Iraqis fire surface-to-air missile at chopper over Sadr City

[NNN0LHI]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/05/iraqis-fire-sur.html

For the first time since fierce fighting began in March, The New York Times says someone fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. military helicopter on Saturday as it flew over the Shiite slum in Baghdad known as Sadr City.

"The missile missed the aircraft," the paper says. "But the attack was sufficiently worrisome that the American military changed the route of an aerial tour of Baghdad it had arranged for a group of reporters, television cameramen and photographers on Monday. Two helicopters were to fly over or near Sadr City, but an official said the route had been changed because of the missile threat."

[Wiley50]

1. This is a significant development

if it becomes a trend. The real proof that the Iranians have not been supplying arms to the Iraqi resistance is that there has not been more of this. The only threat our choppers have so far faced is the stray re-fused rocket grenade.

My first guess is that this is just a CIA supplied sample furnished to bolster claims of Iranian involvement, but we'll see.