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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States waged a series of precision air strikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier that killed two American troops and a 26-year-old British soldier. The U.S. strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants, including stores of weaponry for past attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops, the Pentagon said. In a statement, Iraq’s military said the U.S. air strikes hit four locations in Iraq that housed formal Iraqi police and military units, in...

Monday, September 03, 2007 Maliki orders investigation into Kerbala bloodletting Compiled by Daily Star staff Hard-line Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday warned the Baghdad government of retaliation if it delays a probe into a gun battle in Kerbala last week in which 52 people died. Shortly afterward, the government announced an inquiry into last Tuesday's clashes, while Kerbala police said that they had arrested some 269 people for alleged involvement in the fighting, which turned a major Shiite pilgrimage into a bloodbath in the southern shrine city. Sadr's warning came just days after he ordered a freeze on the...

AFP via translation - ALARM - Iraq: 40 died in a car bomb attack in Kerbala KARBALA (Iraq) - At least 40 people were killed and from wounded tens during the explosion Saturday of a booby-trapped car close to the principal mausoleum of the Holy City Shiite of Kerbala (110 km in the south of Baghdad), one learned from medical source.

US FORCES SAY CAPTURE TOP AIDE TO IRAQI CLERIC SADR OVER KIDNAPPING, KILLING OF FIVE U.S. SOLDIERS

Foxnews Alert! Sheik Ack Heal a high value insurgent has been captured in Iraq!

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 3/25/06 - Samarra, Op. Swarmer , Kerbala, Abu Ghraib, al-Dor, Baquba, USS Gonzalez, USS Cape St. George, Taji, Nowruz, Istanbul, Tashkent, Tehran BREAKING: Samarra, Op. Swarmer - 11 caches and 104 terrorists taken BREAKING: Kerbala - terrorist attack Abu Ghraib - Real story: cache taken al-Dor - US-Iraqi patrols root out terrorists Baquba - Cache taken USS Gonzalez, USS Cape St. George - Weapons confiscated from terrorist pirates Taji - Nowruz celebrations Istanbul, Turkey - Nowruz celebrations Uzbek capital Tashkent - Nowruz celebrations Tehran - Nowruz celebrations QFN ==== YE OLDE QUAGMIRE-FREE...

A strong blast ripped through Karbala, a holy city located some 110 km south of Baghdad, on Sunday morning when many Shiite Muslims rallied in the city center for a religious commemoration, said reports reaching here from Karbala. A loud explosion was heard near the Imam Hussein mosque. There is no immediate report on casualties. The blast occurred when thousands of Shiite Muslims went to the mosque for an annual commemoration slated for Monday, when a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein came to an end. Imam Hussein, one of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad's grandsons, was killed and buried in...

Reuters - CAR BOMB EXPLODES IN STREET MARKET IN IRAQI CITY OF KERBALA, DOZENS OF CASUALTIES-POLICE

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed at least 110 people and wounded more than 200 in the Iraqi cities of Kerbala and Ramadi on Thursday, the second consecutive day of concerted insurgent attacks. Another three bombs exploded in Baghdad, two of them detonated by suicide bombers, and a roadside bomb targeted a U.S convoy near the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, destroying a Humvee and killing at least two civilians. Coming a day after 58 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings, the latest bloodshed appeared certain to ratchet up tension between Sunni and Shi'ite...

Karbala, 27 Dec. (AKI) - Police in the Shiite holy city of Karbala say they have uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of men, women and children. The gruesome find was made by workers digging a water pipeline. Local authorities say they believe the corpses are those of a hundred or more Shiites slaughtered just after the end of the first Gulf War, in reprisal for having staged an uprising against Saddam Hussein. There are believed to be as many as 30,000 victims in the Shiite revolt. Since the overthrow of Saddam in April 2003, scores of mass graves...

Al-Jazeera's reporter in Spain, Tayseer Alluni has just been sentenced to seven years in jail after a Madrid court found him guilty of joining a terror cell and facilitating money laundry. This is bad news for Al-jazeera who's been defending and campaigning to protect their reporter and they obviously failed in eluding justice but the question that we must think about is; was Alluni working on his own using his media credentials as a cover or could it be that Al-jazeera itself is involved? It seems that twisting facts, biased coverage and supporting the terrorists morally aren't giving some media...

Suicide Bombers Hit Holy Iraqi Cities, 62 Dead NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Suicide car bombers struck Iraq's two main Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala on Sunday, killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, in coordinated attacks six weeks before a historic election. It was the highest bombing death toll in Iraq since July and by far the bloodiest attack since last month's U.S. assault on the Sunni city of Falluja, which aimed to quell the insurgency. Both bombs, which went off about two hours apart, exploded near crowded bus stations in an apparently coordinated attempt to...

Iranian Supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned what he described as the "stupid" and "shameless" actions of US troops in the Iraqi Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. He said the abuse of prisoners in Iraq showed that the US had merely taken the place of Saddam Hussein, and that it was time for them to leave the "bog of their own making". The following are excerpts from his remarks, delivered in a speech to theology students and broadcast by Iranian radio: No Muslim, particularly a Shia, can remain calm in the face of the recent events...

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Fresh fighting erupted between U.S. troops and militiamen loyal to rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the holy Iraqi city of Kerbala on Thursday, residents said. Gunfire echoed from narrow streets just a few hundred meters (yards) from the Imam Hussein mosque, one of Shi'ite Islam's most revered shrines which sits in the center of the city. A column of black smoke rose from behind the mosque. The clashes followed a lull in fighting for several hours after fierce fighting on Wednesday, when the U.S. military said up to 20 militiamen might have been killed.

KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - Blasts shook Iraq's holy Shi'ite town of Kufa on Friday after militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said they ambushed a convoy of vehicles from an American force that is building up nearby. "I saw at least two Humvees on fire and we also attacked armored personnel carriers," said one fighter in the town adjacent to Najaf, home to the holiest Shi'ite shrines and where Sadr has been hiding from U.S. forces ordered to kill or capture him. "We attacked them again, but then they started mortaring our position so we had to retreat," said...

KERBALA - Tens of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims headed home on Sunday after a subdued religious festival overshadowed by a rally in support of a radical Shi'ite cleric and fears of Sunni militant attacks. Few pilgrims voiced support for Sadr and his uprising -- the young cleric draws more support from poor, angry youths in the Baghdad slums than among the traditionalists in Kerbala. Around midday on Sunday, as many pilgrims were leaving, about 150 people rallied in support of Sadr. "We are supporting Moqtada because he challenged the Americans, the Zionists, and exposed the hypocrite Ayatollahs," said one, Morad...

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims headed home on Sunday after a subdued religious festival overshadowed by a rally in support of a radical Shi'ite cleric and fears of Sunni militant attacks. Several hundred thousand pilgrims from Iraq (news - web sites) and Iran had thronged the street of Kerbala for Arbain, a ceremony that falls 40 days after the Shi'ite holy day of Ashura -- when suicide bomb attacks on Shi'ites in Baghdad and Kerbala killed 171. Amid fears of repeated bloodshed, the atmosphere in Kerbala was tense, more so after a week of fierce...

Five Iranian bassijis and three Iraqis were killed when foreign troops fired on their vehicle near a checkpoint near the Shi'ite town of Kerbala, police and hospital officials said on Wednesday. Police said the incident happened late on Tuesday when the vehicle in which the victims were travelling ran a checkpoint in Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad. Fighting has raged since Sunday in Shi'ite areas of Iraq between foreign troops and militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Thousands of Iranians are in Iraq ahead of the Shi'ite Muslim holy day of Arbain this month when...

KERBALA, Iraq, April 7 (Reuters) - Polish troops killed the head of militant Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's office in Kerbala during clashes in the holy Shi'ite city on Wednesday, Iraqi police said. Police spokesman Rahman Mashawi told Reuters Murtada al-Mussawi, who ran Sadr's Kerbala office, was killed in fighting with Polish troops in the centre of town. There was no immediate comment from Polish forces, who head a multinational division in the area. Sadr's militias have been battling occupying forces across south and central Iraq since Sunday. Sadr has rallied supporters with calls for an end to the occupation. The...

Iranian agents flood into Iraq posing as pilgrims and traders By Philip Sherwell in Najaf and Jessica Berry (Filed: 28/09/2003) Iran has dispatched hundreds of agents posing as pilgrims and traders to Iraq to foment unrest in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, and the lawless frontier areas. Teheran's hardline regime has also allowed extremist fighters from Ansar al-Islam, a terror faction with close links to al-Qa'eda, to cross back into Iraq from its territory to join the anti-American resistance. The Pentagon believes that Iran is building a bridgehead of activists inside Iraq, ready to destabilise the country if...