Sadr fighters raise white flag (Great Job Iraqi Troops with minimal US help)

The Times ^ | 3/31/2008 | AFP

[tobyhill]

BAGHDAD - Fighters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have melted away from the streets of the Iraqi capital and Basra where they fought fierce battles with security forces, AFP reporters said today.

Yesterday, Sadr ordered his fighters to withdraw from the streets in a move signaling the end of clashes which erupted in the southern port city of Basra and quickly spread to Shiite areas across Iraq.

AFP correspondents in Baghdad and Basra said that militants were off the streets in the two key cities where they fought Iraqi security forces backed by US-led coalition air power.

The Sadr group in Baghdad confirmed that fighters from the cleric’s feared Mahdi Army militia were no longer deployed in the capital.

"Sadr movement and Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) are committed to the order of Sadr," said Hamdallah al-Rikabi, spokesman of the cleric’s movement in western Baghdad. "We are implementing what Sadr has ordered."

[tobyhill]

The media is spinning this anyway they can to save their own face. It was just two days earlier the media claimed Sadr's militia wouldn't leave the streets but they left. Now the media is claiming that Maliki made a deal to release the captured that haven't been charged but that would have happened anyway if they weren't charged. They claim Iran is the broker of peace but now we find out that the ratlines were blocked and the militia was running out of ammo. Of course Iran was begging for it to stop, their inventory was getting depleted. Saturday the media claimed Sadr's militia controlled over 75% of Basra but today they claim the Iraqi troops control the streets but are still losing. It's really strange that the MSM claims Maliki was the one that surrendered yet the Iraqi Troops are still conducting ops in Basra. The MSM is playing the same game with Maliki as they've been playing with Bush, Move The Goalpost.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looks that way...meanwhile their circulation continues to drop...

[tobyhill]

Exactly. The MSM couldn't possibly think people would believe that Sadr's militia came out ahead after 4,000 of their members got either killed, wounded or captured. These reporters are certified idiots.

[ScaniaBoy]

I’m sure the Mahdi army will declare this a great victory.

If not the Mahdis, the the self-serving, leftist Brit "journalists":

Nouri al-Maliki humiliated as gamble to crush Shia militias fail

(Published on the 1 April no less.)