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| Iraq |
| Death toll rises as fighting spreads in Baghdad |
| 2008-04-24 |
| Another 19 people were killed in fighting between militiamen and security forces in Shiite areas of Baghdad, officials said on Wednesday, as the death toll from weeks of street battles passed 360. The US military said troops had killed 15 people in overnight clashes in areas of east Baghdad controlled by Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. American forces used ground troops and air strikes during the clashes which began in the late afternoon, a US military statement said. In one incident, soldiers were attacked with a roadside bomb and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) while on patrol in east Baghdad around 9:45 pm (1845 GMT), the statement said. Six militiamen were killed in the ensuing gunbattle. In a separate incident at about the same time, US troops were attacked with RPGs, also in east Baghdad, the statement said. "Soldiers identified two separate RPG teams and returned fire, killing five criminals." Iraqi officials, said that the fighting which has been focused in Sadr City, a sprawling Mahdi Army bastion, has spread to the adjoining district of Hussainiyah. An interior ministry official said at least four people were killed there on Tuesday. The defence ministry put the toll in the fighting at seven dead, including two women, and 20 wounded, among them women and children. The latest deaths have pushed the toll from fighting in east Baghdad since late March to more than 360, according to an AFP tally based on reports from Iraqi and US military officials. In the northern city of Mosul, two people were killed and nine wounded on Wednesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a money exchange outlet in an attack that was followed minutes later by a car bomb blast in the street outside, police said. Meanwhile the death toll from an attack by a female suicide bomber who blew herself up near a police station in Diyala province on Tuesday has risen to 18, the US military said. It said seven Iraqi policemen and 11 civilians were killed in the attack in the town of Jalawla, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the provincial capital Baquba. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Agreed. My take on things is, I know, optomistic, but Sadr's position seems to be weakening by the day. The IA is getting stronger by the day. Their NCO and junior officer corps becomes more effective by the day. They are getting new material and training. The country of Iraq continues to pile up the oil revenues. Sadr, on the other hand, is being driven out of Basrah and most of the other southern towns, he is being marginalized politically and even his home enclave is being dismantled piece by piece. That there is more activity (mostly deaths/captures of mahdi gunnies & leaders) is only a good thing. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2008-04-24 16:02 |
| #2 The Mahdis are in a bad way. The US and Iraqi forces are now strong enough to be methodical, taking territory a foot at a time, and never giving anything back. This really matters when space is the only asset the Mahdis have left. And they're running low on it. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-04-24 09:09 |
| #1 Death toll rose in Chicago over the weekend too. Big deal. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-04-24 08:59 |