Sandstorms whipped through Baghdad again Friday, cloaking the city in a reddish shroud through which the sounds of gunfire from the bloody power struggle in Sadr City continued to echo. Thursday had seen the most intense sandstorms in the capital in many months, as gales swept in from the desert. The blinding winds closed Baghdad International Airport, emptied streets and left many Baghdadis struggling for breath.
But one part of the city where things continued as normal was the Shi'ite neighborhoods of east Baghdad, where militiamen fighting Iraqi and U.S. forces plunged into the squall to launch rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone throughout the day as U.S. military helicopters remained grounded. And, late Friday night, fighters from the Mahdi Army of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr staged a ground attack against Iraqi forces that had been pressing into the militia's Sadr City stronghold. Police said Iraqi troopers fled during the assault, which killed two and left nine other wounded.
Reports of desertions, retreats and insubordination by Iraqi forces deployed against the Mahdi Army have become commonplace, as fighting between the two sides continues in Baghdad and southern Iraq. Gen. Babakir Baderkhan Zibari, chief of Staff of the Iraqi Joint Forces, acknowledged that some Iraqi troopers had been refusing to fight Sadr's forces. An estimated 1,300 Iraqi soldiers refused to fight or even switched sides during confrontations between Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army in Basra last month. And twice in recent days, Iraqi troops were reported to have abandoned posts in Sadr City.
The Mahdi Army, clearly out to take maximum advantage over divisions in the ranks of Iraq's predominantly Shi'ite security forces, issued a statement Friday urging soldiers and policemen to desert.
more:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1732227,00.html?xid=rss-world
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
