Special Iraqi Forces Conduct Raid in Sadr City (WOO-HOO! About Time)

American Forces Press Service ^

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2006 -- Special Iraqi army forces, with coalition advisors, conducted a raid today in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood against an illegal armed group responsible for kidnapping, torturing and murdering Iraqi civilians and soldiers.

The cell has more than 30 members and allegedly uses a mosque compound as a place to conduct its illegal activity and store weapons. The cell is known to be targeting Iraqi soldiers, officials said.

Iraqi forces entered the mosque in search of cell members, but no one was detained. There was minimal damage to the mosque, and Iraqi forces fired on and neutralized a hostile vehicle posing an immediate threat to ground forces at the objective, officials said. There were no reported Iraqi forces or coalition forces casualties.

In other news from Iraq, coalition forces were engaged yesterday at several locations in southern Ramadi by a group of insurgents with small-arms fire.

The insurgents took refuge in a nearby building and continued to engage coalition forces. Officials said that after establishing positive identification and in an effort to avoid endangering civilians, coalition forces conducted an air strike against the insurgents using a laser-guided missile, killing one insurgent.

Three insurgents fled the building and were engaged by coalition forces, resulting in the death of another insurgent. There were no reports of civilian casualties as a result of the events, and there were no coalition casualties.

On Nov. 18, Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers seized a large weapons cache in southwest Baghdad. The soldiers -- from the 1st Squadron, 89th Calvary Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division -- seized three 155 mm artillery rounds, a 120 mm mortar round, 55 60 mm mortar rounds, 37 anti-personnel rocket-propelled-grenade rounds, 32 anti-armor RPG rounds, a long-range cordless phone, a fragmentation grenade, six homemade explosive propane tanks, three rifle scopes, a double-barrel shotgun, a crew-served weapon, a bag of blasting caps, 400 7.62 mm linked rounds, 400 7.62 mm loose rounds and 200 .50-caliber rounds.

On Nov. 17, Iraqi police and coalition forces found and disarmed two rockets and launching components in the town of Dibbis, Iraq, northwest of Kirkuk. Iraqi police found the 52 mm rockets and ignition systems. Expert explosive handlers from the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Task Force Lightning, disarmed the explosive weapons and destroyed the rockets.

The controlled detonations at the site caused no damage and there were no Iraqi civilian, Iraqi police or coalition forces injuries or casualties, officials said.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

[SolidWood]

Nice, but no one detained or killed. This has to change, quickly.

[gidget7]

Congratulation to the Iraqi Forces. Job well done!!

[RedRover]

Bump.

[Natural Law]

"Nice, but no one detained or killed. This has to change, quickly."

Exactly. The people of Iraq need to know that the use of Mosque facilities by insurgents will result in the immediate destruction of the mosque and anyone inside it. The message must be clear; those who misuse a mosque are directly responsible for its destruction. If you want to keep your mosque, keep the bad guys out.

[El Gato]

Nice, but no one detained or killed.

Probably means the "Bad Boys" had advance notice that the Iraqi SF were coming.

[dead]

Probably means the "Bad Boys" had advance notice that the Iraqi SF were coming.

I hate to be cynical, but I would guess that the advance notice came from the Iraqi Special Forces.

Sounds like it was a choreographed dog and pony show.

[river rat]

Strikes me as mere slight of hand to impress the infidels..

I'd be impressed if they stormed Fat Sadr's compound and killed his sorry ass and all who were there in his company....

Arrests, detention, weapons seized, etc, etc,........means NOTHING to these people...

Killing the outlaw leaders, their thugs and destroying every physical man made structure or device in sight -- sends an unmistakable message.

Trying to play policeman in a war zone is insanity.

Semper Fi

[zarf]

but no one was detained.

That'll teach em.

[The_Reader_David]

Raids are what they should have been doing instead of that rubbish with snarling traffic and making all the locals angry with 'checkpoints' they tried a while back.

[navyguy]

Bingo. These people only understand one thing... brute force. Niceties like 'arrest' and 'detention' are laughed at. Every single insurgent we arrest should be questioned and then executed by the Iraqi gov't for treason. They won't be laughing after that.

On the otehr hand, these people love death, so maybe just killing every single one of them, on the spot, would be better. The only drawback is the lack of intel we'd gather.

Tough call, but either way they should end up in a dirt nap.

[aShepard]

Geez, we must have sent Kerry, Murtha and Webb over there to train the Iraqi's.

Amazing what these Democrats can accomplish in only one week in power.

When will the MSM declare that the quagmire has been settled???

[airborne]

I'd love to wake up to al-Sadr's obituary!

[jch10]

How about making it known that if they take refuge in a building, said building will be leveled? Even a mosque.