U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia

[babylonsister]

U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia
Americans Appear To Take the Lead As Iraqi Units Wait


Demonstrators hold a picture of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr while chanting slogans during a protest in Baghdad against a three day-old crackdown against his followers.

By Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 28, 2008; Page A01


BAGHDAD, March 27 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting.

Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of American weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.

The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.

As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to "normalcy," administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.

Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/27/AR2008032700781.html?hpid=topnews

[Lasher]

1. Scapegoat duly appointed.

Just waiting for the part where Iran is supposed to be behind all this.

[Inuca]

2. I think that was already mentioned

I am almost sure I heard it these last couple of days, may even have been Petraeus but I am not sure.

[Lasher]

5. Oh yes, he's played the role before.

This administration is the most unaccountable I seen since Saint Ronnie. Always blaming others for anything that goes wrong with Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy, Katrina, you name it.

[Inuca]

3. Very SCARY

and very expected.

[jimshoes]

4. Say wasn't that Sadaam guy a Sunni and

wasn't he holding that country's Shia population in check without carpet bombing whole towns of them?

Insanity means never having to admit a mistake. (With apologies to Love Story.)