Posted on 03/26/2006 6:30:36 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 — American and Iraqi government forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in Baghdad tonight in the most serious confrontation in months, and Iraqi officials said the fighting left at least 17 Iraqis dead, including an 80-year-old imam.
The fighting erupted at a very combustible moment in Iraq, with sectarian tensions rising, leadership problems deepening, and dozens of mutilated bodies continuing to surface on Iraqi streets today.
Another concern is that the clash could open an old wound, because the militiamen who were killed worked for Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who has already led several bloody rebellions against American forces.
Security in Baghdad seems to be deteriorating by the hour, and it is increasingly unclear who is in control. Earlier today, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reported that American forces raided a secret prison and arrested several Iraqi policeman.
American officials have been more overt in the past week than ever in blaming Shiite militias, in particular Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army, for a wave of sectarian bloodshed that seems to have no end. This morning, authorities in Baghdad discovered the corpses of 10 more men, all bound, blindfolded and shot.
As night fell, American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad that is also used as a headquarters for Mr. Sadr's militia, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said. When the soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Heh... I was focused on the "imam" part.
See the link just above, this has been coming.....the MSM wants a Civil War so BAD!!!
L
If U.S. forces had attacked that mosque (as the MSM initially reported), it would not have been damaged, it would have been a hole in the ground. ;-)
LMAO!! Allegra, you do have a way with words.
Never a dull moment,.....thanks for reporting in.....near bedtime here!!!!
March 25, 2006
Media's Defensive War
Media Madness
Hatched by Sachi
***************************AN EXCERPT**************************
President Bush is finally on offense again. He has realized that not only we are at war against global terrorism, but we are also at war against the anti-war, anti-American Antique Media, which -- whether subconsciously or with deliberation -- takes the side of our enemies.
As President Bush's offensive strengthens, the media's defensive strikes become increasingly hysterical. The MSM knows that their domination of American opinion is in trouble. When Gayle Taylor complained that no major media was interested in showing the DVD full of "good news" that her Army journalist husband Kent had collected during his year in Iraq, the President of the United States openly suggested that she turn to bloggers.
Wthin 48 hours, several popular bloggers were reporting the story, including Power Line. The result: CNN's Anderson Cooper and MSNBC's Chris Matthews swiftly invited the Taylors onto their respective shows, Anderson Cooper 360 and Hardball (to see video of the latter, go here and click "Railing on Reporters" in the column headed VIDEO: LATEST FROM 'HARDBALL'). The media moguls who had ignored Kent Taylor for months, both while he was in Iraq and when he returned to the States, were finally shamed by bloggers into actually listening.
But this challenge against the monopoly news was just one incident of a series of events, for the most part sparked by a radio talkshow host Laura Ingrahm's appearance on the Today show. Tim Graham explains in his column for National Review:
NBC’s question: "Is American getting a fair picture of what’s actually happening in Iraq?" Ingraham came out of the blocks with fire, doing something no conservative does who wants to be invited on TV ever again. She went straight at her hosts:
The Today Show spends all this money to send people to the Olympics, which is great, it was great programming. All this money for "Where In The World Is Matt Lauer?" Bring The Today Show to Iraq. Bring The Today Show to Tal Afar. Do the show from the 4th ID at Camp Victory and then when you talk to those soldiers on the ground, when you go out with the Iraqi military, when you talk to the villagers, when you see the children, then I want [challenge] NBC to report on only the IEDs, only the killings, only the reprisals....
[T]he interview caused a wave of reaction. Bill O’Reilly gave Ingraham another chance to push her message. Hugh Hewitt faced off with liberal reporters on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. On NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell did a defensive story....[where] George Packer and David Gergen to state the usual cynical media response: the White House is lashing out in desperation over its awful war and its awful polls.
In addition to the Andrea Mitchell story, several more defensive stories appeared on different networks:
NBC’s Richard Engel did a story discounting the "myths and misperceptions" that he only files stories from the balcony on insurgent successes and underlining all the daily dangers to journalists in Baghdad.... Engel proclaimed, "I think the security problem is the overall story," and insisted "most Iraqis I speak to…[think] the situation on the ground is actually worse than the images we project on television."
But Engel admitted in January, 2005 that he never reported the time a U.S. soldier risked his life to defend the reporter, one of the few times Engel ventured beyond the pale:
**********************************************
See link for the rest of the story.................
Hilarious ankle-biting from the Times! This was a Saturday morning raid. 18 or so Mahdi Militia were killed, one hostage freed, and no Iraqi Army or U.S. fatalities (one IA soldier was wounded).
It's mid Monday in Iraq already. No protests. No counter-raids. All is calm.
Yet the U.S. news media is hyperventilating, pretending that Iraq is suddenly out of control.
Yawn...
Headlines have raised death toll to 81.
'Tis 11:02 a.m. in Baghdad and all is quiet.
Heard some distant explosions around 0730, but that's not too unusual and they were probably controlled detonations.
LOL! CNN is looking for people who can write copy like that.
OK, Found this:
Many dead in US-Iraq base blast
**************************************************
March 27, 2006 at 2:26:10 PST
Wave of Violence Kills at Least 81 Iraqis
**************************************************************************
Today: March 27, 2006 at 2:26:10 PST
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -
0326dv-iraqviolence Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian slaughter ravaging Iraq - most of them beheaded - dumped on a village road north of Baghdad on Sunday. At least 16 other Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-backed raid in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital.
Accounts of the evening raid in Baghdad varied. Aides to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi police both said it took place at a mosque, with police claiming 22 bystanders died and al-Sadr's aides saying 18 innocent men were killed.
The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 insurgents in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.
"No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation," the military said. It said a non-Western hostage was freed, but no name or nationality was provided.
Associated Press videotape showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to mosque itself.
The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.
Separately, 12 more bodies were found near Baghdad - nine handcuffed and blindfolded, with rope around their necks and three shot in the head, police said Monday.
The latest deaths brought to at least 81 the number of people reported killed Sunday and Monday in one of the bloodiest days in weeks. Most of the dead appeared to be victims the shadowy Sunni-Shiite score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Much of the recent killing is seen as the work of Shiite militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by Iraqi police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry.
Many of the victims have been found dumped, mainly in Baghdad, with their hands tied, showing signs of torture and shot in the head.
In an apparent effort to clamp down on police wrongdoing, American troops raided an Interior Ministry building and briefly detained about 10 Iraqi policemen after discovering 17 Sudanese prisoners in the facility, Iraqi authorities reported.
The report was reminiscent of a similar U.S. raid last November that found detainees apparently tortured. That discovery set off a round of international demands for investigations and reform of Iraqi police practices to ensure observance of human rights.
In this case the Americans quickly determined the Sudanese were held legitimately and had not been abused, said Maj. Gen. Ali Ghalib, a deputy interior minister.
The U.S. military command here had no immediate comment.
The raid in Baghdad came a day after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad spoke out on the need to cap the sectarian, militia-inspired killing, saying "More Iraqis are dying today from the militia violence than from the terrorists." He did not say which militias he meant nor did he define who the terrorists were.
The two major militia forces in the country are Shiite organizations - the Mahdi Army of al-Sadr and the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Both have ties with Iran.
Hours before the raid in Baghdad near Sadr City, al-Sadr personally was the apparent target of a mortar attack at his home in the holy city of Najaf, 90 miles south of Baghdad.
At least one mortar round struck within yards of al-Sadr's home, wounding a guard and a passing child, said Sheik Sahib al-Amiri, an aide to the cleric.
Shortly after the attack, al-Sadr issued a statement calling for calm.
"I call upon all brothers to stay calm and I call upon the Iraqi army to protect the pilgrims as the Nawasib (militants) are aiming to attack Shiites every day," he said, referring to Wednesday's commemoration marking the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
Following the raid, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, expressed concern and telephoned Iraqi military leaders and U.S. Gen. George Casey to "discuss the situation," said spokesman Abdul Rezzaq Al-Kadhimi.
He said the prime minister promised government compensation for families of those killed in the raid and called for Iraqis to be patient until an investigation was completed.
Police Lt. Hassan Hmoud, who put the death toll at 22, said some of the casualties were at the Islamic Dawa Party-Iraq Organization office near the mosque. The incident started when U.S. forces came under fire from the direction of the mosque and the party office, he said. The party is a separate organization from the one headed by al-Jaafari.
Shiite legislator and party spokesman, Khudayer al-Khuzai, said 15 members of the party were holding a "cultural meeting" in an office near the Shiite mosque. "They have nothing to do with the acts of violence," he said.
Al-Khuzai claimed that after coming under attack, U.S. forces raided the party office, "tortured" the men, dragged them out and "executed" them. He said it was not clear who attacked the U.S. troops.
The main Shiite political bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, would demand a quick investigation "because the Iraqi blood is not cheap," al-Khuzai said.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, denied that the troops targeted a party office.
"The building was not a party headquarters but a community meeting room, and there was substantial intelligence on this building showing that that was not, in fact, what it was used for," he said.
In the north of the country, meanwhile, the Kurdish writer Kamal Karim was handed an 18-month sentence for articles on a Kurdish Web site that accused Masoud Barazani, one of the region's top leaders, of corruption.
--
That AP report doesn't include the Mosul attack,...... next headline will be 121 killed ....
"At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people," Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, minister of state for national security, said.
"They were all unarmed. Nobody fired a single shot at them (the troops). They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded behind," he told Reuters.
Shi'ite politicians had earlier said 20 people were killed at the mosque. The U.S. military's account of Sunday evening's incident said Iraqi special forces with U.S. advisers killed 16 "insurgents", arrested 15 people and freed an Iraqi hostage. The military denied entering any mosque.
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