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| Iraq |
| Omar from ITM Posts on the Baghdad Battles |
| 2007-04-10 |
| I hate editing Omar, because he's actually reporting news, you know, but it's a long piece. Unlike yesterday today began with an acute escalation in central Baghdad, particularly in al-Fadh and Sheik Omar districts where an American helicopter was hit around 9:30 this morning with ground fire and crashed near an old cemetery in the area, the Baghdad reporter of al-Arabiya first mentioned. There are also conflicting reports that another helicopter got hit but survived the attack. During the morning more US and Iraqi forces rushed into the scene and cordoned the area while two f-18 fighter jets and some Apache gunships patrolled above. The fighter jets withdrew after a while. The fighting became more intense and at around 11 am several explosions were heard in the area but the cause remained unknown. At around noon firefights erupted in the area and the sound of heavy machineguns was heard and from my rooftop I could see Apache helicopters engage at least one target with 30mm canon fire and perhaps small rockets, I couldn't be sure because the sounds were overlapping but zooming in through the finder of my camera I saw lines of smoke behind the patrolling Apaches and seconds later I could hear the sounds. At 1 in the afternoon the fighter jets returned to the scene but this time only one f-16. The tension and occasional clashes spread to involve a wide area in the center of eastern Baghdad including parts of Bab al-Mua'dam and al-Kasra. Between 2 and 3 pm a few more explosions were heard and there was more heavy machinegun fire but now the situation has calmed down. At 5:20 it seems quiet from my place. Sadr's militias always employ the "hide your weapons" approach to end the crises they start each time they are confronted with overwhelming force from the US and Iraqi military. Anyway, this might not work our perfectly for them this time in Diwaniya because the troops entered the city with the intent to strike the militia hard and capture its leaders. A relative who lives there with whom I spoke on the phone last night said the troops are conducting raids on specific targets, aimed at capturing elements identified on a wanted list. The commander of the 8th IA division in charge of the area was obviously suspicious of the demonstrations organized by the Sadrists in nearby Najaf so he made clear last night on TV that no marchers from other cities would be allowed to enter Diwaniya. Speaking of the Sadrists' pitiful demonstrations. His aides were hoping to gather a million marchers for yesterday but all they could manage were less than ten thousands, that's even when they bussed people from Baghdad and Basra. The Arabic-speaking al-Alam Iranian channel claims the number was "hundreds of thousands" but that's just al-Alam, other channels and the footage we saw all put the number between 5 and 10 thousand. I had personally been to a demonstration of 10 thousands once and what I saw yesterday was definitely smaller. Flying Iraqi flags in large numbers is another exposed cheap trick combining methods from both Hezbollah and Saddam. On the other hand the way the flags were gathered is a trademark of the Ba'ath work; the flags that were carried during the demonstration as well as the flags that were seen hanging on walls in Baghdad were not donated by NGO's, nor bought with Sadr's money. Elements of the Mehdi army paid visits to hundreds of shops and stores in several neighborhoods in Baghdad and "asked" the owners for money to buy flags; 6,000 dinars ($5) from stores on main streets and 2,000 dinars from stores in the alleys. This is exactly what the Ba'ath thugs used to do; using intimidation to steal hard-earned money from hardworking Iraqis to decorate their false demonstrations with posters and portraits. |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #2 Why should they Mike. Pretty much the same concept strong arming people in to unions so that their 'contributions' end up in the Donk party coffers directly or indirectly whether they support the political agenda of the Donks or not. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-04-10 19:43 |
| #1 That last paragraph is one of those interesting little details the MSM won't report. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-04-10 15:26 |