Posted on 10/20/2006 5:37:47 AM PDT by Eurotwit
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by one of the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dispatched an emergency security delegation that included the Minister of State for Security Affairs and top officials from the Interior and Defense ministries, Yassin Majid, the prime minister's media adviser, told The Associated Press.
The Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday morning, planting explosives that flattened the buildings, residents said.
About 800 black-clad militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were patrolling city streets in commandeered police vehicles, eyewitnesses said. Other fighters had set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated telling residents to stay indoors.
Fighting broke out in Amara on Thursday after the head of police intelligence in the surrounding province, a member of the rival Shiite Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb, prompting his family to kidnap the teenage brother of the local head of the a-Madhi Army.
The Mahdi Army seized several police stations and clamped a curfew on the city in retaliation.
At least 15 people, including five militiamen, one policeman and two bystanders, have been killed in clashes since Friday, Dr. Zamil Shia, director of Amarah's department of health, said by telephone from Amarah.
The events in the city highlight the threat of wider violence between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival Sunnis.
Mahdi Army militiamen have long enjoyed a free rein in Amarah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Maysan. The militiamen often summon local government officials for meetings at their offices, and they roam the city with their weapons, manipulate the local police and set up checkpoints at will.
Since British troops left Amarah in August, residents say the militia has been involved in a series of killings, including slayings of merchants suspected of selling alcohol and women alleged to have engaged in behavior deemed immoral by militiamen.
Good news.
Should post it as a seperate story.
Cheers.
Nah, Texcat is arguably one of the best FReepers ever.
It's people like her that makes it worthwile to come back here again and again.
Cheers.
"The way to stop Muslims from killing us is to get them killing themeselves."
Then we should consider this piece of news a good thing.
This is shiite-on-shiite militia violence now.
All the comments about alSadr are correct, we should have taken him out long ago... water under bridge though.
What needs to happen now is that the Iraqi Army (not US army )should take this on head on, declare martial law in the town and take out the Mahdi army trash.
The old media got the story out that they wanted,they won't put out this update.
Thanks to both of you :)!
I am attempting to find another version of the story.
If I find it I will post it.
Cheers.
"The entire goal of this war , after deposing the tyrant, was to impose democracy and install an elected government. That government is treating with a militia as though it was a legitimate political organization, even though it has consistently acted militarily."
Alas, this precedent was set in Lebanon.
"But it is obvious from this that Sadr is being treated with honor by the Iraqi government."
Yes, now why? The initial plan in 2004 was to defang him by disarmament and watch him slip into obscurity as more popular leaders overwhelm him. Sadr remains a marginal figure, but since february of this year has been engaging in violence via his mahdi army.
Just as hezbollah in Lebanon was popularly elected enough to get parts of the Govt, the sadrists too have a voice in the govt via the fact that they got some votes.
What *should* happen is that Iraqis should find militias so unacceptable that al-Sadr becomes a pariah and is rejected by the Iraqi body politic. That has not happened, and the reason why is a large part of the reason Iraq is not in better shape: The culture is highly distrustful, sectarian, willing to accept and follow extremists, but most of all - after 30 years of totalitarian rule, the only institutions that had credibility and indepedence from the baathist rulers was the mosques ... and so we have excessive clerical influence.
I was thinking/hoping that both in lebanon and in iraq this influence would fade away through the action of democratic rule. in both cases, the key variable is the buildup of the central govts armed forces to replace militias.
I always look here to get the latest on Iraqi view of things:
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
" If it isn't a mess, then what is it? A "challenging situation"? "
Yes, it is a challenging situation!
Our troops are being killed by acts of terrorists.
That is what we can expect when we attack terrorists lands.
Those terrorists acts are going to occur somewhere, better on their soil then ours.
They cannot win with random acts of terror against our troops.
They can only hope to weaken the citizen's resolve at home, as the Japanese thought they could do by killing enough of out troops.
This is a war of wills, that we cannot afford to lose.
How do YOU know?
Have YOU been there??
What are YOU building that assessment on, please???
"Right now, I just look at this one and recognize that I am tired, not just as in lacking in energy, but also as in "sick and tired"."
Yes, it does wear you down. Which I suppose is the terrorist/insurgent strategy from the get-go, they know Americans are impatient and result-oriented and so if they can just keep at it for long enough, the US will 'give up'.
At one level, it's understandable that many American want to throw in the towel. On another, it is frightening. We tolerated 400,000 deaths to win WWII. Iraq is only 3,000 in the biggest battle of the global war on terror, a battle where this year we have killed a large number of Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq. Not just Zarqawi but quite a few others.
If we cannot toelrate this much lower level of casualties, have we gone 'soft'? Or is it a direct reaction to the political situation - democrats will demagogue anything while there is a Republican in the White House?
Either way, this is troubling, and it would be good to 'keep our heads about us' as we think the right way forward.
There are ways to win in Iraq... see here:
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
"FWIW, I see the endless sectarian conflict everywhere, including in domestic politics, as futile. Eventually, someone will rise to the top of the rubble heap and just what will they have? Nothing but the shards of what they have destroyed."
Certainly, the violence is futile from our perspective, but we use reason and common sense. Their are darker and stranger belief systems held by the Jihadists and insurgents, a death cult almost...
I said in another thread that too many Arabs Muslims prefer Islamicist misery to pro-western joy. That is not just about Iraq, but also a good description of much of the self-defeating and masochistic anti-Americanism in the Arab world - Palestinians, Al Qaeda, Iranian Mullahs, Lebanon, etc.
I always thought our military took orders. Hmmm....
Yeah, but by killing this fat phuck, we'll never get the muslims to like us!! (Sarc)
That is how politics works. In time we will turn the whole thing over to the folks who win the elections and form the government. We only hear about Sadar but there are other Shiite factions vying for votes as well. In fact all this conflict that took place this week in the town Sadar's people took over also involved the Badar militia, not friends of Sadar. I sense that all this is winding down and the bulk of US forces could be out of Iraq in the next year. We have done about as much as we can with combat forces. It is now time for the Iraqis to stand on their own. That was the whole purpose of this whole thing after Saddam was deposed.
Where do you propose for us to take the manpower from? The reason events like this can happen is because we've purposely sent most of our troops from the provinces into Baghdad to quell the ethnic cleansing going on there courtesy of the terrorist-infested Interior Ministry and the Sunnis.
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