Uprising By Shiites in Basra Underway; British Pouring Artillery into City

Sky News Live Feed ^ | 03/25/03 | TonyInOhio

[TonyInOhio]

Just monitored on Sky News: embedded reporter says Shiites in Basra have begun, in his words, a "popular uprising" against the Saddam forces still in the city. British Army units are "pouring" artillery into the city (likely isolated areas) preparing to move in.

[Illbay]

[cardinal4]

Keep in mind, we are cheering the uprising of Shia muslims in a country largely run by Sunnis. Who are the Shia going to be loyal to, when this all over? Washington, who liberated them, or Tehran who pulls the Shia strings? This is not a flame, we have been bitten on the ass many times by allying ourselves with "Muslims of convenience". Read, Afghanistan and right there in Iraq....

[P.O.E.]

ROFL!

[dfwgator]

You hit on something here. For years I believed we supported Saddam out of fear of Iran. Saddam was the "devil we knew," who kept the more serious threat of the Iranians at bay. Now I suspect that Iran seemingly is on the verge of overthrowing the Mullahs, that Iran no longer is the threat, and thus, we could go ahead and remove Saddam without fear of Iran taking advantage of it.

[Petronski]

Overheard on DUh:

mclam: Does not compute.... Why are they firing on their own people? Am I reading this wrong? Propaganda? What's going on?

donsu: hard to believe Iraqis firing on own people

buddhamama: rising up against whom? the UK soldiers or the Iraqi soldiers that are firing on them?

[Porterville]

The Ba'ath didn't clean out all of the Shi'ite off the body politic in Iraq.

[EricT.]

Watch..you'll soon see the Iraqi troops and secret police fleeing to the Brit troops to protect them from the Shiites...

I have a feeling that our troops are going to find a lot of barbecued, hung up, or mutilated bodies of former Ba'athists in Basra. Justice will be messy.

[areafiftyone]

I was reading about those little children learning to do the surrender thing from our leaflets and the soldiers were throwing food and water down to them! Those little Iraqi children have my heart already!!

[Illbay]

If you think "Shi'ite" think "Ayatollah Khomeini".

[Dog]

Fox reporting .....Iraqi forces wouldn't let water into the civilians ........and that was enough.....the people are mounting a offensive..

[goldstategop]

The Sunnis consider themselves the "pure" standard bearers of Islam and Arab nationalism. The Shias have been viewed in Iraq as sort of heretics and as pseudo Arabs and have been excluded for decades from a role in the national government commensurate with their actual proportion of the population.

[Illbay]

You aren't.

[JasonC]

Right. We need to get in there fast and help them. We don't want them getting slaughtered by the security forces while we wait out in the suburbs. Let the Iraqi government forces worry about a house to house hornet's nest for a change.

[merrin]

I hate to pee in anyone's corn flakes, but the Shiite Muslims are the more "fundamentalist" branch of Islam in the Middle East.

Wahhabism is a Sunni movement. There are extremists, radicals, and Islamists among both Sunnis and Shi'as.

[rocky88]

It's almost like CNN is intentionally ignoring this important information. Such commies... I haven't watched them in so long, I forgot how negative their coverage is. From the way they talk, it seems they'd love for us to lose or something.

Fox News rules!!!

[Arkinsaw]

What may sound like good news today will likely not be so good six months from now.

I think we will take our chances.

[mabelkitty]

Actually, they aren't.

My husband called me to tell me what happened, but I told him I knew as my Freep family was keeping me posted.

[TonyInOhio]

Colonel says they are strictly enforcing Geneva Convention, including knocking cameras from reporters' hands

British reporting that they hold roughly 2000 prisioners

Believes that capturing Baathist kingpin this morning was important in encouraging the uprising.

[eureka!]

Cool. Let's hope our spooks have done their job. I know the Special Forces have....

[Poohbah]

Keep in mind, we are cheering the uprising of Shia muslims in a country largely run by Sunnis.

Keep in mind...most of Iraq is Shi'ite, not Sunni.

Who are the Shia going to be loyal to, when this all over? Washington, who liberated them, or Tehran who pulls the Shia strings?

Probably the former, since the latter hasn't done Jacques Merde for them.