Saturday.
The rest of the 10-member staff was evacuated Saturday afternoon to the coalition military base six miles out of town, Angeli said.
He said there was more gunfire near the building Sunday and that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were fired by militiamen in the area the night before.
Italian media reported sporadic fighting Sunday in Nasiriyah between Italian troops and al-Sadr's gunmen. Four Italians were slightly injured, Italian media reported.
The Apcom news agency quoted Italian contingent spokesman Lt. Col. Giuseppe Perrone as saying militants were firing light weapons, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades. Some shots were coming from a nearby hospital.
Trouble started in Nasiriyah on Friday after daylong fighting in the holy city of Najaf between American forces and al-Sadr's fighters.
Elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S. military said Saturday it killed 18 gunmen believed loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad, and jet fighters bombarded militia positions on the capital's outskirts. Skirmishes persisted in the southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
The U.S. military also announced the deaths of five soldiers, including three killed by rebel attacks. In northern Iraq, rebels fired a mortar round at an Iraqi army recruiting center, killing four volunteers, hospital officials said.
U.S. troops are trying to disband the cleric's army and sideline its radical leadership before handing power to a new Iraqi government June 30. Al-Sadr is a fierce opponent of the U.S.-led occupation who launched an uprising last month and faces an arrest warrant in the death of a rival moderate cleric last year.
In Najaf, militiamen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. tank stationed at the city's Police Directorate. The rocket missed its target, and the two sides exchanged gunfire. Elsewhere, a shell landed on a house, wounding a woman.
The normally bustling area around Karbala's Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest centers for Shiite Muslims, was silent except for intermittent blasts and machine-gun fire. After one blast, a huge column of black smoke wafted over the golden-domed shrine. One Polish soldier was wounded in Saturday's skirmishes, the Polish military said in Warsaw.
The confrontations in the two holy cities in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland were less intense than in previous days.
In Baghdad, coalition forces killed 18 fighters, many of them in the eastern Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold of al-Sadr, in a dozen separate engagements Friday and Saturday, the military said in a statement. Troops also killed seven gunmen who attacked them in western Baghdad on Saturday morning, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.
Guerrillas fired a mortar round at an Iraqi army recruiting center in the northern city of Mosul, killing four people and wounding 19, hospital officials said. The shell landed in a crowd of people waiting to sign up for the military. Kimmitt said the projectile was a mortar shell or a rocket-propelled grenade.
Insurgents have previously targeted police and army recruitment centers in an effort to undermine Iraqi involvement in the U.S.-led coalition.
Hussein Assem, a 25-year-old army volunteer, suffered shrapnel wounds in a hand and leg and was taken to a hospital.
"While I was at the entrance of the volunteer center, a mortar shell fell near me," he said. "I fell down together with the others on the floor. I felt I was in coma and I woke up to find myself at the hospital."
The coalition announced a reorganization of its military command structure Saturday, creating a new headquarters with broad responsibility for operations in Iraq, including the training of Iraqi security forces and involvement in the political transition, and another headquarters that will handle daily tactical operations against the insurgency.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a three-star general who was in charge of the previous, unified command, will oversee all operations from the Multinational Forces Iraq headquarters, Kimmitt said.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, a three-star general who commands the U.S. Army's 3rd Corps, will direct daily military operations from a headquarters called Multinational Corps Iraq.
British troops killed up to 16 Iraqi insurgents after their patrol was ambushed between the southern cities of Amarah and Basra on Friday, and two British soldiers were wounded, the Ministry of Defense said in London. However, Iraqi witnesses said 21 militiamen were killed and that they were loyalists of al-Sadr.
The U.S. military said three soldiers died from wounds suffered in rebel attacks Friday, one died in a vehicle accident and one from "natural causes."
As of Friday, May 14, 775 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 565 died as a result of hostile action and 210 died of non-hostile causes.
It was unclear whether the latest deaths were included in the Department of Defense toll.
On Saturday, a rocket landed in the compound housing the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad, wounding one soldier and a civilian, both of whom later returned to duty, Kimmitt said.
The slain militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City included a police lieutenant who joined al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army, witnesses said.
U.S. jet fighters bombarded the outskirts of Sadr City overnight, forcing militiamen to flee positions, the witnesses said. On Saturday, U.S. soldiers drove through the neighborhood with loudspeakers, urging people to hand in their weapons within a week in exchange for money.
In Najaf, gunmen from al-Sadr's militia controlled the city center. They had replaced a special force assigned to protect the Shrine of Imam Ali, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites. Bands of fighters stood at almost every street corner around the shrine, and some patrolled the area in a commandeered police pickup truck.
On Friday, apparent gunfire slightly damaged a shrine, prompting calls for revenge and even suicide attacks.
Twenty people signed up for an al-Sadr-backed suicide squad in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, though only 10 were accepted after undergoing checks by organizers.
In Karbala, al-Sadr militiamen moved to new positions to the south, leaving the shrine district almost vacant except for small groups of Iranian and south Asian pilgrims.
"I'm not scared," said Ahmed Ali, who sells Turkish lace from a shop in the shrine district. "In Iraq, we are addicted to war."
Ho hum. Another day another suicide squad recruitment effort. LOL! This isn't funny, but it amuses me. The report is so matter-of-fact blasé and suicide squad recruitment is even competitive these days!
I wonder what a suicide-squad application looks like..
The suicide squad recruitment does tickle the sense of the ridiculous even if it is kinda scary. Why does the reporter know all about this? Do the terrorists send out regular press releases?
I mean, don't you all have to suppress a smirk whenever UBL periodically releases one of his greatest hate tapes on al-Jazeera, especially after taking notice of the Rolex on his right wrist?
It all seems like a peculiar, incredibly gorey but still slightly amusing re-hash of a campy Freddy Krueger movie.
"Is anyone a supporter of Hamas here?"(sporadic applause) "Let me also say that I'm also a supporter of Hezbollah. Hamas is in da' house Dawg!"
That was an actual quote, more or less.
Seriously. I mean, talk about the ultimate in loser. And how do you tell your mother? =)
Maybe there is a hazing process you have to pass. Like the skull and bones society. They put panties on your head and take pictures. That way if you back out, they'll show the pictures to you family.
LOL
Twenty people signed up for an al-Sadr-backed suicide squad in the southern city of Basra on Saturday . . .
You can't make up this kind of stuff. The "suicide squad" routine from Monty Python's "Life of Brian" came to mind.
Sounds like house to house building to building. The vital question now being what are American troops forbidden to do in order to effectively defend themselves?
I got a kick out of doing the Hassan Chop(that thing the Arabs do which kind of looks like an angry tomahawk chop) while chanting in that neat little sing-song, "Saddam! Saddam! (unintelligible Arabic) Saddam-saddam-saddam!"
And despite the great evil of these men, I kind of find the rhetoric humorous at times. As I've taken to saying recently; even if we opened a Dimensional Door and took refuge there, the jihadis would be doing the Hassan Chop and screaming "TRANSDIMENSIONAL ISLAM!"
My guess is they are screening for counterintel operatives.
There are a bunch of threads on FR that explain the connection Mid-east nationalism-in the form of Nasserism, Ba'athism, and other Arab-centric parties-had to the resurgence of violent anti-semitism in Europe.
Most of them have at least a few pictures of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amir al-Husseini, chatting it up with Hitler, Goering or any number of Nazi functionaries.
Did you happen to get your screen name from the Ice Cube song, "Predator."
If you go to my profile page and scroll down to the last two paragraphs on the bottom of the page, you'll find out whence it comes. I can't really do justice to do it in this brief post.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.