Deadly Day Claims 100 Iraqis

Two Bombs In Capital, One In North Injure Almost 200 In Attacks Aimed At Shiite Civilians

(CBS/AP) 
The heaviest tolls on Saturday came from the Black Hawk helicopter crash in which 12 U.S. soldiers were killed northeast of Baghdad as well as an attack on a provincial government building in the Shiite holy city of Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.

The violence underscores the challenges faced by U.S. and Iraqi forces as they seek to rein in Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias that have made the capital and surrounding areas a battleground.

Iraq's prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric's Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said.

In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday.

Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to display their weapons. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's turnaround on the Mahdi Army was puzzling because as late as Oct. 31, he had intervened to end a U.S. blockade of Sadr City, the northeast Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is headquarters to the militia. It is held responsible for much of the sectarian bloodshed that has turned the capital into a battle zone over the past year.

Shiite militias began taking revenge after more than two years of incessant bomb and shooting attacks by Sunni insurgents.

Sometime between then and Nov. 30, when the prime minister met President Bush, al-Maliki was convinced of the truth of American intelligence reports which contended, among other things, that his protection of al-Sadr's militia was isolating him in the Arab world and among moderates at home, the two government officials said.

"Al-Maliki realized he couldn't keep defending the Mahdi Army because of the information and evidence that the armed group was taking part in the killings, displacing people and violating the state's sovereignty," said one official. Both he and a second government official who confirmed the account refused to be identified by name because the information was confidential. Both officials are intimately aware of the prime minister's thinking.

"The Americans don't act on rumors but on accurate intelligence. There are many intelligence agencies acting on the ground, and they know what's going on," said the second official, confirming the Americans had given al-Maliki overwhelming evidence about the Mahdi Army's deep involvement in the sectarian slaughter.

Earlier this month, Bush and al-Maliki separately announced a new security drive to clamp off the sectarian violence that has riven the capital and surrounding regions.

Bush announced an additional 21,500 American soldiers would be sent to accomplish the task and al-Maliki has promised a similar number of forces, who will take the lead in the overall operation.

Iraq's Special Forces Command division has already teamed with the Americans since late last year for a series of pinpoint attacks in which at least five top Mahdi Army figures have been killed or captured.

The neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep, expected to begin in earnest by the first of the month, will target Sunni insurgents, al Qaeda in Iraq and its allied militant bands equally with Shiite militias, both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade.

The latter is the Iranian-trained military wing of Iraq's most power Shiite political group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The first government official said al-Maliki's message was blunt.

"He told the sheik that the activities of both the Sadrist politicians and the militia have inflamed hatred among neighboring Sunni Arab states that have been complaining bitterly to the Americans," the official said.

Sunni Muslims are the majority sect in key Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, all of which have shunned al-Maliki. Shiites, long oppressed by Iraqi's Sunni minority, and vaulted to power with the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Many of the leading Shiite figures in Iraq have deep historical ties to Iran, also a majority Shiite state, whose growing muscle in the Middle East is deeply threatening to the autocratic Sunni regimes in the region.

As the Saturday death toll among American troops was mounting, the military reported five soldiers had been killed in an attack on a security meeting in provincial government building in Karbala, south of the capital.

Thousands of pilgrims have arrived in the holy city to mark Ashoura, the festival at the start of the Islamic new year that marks the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the most-revered Shiite saints.

Iraqi officials said on Sunday that the gunmen who attacked the meeting wore military uniforms and arrived in black sport utility vehicles commonly used by foreign dignitaries — an apparent attempt to impersonate American forces.

[randalds]

Either you are with our boys or you are not. They are there willing to get their *** blown off so you can live in peace... without a 9/11. Quit ******** about it and do something about it and support our children, cousins, brothers, uncles, fathers, etc. Our troops are there to protect us and all of you should be ashamed that do not support those dying for you! FORGET POLITICS, support those that die for YOU! Some have have been there for 4 turns, how about you?
Posted by lisa1169 at 05:14 AM : Jan 23, 2007

As a former one of the "boys" I can assure you that I support them completely. I just support them most in me desire to bring them back home now, rather then to see them die for nothing as they are. That's cold, but it's true. They are dying for nothing. Their lives are being wasted. It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy or even anti-terrorism. They are dying for sh*it. Bushsh*it.

[lisa1169-2009]

Either you are with our boys or you are not. They are there willing to get their *** blown off so you can live in peace... without a 9/11. Quit ******** about it and do something about it and support our children, cousins, brothers, uncles, fathers, etc. Our troops are there to protect us and all of you should be ashamed that do not support those dying for you! FORGET POLITICS, support those that die for YOU! Some have have been there for 4 turns, how about you?

[atheria]

Blind? I am not he who is blind. Blind means you choose not to see... even a physically blind person could see what kinds of terrorism and who was bringing it to us and TO OTHERS who extremists disagreed with over their controlling way of life.

[atheria]

Apparently you are just here to argue.

No, I am neither blind, nor stupid, but you must be younger than most not to remember how some of our wars started and HOW we were dragged into them when the enemy came to us and THEN we saw that we had no choice but to make sure they didn't do something of the kind again,

Those who ignore the lessons of history are not only doomed to repeat them, they may also do worse damage than those who finally woke up and defended our and other country's honor.

We fight when we must.
We kill if necessary.
We inform to stay a Democracy.
We live each day with hope.
We demand rights as a human family.
We avail ourselves of a will that, God willing,
will never be defeated in the midst of greed - which is the hallmark of those who would take
what we have because they are not so much against
our way of life, but against the very freedom we engender each and every day.

No, I am not blind. My eyes can see what others can - what we all can. What I don't see is a reason for derision and speaking ill of those in the service of our way of life.

For anyone to say that 9/11 was not about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan needs to go back to the beginning of the timeline and take a good look at what the plans were and are for our own destruction - plans that had everything to do with our military being attacked in country after country BEFORE Mr. Bush ever came into any national political scene.

[atheria]

Achille Lauro Hijacking, October 7, 1985:
Four Palestinian Liberation Front terrorists seized the Italian cruise liner in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, taking more than 700 hostages. One U.S. passenger was murdered before the Egyptian government offered the terrorists safe haven in return for the hostages' freedom.

TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985

Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983:
Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Assassination of Egyptian President, October 6, 1981: Soldiers who were secretly members of the Takfir Wal-Hajira sect attacked and killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a troop review.

U.S. Installation Bombing, August 31, 1981:
The Red Army exploded a bomb at the U.S. Air Force Base at Ramstein, West Germany.

And this was just the 80s.

[atheria]

The world timeline is RIFE with attacks on AMERICANS - our Presidents had nothing to do with **WHY** were attacked!

Assassination of U.S. Army Officer, April 21, 1989

Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft by Libyan terrorists in Frankfurt, West Germany. All 259 people on board were killed.

Attack on U.S. Diplomat in Greece, June 28, 1988

Naples USO Attack, April 14, 1988:
The Organization of Jihad Brigades exploded a car-bomb outside a USO Club in Naples, Italy, killing one U.S. sailor.

Kidnapping of William Higgins, February 17, 1988:
U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel W. Higgins was kidnapped and murdered by the Iranian-backed Hezballah group while serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) in southern Lebanon.

[feelfree1]

atheria,

Re: "It takes courage to be willing to be wrong and still do what one believes is right."

It sounds like you are confusing courage with blind stupidity.

Good evening.

[atheria]

Certainly not such as you.

You'd hide your head in the sand - oh, yeah, that's what they're hoping we'll do!

It takes courage to be willing to be wrong and still do what one believes is right.

No one said it would ever be easy, but it has been said it would be worth it.

Our military and the Iraqi people who know we are helping them know that without us at this critical moment they don't stand an ice cubes chance on a summer Texas day.

[feelfree1]

atheria,

Re: "If the US is such a mess, MOVE."

Hmm...if we move, then who will clean up the mess?

[atheria]

Do you even read posts or are you selectively brain-dead?

If the US is such a mess, MOVE. We don't need dissenters any longer.