Fox was showing some cell phone video as well - unclear if it was this battle or an earlier one...
Sounds like Puff is on scene or they let the Big Dogs loose. Either way, Good hunting!
I thought they said that cell phone footage was of one of our choppers going down.
Do they always call it "the Shiite holy city of Najaf" to differentiate it from 'the unholy city of Najaf", the Sunni Godless city of Najaf", the secular village of Najaf, and 65 other Najafs in the general area?
Or is it just a pandering term The Press feels compelled to use?
Raids foil plot to kill Shia pilgrims
Stephen Farrell in Baghdad and Hassan al-Jarrah in Najaf
Clashes 'kill 250 insurgents' in Najaf
1,500 policemen sacked in Baquba
Iraqi troops backed by US tanks and helicopter gunships fought insurgents near the Shia city of Najaf yesterday as the Government said it had foiled an attempt to kill pilgrims during a key religious festival.
A US helicopter crashed during the fighting. Witnesses said that they saw it come down after trailing smoke during a machinegun battle.
Iraqi police officials in Najaf said that 250 insurgents were killed during bombing raids and gun battles, although similar claims have been wildly exaggerated in the past.
US military officials confirmed that two soldiers were killed aboard the helicopter after it crashed while “conducting operations to assist Iraqi Security Forces.” Their remains have been recovered. As the violence flared 100 miles south of Baghad, police officials in the northern town of Baquba said that the town’s mayor and 1,500 policemen had been fired.
Ghanim al-Qureyshi, the provincial police chief, said that halid Al-Senjeri, a Sunni, was dismissed as mayor amid suspicions that he was collaborating with Sunni insurgents. The policemen were dismissed for fleeing instead of fighting insurgents who attacked the town last November, wreaking havoc on the capital of Sunnimajority Diyala province bordering Iran.
In Najaf there were conflicting reports about the battle. Assad Sultan Abu Klil, the provincial governor, said that the operation — which continued after nightfall — was launched after intelligence reports that insurgents planned to kill Shia clerics and pilgrims during Ashoura. This is a religious festival during which hundreds of thousands of Shias converge on nearby Karbala to commemorate the 7th-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’ s grandson, Imam Hussein.
The death of Hussein and his brother Abbas at the hands of the Damascus-based caliph Yazid was the defining event in the early history of Islam that led to the schism between Sunnis and Shias, reflected in the post-Saddam era by the power struggle between the two communities for control of Iraq.
The Ashoura ceremonies, which involve self-flagellation and blood-letting by the most devout pilgrims, have been targeted by Sunni guerrillas.
But other officials at the joint US and Iraqi coordination centre said that the rebel fighters wore headbands, indicating that they belonged to a Shia faction named Jund al-Samaa (Soldiers of Heaven), reflecting religious and political divisions even within Iraq’s majority Shia population. It is possible that Sunni insurgents, foreign fighters or even other Shia groups dressed like the Samaa to confuse government forces.
A week ago killers dressed in US army uniforms penetrated security cordons around a supposedly secure building in Karbala, killing one US soldier at the scene and abducting and later killing four others.
The joint Najaf operation, in which US forces provided ground and air support for Iraqi troops, is the model President Bush and Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, are to rely on for the forthcoming Baghdad security operation intended to restore order and curb attacks by Sunni insurgents and Shia death squads.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2572321,00.html
Try for 250 more!
Media bias reeks.
Maj. Gen. Othman al-Ghanemi, commander of the 8th Division that is in charge of Najaf and other provinces told The Associated Press that so far they have 200 bodies of the gunmen in addition to 60 wounded and 150 prisoners.Down from previous reports but indeed a good days work.God Bless them all!