Posted on 05/09/2008 7:53:04 PM PDT by Tennessean4Bush
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Soldiers from Company A, 64th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division set concrete barriers in place in the surroundings of the southern portion of the Sadr City district of Baghdad May 3. (US Army photo/Specialist Joseph Rivera Rebolledo) |
The battle for Sadr City continues as US and Iraqi forces continue to erect the concrete security barrier on Qods Street, the main thoroughfare that divides the southern third of Sadr City from the northern portion. US Special Operations Forces teams have entered the fray, and the specialized teams are fighting inside the Mahdi Army bastion for the second day in a row.
Twenty-three Mahdi Army fighters have been killed by US and Iraqi troops since the afternoon of May 8. US Special Operations teams operating inside Sadr City killed nine Mahdi Army fighters as they attacked Iraqi and US forces building the concrete barrier on Qods Street. The team also directed an airstrike that killed two more Mahdi Army fighters. Yesterday, US Special Forces killed two Mahdi Army fighters inside Sadr City.
US soldiers killed 12 more Mahdi Army fighters inside Sadr City from May 8-9. US troops used unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters, Abrams tanks, and small-arms fire in response to Mahdi Army attacks inside Sadr City. Mahdi Army fighters continue attempt to disrupt the building of the barrier. The US military said the construction should be completed in two weeks. Inside the secured area in southern Sadr City, the Iraqi Army is providing medical, humanitarian, and construction aid to civilians.
The US military has described the barrier as a "magnet" for Mahdi Army attacks as they seek to stop the construction effort. A total of 562 Mahdi Army fighters have been confirmed killed in and around Sadr City since March 25, according to numbers compiled by The Long War Journal.
Operations continue in the South
The Iraqi military continues to apply pressure on the Mahdi Army and the Sadrist movement in Basrah and the South.
More than 70 percent of Basrah has been cleared, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. Iraqi police arrested 45 "wanted persons" and three "suspects" in Basrah on May 8. A Mahdi Army rocket attack killed two civilian contractors and wounded four civilians and four Coalition soldiers at a forward operating base outside the city the same day.
In Karbala, police arrested the leader of a Mahdi Army "special brigades" and two of his lieutenants. In Amara, police captured two Mahdi Army fighters as they were transporting 25 "anti-tank landmines". In Diwaniyah, police captured two men behind the assassination of the provincial governor.
Those Jihadis are so badly outnumbered now.
What does this "captured" mean?
They going to put them on trial, and then in prison?
Or hold them in a prison camp until the "end of hostilities?"
What nonsense: anyone caught with a bomb should be chained to it, and the bomb safely detonated.
Two birds, one stone.
Moktada al Sadr’s sphincter muscles must be going spasmodic as we speak. That is if he is still in Sadr city and not off hiding behind the skirts of the Imams in Iran.
What's the purpose of the barrier? The new Berlin Wall?
Isn’t he reported to be in Iran??
With what is going on in his small corner of the world, wouldn’t doubt it. He seems to scurry off to Iran whenever the heat is turned up. And yet, his followers keep following. To call his followers dumb would be giving them IQ points.
Purposes:
1. It denies access to the third of Sadr City closest to the Green Zone and gets the Green Zone out of range of mortar attack.
2. It also serves as a cordon operation. The enemy is physically boxed in. Civilians get the hell out of Dodge through checkpoints in the cordon that allows innocents outs but leaves the enemy fighters inside the cordon. Once the area is depopulated of civilians, you then have a both a free fire zone and an urban renewal demolition project for the price of one.
Thanks for the explanation! Somehow, shooting fish in a barrel seems like the correct metaphor...
They evacuated all that wished to leave to a stadium so they could commence de-ratting.
Think Fallujah on a smaller scale. The evacuees go home once Sadr City is wormed.
Good post; GRRRRRREAT thinkin’!
We made the right move in response to the Madhi Militia’s last call for a hudna: “No thanks — time for you to die”.
The really interesting thing is as he becomes less effective in his role in Iraq, he is worth less to the Iranians.
The very fact that al Sistani said his army should be disbanded he is worth even less.
We still should have taken him out when we had him surrounded. Now the Iranians might do it for everyone.
The purpose of the concrete barrier - it is their concrete coffin.
In big concession, militia agrees to let Iraqi troops into Sadr City
See link at #16.
> What’s the purpose of the barrier? The new Berlin Wall?
The Berlin wall was intended to keep people in.
The barrier in Sadr City is intended to keep people out.
well stated, thanks
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