Posted on 10/09/2006 8:54:44 AM PDT by SandRat
U.S. is growing more impatient over militia power
BAGHDAD — The U.S.-led coalition said it killed 30 fighters in a battle Sunday with the country's most powerful Shiite militia amid growing American impatience with the Iraqi government's inability to stop militias responsible for escalating sectarian violence.
The clash was the second with the Mahdi Army in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Diwaniyah in as many months. Officials from the party of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which heads the militia, denied any of their fighters were killed.
A U.S. Abrams tank was seriously damaged when it was hit by rocket-propelled grenades, but no casualties were reported among the U.S. or Iraqi forces.
However, the military announced the deaths of five U.S. troops elsewhere in the country. Two soldiers were killed Saturday — one in the capital and the other northwest of Baghdad — while three Marines were killed Friday in western Anbar province, the military said without elaborating.
The deaths brought to 29 the number of Americans killed in Iraq this month — many of them in Baghdad as part of a district-by-district crackdown aimed at reducing mounting violence by clearing the city of weapons and fighters.
At least 14 Iraqis also died in other violence around the country Sunday, including a Shiite woman and her young daughter who were killed when gunmen opened fire on their minivan in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad. The driver also was killed, and the woman's husband and her brother were wounded.
Police also found 51 bullet-riddled bodies in various parts of Baghdad during a 24-hour period ending Sunday morning, police 1st Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said. They were all apparent victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital, with many of the bodies showing signs of torture.
The U.S. has shown increasing impatience with the failure of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to rein in militias fueling the Shiite-Sunni killings that many believe now pose a greater threat to Iraq's stability than al-Qaida or the anti-U.S. insurgency. Sunni leaders accuse al-Maliki of hesitating to take action against Shiite militias because many of them — like the Mahdi Army — belong to political parties that his government relies on for support. Al-Sadr's party holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts, and the cleric's backing helped al-Maliki win the top job earlier this year.
U.S. troops have been quietly launching raids on key al-Sadr loyalists and Mahdi Army members in the past week, members of al-Sadr's party have said.
The fighting in Diwaniyah, about 80 miles south of Baghdad, broke out after U.S. and Iraqi troops entered the city looking for Mahdi Army members responsible for the execution-style killings of 11 Iraqi army troops in August.
The al-Prezzeria (AP) just had to spin it to the negative.
Holy Shiite! Good shootin'!
I could swear this is about the 3rd day I've been reading the same report. Are they destroying the same tank over and over? The AP keeps running the same story? Maybe in my old age my short term memory is getting the best of me.
Note to U.S. Generals in Iraq: The President is listening to your recommendations. Please recommend that Al-Sadr be destroyed NOW!
No same story just al-Prezzera (AP) is adding more negative spin to it.
Excellent and essential advice.
Sadr is an Iranian proxy. He needs to be arrested or destroyed. His Mahdi Army needs to be besieged Fallujah style and eliminated from the equation.
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.