Posted on 01/01/2007 6:07:20 AM PST by Valin
BAGHDAD, (Reuters) - U.S. forces said they were fired on from an office building belonging to a leading Sunni Arab politician during a raid on a suspected al Qaeda safehouse in Baghdad on Monday in which six insurgents were killed. Saleh al-Mutlaq, an outspoken member of parliament whose Iraqi National Dialogue group is part of the U.S.-backed political process, said U.S. forces had targeted his office, killing two security guards and wounding two more.
Speaking to Reuters by telephone from outside Iraq, Mutlaq also said a family of four, including two children, were killed in an adjacent building during the raid on Monday. He said the raid was a provocation and said the U.S.-backed government should be targeting Shi'ite militias blamed for operating death squads rather than his political party. "Coalition forces killed six terrorists and detained one suspected terrorist during a fierce firefight Monday morning in Baghdad," a U.S. statement said. "Intelligence reports indicated the targeted location was used as a possible safe house for al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists to conduct operational planning," it said, adding U.S. forces were fired on from several buildings nearby and that two buildings caught fire because of the intense firefight. "One of the buildings from which Coalition Forces received heavy enemy fire, including grenade launches, was later identified as belonging to Dr. Saleh al-Mutlaq," it said.
Photographs of the scene showed the exterior wall surrounding the building reduced to a pile of rubble and the office building damaged with windows broken and damage from gunfire. There was a pool of blood outside. The ubiquity of armed guards on premises around Baghdad and the frequency of illegal attacks by gunmen in uniform means that misunderstandings do at times lead to clashes between legitimate security guards and official government forces.
Asked about reports of civilian casualties, a U.S. military spokesman said by email: "We are not aware of any civilians being injured or killed in this morning's raid. Coalition Forces returned fire against armed terrorists only. The terrorists killed were armed males firing at Coalition Forces."
Mutlaq's group is one of several Sunni Arab parties in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national unity government, which also includes majority Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds.
Mutlaq has warned brutal U.S. tactics are radicalising Sunni Arabs and swelling the ranks of al Qaeda and has urged Maliki's government to focus on cracking down on Shi'ite militias blamed by Washington and Sunni Arabs for operating death squads. "I don't know why they are targeting us and not the militias. We don't have militias, we are the only front that doesn't have a militia," Mutlaq said. "They want to involve us in a war and to stop the political process."
We should make no exception for politcal "parties". When we are attacked or threatened we have to kill, destroy and retaliate. That means not only Sunni's, but specifically Sadr.
war is hell.
You want wives and kids?
Keep them off the battlefield.
Looks like that's what happened...and that's a good thing.
This guy, like his smelly bretheren, is a pathological liar. He's not very smart either, because if he were he'd go to the local US forces commander and thank him for not blowing his retarded ass into oblivion.
every day for the last week or two, there has been a bit of news that makes me think that there are new ROE's or Phoenix rising......
Brutal?!?! I guess car bombs and beheadings are not considered brutal in the mind of this idiot. If anything, the coalition is being too PC.
Where is the Waaaaambulance when you need one?
Why is there not a pile of rubble where the building stood? I guess I wouldn't last long as a military leader.
What makes you say that? I'd love to see new ROE's.
Regards.
I hope you're correct in your observation. It's high time that Bush turn his general's loose to take care of this problem, instead of letting the whiney crybabies in Congress (on both sides of the aisle) dictate our strategy. You would think that this lesson was learned in Vietnam.
This must be wrong, there is no Al Qaeda in Iraq, the MSM has told us so. Plus there is no connection between the Baathists and Al Qaeda, they told us that too, repeatedly and incessantly.
I wonder how they will explain, assuming they don't just ignore, that Saddam's last words were the Muslim "devotion" "There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet", He only got as far as the "Mohammad", on his second repetition, when the trap door was sprung.
Sounds like that's just what our forces did.
Coalition Forces returned fire against armed terrorists only. The terrorists killed were armed males firing at Coalition Forces."
Yes, and that's great, but we need to go hard also against Sadrists, which we avoided for political reasons so far.
I hope so, because the white glove treatment we have been giving these savages hs gone on long enough. We did it in an attempt to appease western pacifists and it has cost us the lives (the lives those same pacifists complain about losing).
Its time to break out the hammer of the gods.
BUT... George Bush will NOT do this. He's far too weak and absolutely hell bent on trying to please even his most viscious political enemies. So, though we may add more troops I am confident they will e told to use the white glove treatment and, in the end, not much will change.
2007 is a make or break year for us in Iraq. I suspect Bush will blow it. I've supported the president all along, but for Pete's sake, he needs to take of the gloves and terminate the enemy once and for all. We can address all of the euro-blubbering about it later.
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