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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Fighting rages on in Baghdads Sadr City |
| 2004-06-07 |
| Armed Iraqi men fired mortars at a police station in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, where witnesses said a US military vehicle had just been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade Saturday afternoon. Armed men covered the streets and residents shuttered themselves inside in the battle-zone neighborhood where US troops regularly tangle with armed supporters of rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr. A militiaman said Sadr`s people were angry that US soldiers had hauled cement barriers in front of a police station and thought it signaled they would not leave the district anytime soon. US troops were positioned inside the police station. Mohammed Mijthab, an official from Sadr General hospital, said three Iraqi civilians were killed and three others wounded in fighting overnight. The military said soldiers killed several assailants early Saturday after their convoy was attacked in the Shiite slum. "US soldiers fired on a group of individuals armed with rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers as they ignited their vehicle near a police station in Sadr City around 5:00 am (0100 GMT)," a spokeswoman said earlier. "Several of the individuals were killed. The remainder fled the area. There were no reports of coalition or Iraqi police casualties," she added. It was not clear who was responsible for the attacks, but the slums are a smoldering bastion of anti-US sentiment where troops have regularly clashed with Sadr`s Mehdi Army militia since April. On Friday, five US soldiers were killed when their convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade fire, forcing it to stop before a bomb exploded, on the edge of the district. Tensions between US forces and the militia have remained high despite a fledgling ceasefire between the sides in Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Kufa. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Quite Right, LH, about Lebanon. Very definitely NOT Reagan's finest hour. But MAN! What he would have done with Bush II's congress! |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-06-07 3:07:07 PM |
| #4 looks like the Mahdis have left Najaf and Karbala and returned to their base in Sadr City. While this is in some ways a harder place to fight them, since they have civilian support there, we dont have the Shiite shrines to worry about, which is why they went to those cities in the first place. Now its just a matter of steadily wearing them away, while the Iraqi govt moves forward. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-06-07 11:03:02 AM |
| #3 its a good deed to speak well of the dead, but before we say Reagan would have handled Iraq better, it might be worth looking at how he reacted in Lebanon. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-06-07 10:59:24 AM |
| #2 Today I heard one of Reagan's pals interviewed on Fox News. When asked what Reagan might do in Iraq, Reagan's friend said "I believe President Reagan would be far more forceful." I googled an article in the Telegraph from 2002 which quoted Lady Thatcher and her approach to handling terrorists: Lady Thatcher was critical of Western policy on global terrorist networks. "We have harboured those who hated us, tolerated those who threatened us and indulged those who weakened us." America should resist being drawn into peacekeeping and "nation-building" efforts because "it is best that the United States, as the only global military superpower, deploy its energies militarily rather than on social work". Perhaps it's too late to "take out" the bad guys with force, because it will mean collateral damage. June 30th is around the corner and no one wants to upset the apple cart. I don't agree with this acquiescent approach, but I think that's how it's going to go down. |
| Posted by: rex 2004-06-07 1:43:54 AM |
| #1 i don't get it--can't we send the crips and the bloods to take out these slum gangs--we need gang intelligence teams--and to spread some money around--to locate and castrate the local religious hoodlems--either that or send in baron haussman and some caterpillars and turn that festering slum into a verrry wiiide boulevard |
| Posted by: SON OF TOLUI 2004-06-07 1:03:29 AM |