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<p>They came at dawn, thousands of Iraqi troops and US special forces on a mission to reclaim a lawless city from the militias who ran it.</p> <p>By the end of the day, al-Amarah was under Iraqi Government control - without a shot being fired.</p>

According the WaPo it appears the Iranians miscalculated when they backed Sadr instead of the Maliki government: For the first time since 2003, Iran has stumbled in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to confront Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City last month caught Tehran off guard. The Mahdi Army lost more than face: It surrendered large caches of arms, and many of its leaders fled or were killed or captured. Crucially, the militias lost strategic terrain — Basra and its chokehold on the causeway between Kuwait and Baghdad and Iraq’s oil exports; Sadr City and the...

The Iraqi security forces today formally kicked off the operations against the Mahdi Army in the southern province of Maysan. On the day the government's amnesty offer expired, the Iraqi Army and police conducted multiple raids throughout Amarah, the provincial capital. A senior Sadrist was detained during the raids. Iraqi forces arrested Rafeaa Jabar, the head of the Sadrist office in Maysan province. He is the mayor of Amarah and the deputy governor of the province. The Sadrists had stated they feared being the target of the operation. "We do not want Basrah events to be repeated in Amara," Sheikh...

Iraqi troops replace border guards. Local police forces are raised. Maliki gives deadline for Mahdi Army to disarm. Sadrists fear being targeted. The Iraqi government and military continue to shape the battlefield for the confrontation with the Mahdi Army in Maysan province. Starting late last week, Iraqi security forces started the operation by sealing off the entrances and exits to the province, deploying additional forces from Baghdad and Basrah, warning the population, starting patrols in Amarah, and relieving the provincial chief of police. Since then, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has ordered all wanted Mahdi Army fighters to turn themselves...

AMARA, Iraq (AFP) — Dozens of Shiite militiamen surrendered to Iraqi forces on Wednesday hours before a deadline set by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for them to lay down their arms ahead of a new military crackdown.Officials said the four-day deadline given to the fighters in the southern oil rich province of Maysan was successful although some militants had escaped ahead of the crackdown set to begin at midnight (2100 GMT)."The deadline has been very successful. We have received many weapons, especially today," Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassem Mohammed told AFP.Mohammed said some militiamen had ran away before the start...

It was easy for Tehran to do both when a sectarian war united Shiites against a common Sunni enemy. But sectarian violence has largely ceased, and Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda are no longer imminent threats. Throughout 2007, militias challenged the government as they terrorized neighborhoods in southern Iraq, disrupting commerce and assassinating clerics as well as government and provincial officials. The Quds Force and its backers in Tehran expected the truce to hold, allowing Iran to continue to build militias while also supporting the Baghdad government. Ali Larijani, then head of Iran's Supreme Council for National Security (now the speaker...

Car Bomb Blamed on Iranian Backed Shias June 19, 2008 The US military has accused Iranian-backed Shia groups of setting off a car bomb that killed more than 60 people in a mainly Shia area of Baghdad, hinting at yet another new twist in the complex web of violence gripping the capital. “We believe the attack was not conducted by AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq],” said Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a US army spokesman, said. “Though vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices are a trademark of AQI, our intelligence, corroborated through multiple sources, is this atrocity was committed by a Special Groups cell led...

AMARAH, Iraq, June 18 (UPI) -- Iraqi officials say radical Shiite militias have agreed to let the government retake control of provincial capital without a fight. Forces loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr have told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki they won't offer resistance when an expected offensive to take control of Amarah, capital of Maysan province, begins this week, USA Today reported Wednesday. In a change of strategy, the Iraqi government gave ample warning to Sadr's militia forces they were coming to retake the city, which until recently had been in control of the militants. An Iraqi military official...

Yesterday's car bomb attack in the Shia neighborhood of Hayy Hurriyah in Baghdad's Kadamiyah district was carried out by a Mahdi Army Special Group cell, and not al Qaeda in Iraq, the US military stated. The bombing was the largest inside Baghdad since March. The Iraqi military indicates 27 Iraqis were killed and 40 wounded, while press reports put the number killed as high as 51, with more than 80 wounded. A Mahdi Army cell leader named Haydar Mahdi Khadum Al Fawadi was behind the attack, according to intelligence information obtained by Multinational Forces Iraq. "We believe the attack was...

Iraqi and US forces were poised to strike a key Shia militia stronghold in southern Iraq yesterday as Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, pushed ahead with his campaign to rid the country of al-Mahdi Army gunmen. A woman holds a portrait of the radical cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr Iraqi army tanks, armoured troop carriers and infantrymen surrounded al-Amarah, a lawless tribal city near the Iranian border that is renowned for its smuggling rings. It once held a British base but the army was mortared so heavily by al-Mahdi Army irregulars that it withdrew to patrol the Iranian frontier. Mr al-Maliki...

The US Army captured a senior Mahdi Army military commander in Baghdad. The Mahdi Army commander led a 2,000-man strong brigade in the Karadah district in eastern Baghdad, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. The US military could not release the commander’s name as they are still exploiting the intelligence information related to his capture, Major Joey Sullinger, a public affairs officer for Multinational Division Baghdad told The Long War Journal. The commander was detained during a raid in the Sumer al Ghadier neighborhood in the New Baghdad district, which borders Karadah to the north. US soldiers from the 66th Armor Regiment...

An Iraqi tank is stationed on the main road leading into Amarah. AFP photo. Iraqi security forces, backed by the US military, have started an operation against the Mahdi Army in the southern border province of Maysan. Amarah, the provincial capital of Maysan, is thought to be one of the locations senior Mahdi Army leader retreated to after Iraqi forces moved into Sadr City last month. Amarah is also a forward command and control hub for Iranian operations in southern Iraq. Iraqi security forces established checkpoints along the entrances to the province, and have closed down the border crossing...

Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called for restraint in an apparent bid to exert control over his Mahdi Army militia fighters. A statement read after Friday prayers in the holy city of Kufa says the Shiite militia will continue to resist U.S.-led forces in Iraq but fighting should be limited to a select group. He says "weapons will be in the hands of this group exclusively and will only be directed at the occupier," using standard rhetoric for the American forces in Iraq. He warns those who disobey will be "disowned by me."

Several thousand demonstrators protested against the US in rallies across the country on Friday. The placard says: ’No agreement with US occupiers’ American troops in Iraq would be confined to their bases and private security guards subject to local law if Iraq gets its way in negotiations with the US over the future status of American forces. According to a senior Iraqi official, the negotiations between the two allies became so fraught recently that President Bush intervened personally to defuse the situation. On Thursday he telephoned Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, to assure him that Washington was not seeking...

Iraqi PM begins talks in Tehran The Mehdi Army has fought bitter battles in recent months Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is in Iran for talks aimed at improving relations between the two neighbours. He is expected to raise allegations of Iranian support for Shia militants in Iraq when he meets with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Shia militiamen fought bitter battles with US and Iraqi government forces between March and May. Also on the agenda are the ongoing US-Iraqi talks over the two countries' future, long-term relationship. Mr Maliki is on his third visit to Iran since taking office in...

Victor Davis Hanson, a former classics professor, is a renowned conservative scholar of ancient history and military affairs who's recently become a nationally syndicated columnist and blogger. The author of 17 books with titles like "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War," "An Autumn of War" and "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming," he is the senior fellow in residence in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus. Hanson, whose scholarship and interest in individual freedom recently earned him a 2008 Bradley Prize worth $250,000 from the Bradley...

Coalition Special Operations Forces captured a "key Special Groups financier" with direct links to Iran's Qods Force in the city of Mahmudiyah on May 28. "He is suspected to be the primary financier between Iranian intelligence elements and Special Groups criminals in Mahmudiyah and southern Baghdad and was reportedly distributing funds to weapons smugglers supplying criminals in those areas," Multinational Forces Iraq reported in a press release. The Special Groups financier has conducted his activities outside Iraq, according to Multinational Forces Iraq. He is "believed to travel to Iran and Syria to procure funds on behalf of Special Groups senior...

A common narrative about the war in Iraq is that fighting against the enemy in urban environments creates more insurgents, thus it is fruitless to even try. But today's Los Angeles Times finally asked Iraqis in Sadr City what they think about the recent fighting and how it impacts their views of the Mahdi Army. The answer: The Mahdi Army has lost significant support from not only residents caught in the crossfire, but from Mahdi Army fighters themselves. In fact, some Mahdi Army fighters were so discouraged by the recent fighting that they vowed to never join the ranks again....

Iraqi Army clashes with Mahdi Army in eastern Baghdad By Bill RoggioMay 28, 2008 4:01 PM Iraqi Special Operations Forces prepare for a mission near Amarah to disrupt weapons smuggling and trafficking from Iran and help to set the condition for broader stability in the region. (US Navy photo / Petty Officer 1st Class Daniel R. Mennuto) Iraqi and Coalition security forces continue to press operations against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Iraqi security forces clashed with the Mahdi Army in eastern Baghdad as raids against Mahdi Army weapons caches continue in Sadr city and throughout Baghdad. Iraqi security forces...

Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups,...