BAGHDAD, May 13, 2008
Cease-Fire Fails To Pacify Sadr City
Hospital Officials Say 11 Killed, 19 Wounded In 2 Days Of Clashes With Shiite Militants
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Relatives march during the funeral of Sattar Khalaf and Mohammed Jassim, who were killed in an airstrike in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, May 10, 2008. Hospitals in Sadr City reported Saturday that at least 13 people had been killed and 77 wounded in the past 24 hours during the clashes between the U.S. and Iraqi government forces and the Mahdi army fighters. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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U.S. soldiers stand near a hole after a rocket attack damaged the roof of BBC headquarters in Baghdad. No one was wounded in the attack, the British broadcaster said. (AP Photo/Sabah al-Bazee)
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U.S. Army soldier from the 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division and an Iraqi soldier aim their guns during a patrol in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
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Photo Essay Week In Iraq Photos A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
The U.S. military said that it responded to several attacks by militants with precision strikes, but only confirmed killing three militants. Two of the militants were killed in a Hellfire missile strike by an attack aircraft, according to the military. U.S. soldiers also suppressed "enemy fire" in four other clashes with tanks and attack aircraft, the military said.
The clashes erupted late Monday, just hours after Iraq's main Shiite political bloc and supporters of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr signed a cease-fire with the hope of ending seven-weeks of fighting that has left hundreds of people dead in the capital.
It was not immediately clear if the those killed in the clashes, which escalated early Tuesday, were militants or civilians. There were women and children among the wounded, said hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The military said Tuesday that militants staged several attacks on U.S. soldiers in Sadr City and elsewhere, but there were no troop casualties.
"They are obviously not listening to any agreement," Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman for American troops in Baghdad, said. He accused what he called "special groups" of launching attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.
The U.S. military has alleged that most Shiite extremists fighting Iraqi and U.S. forces in Sadr City have splintered away from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and the cleric's level of influence over those rogue groups is unclear. Many are thought to be trained and armed by Iranian forces. Iran denies the allegations.
Stover also blamed the so-called "special groups" for a failed surface-to-air missile attack on a helicopter gunship over Sadr City on Saturday. The missile was fired from an unknown location in eastern Baghdad but missed the target, he said.
The missile harmlessly exploded, and the rocket body landed in the Azamiyah neighborhood, where it was recovered by allied Sunni fighters and handed over to the U.S. military.
The missile attack came a day before the four-day cease-fire went into effect Sunday. But there has been sporadic fighting since then.
The talks between al-Sadr's representatives and the United Iraqi Alliance over the details of the truce were not finished until Monday. The deal allows Iraqi forces to take over security in the militia stronghold of Sadr City, a Shiite slum that is home to about 2.5 million people, on Wednesday.
The clashes first erupted in late March when Iraqi forces launched a crackdown in the southern city of Basra and Shiite extremists began firing rockets and mortars from Sadr City toward the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi government and Western embassies.
"Any attack against residential areas, government offices and the Green Zone are prohibited from Sadr City or from another area," the cease-fire agreement said.
Under the compromise deal, Iraqi forces will try to refrain from seeking American help to restore order. The U.S. military officials on Sunday said they were supporting the government forces and would take their lead.
The Sadrists rejected calls by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to surrender weapons. But they gave the green light for Iraqi security sweeps, saying Mahdi fighters have no "medium or heavy weapons."
The majority of the 60,000 strong Mahdi Army has not openly participated in the fighting. Instead, they adhered to a general cease-fire ordered last August by al-Sadr, which has been one of the key factors causing a steep drop in violence in the country.
The latest cease-fire comes as the U.S. military largely finished the building of a barrier - reaching up to a height of 12 feet - to isolate extremists from using the southern section of Sadr City and disrupt supply and escape routes for militants.
In other developments:
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Add a Comment See all 16 Comments
- Posted by Prinzowhales at 01:45 PM : May 14, 2008
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it would be more fluent if you would use your native tounge..arabic??pashtun?? farsi?? - Reply to this comment
- Troops Home Now! No reason to be in Iraq...We could have been energy independent if YOU did not so passionately support the arse-licking Demopublican dogs of the Rockefeller family and the rest of Big Oil! Our taxes are not spent for America!--they are spent so these swine can control Iraqi''s oil. Our soldiers are not dying for our Republic!--they are dying for Rockefeller and Big Oil.
Down with the Demopublican swine! Troops Home Now! - Reply to this comment
- That is odd....Muslims not adhering to a cease fire! What a shock. That violent religion and it''s followers should perish.
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- Al Qada and Taliban are a group of ruthless homosexuals who should be expelled from Waziristan. American Bombers could easily destroy all structures associated with their survival. George Bush must order the elimination of their support there. Pakistan would welcome the end of a rebel district.
- Reply to this comment
- The militants refuse to honor cease fire, oh there is a surprise! The Iranian backed militants hold up in Sader City do not represent the majority of Iraqis. They represent a 6th century Iranian theocracy who cannot and will not tolerate freedom and democracy.
Posted by notblue at 11:07 AM : May 13, 2008
Maybe there should be two or three carrier task groups off the coast of France too...
7 Convicted Of Jihad Recruiting In Paris
Men, Most French Nationals, Recruited Muslim Youths To Travel To And Fight In Iraq - Reply to this comment
- President Bush on Wednesday opened a celebratory visit to Israel where he''ll make a new push for peace in the long-troubled Middle East. "We consider the Holy Land a very special place, and we consider the Israeli people our close friends," Mr. Bush said.
A fragile cease-fire failed to stop fighting in Baghdad''s Sadr City where the latest clashes between Shiite extremists and U.S.-backed Iraqi forces killed 11 men and wounded 19, Iraqi hospital officials said Tuesday.
Everything Bush comes in contact with turns to *****... - Reply to this comment
- Bin Laden''s homosexuality rages. Why allow a screaming queen to perpetrate atrocities? The Coalition should move against Waziristan and Mazri.
- Reply to this comment
- Troops Home Now! No Reason to be in Iraq other than to steal resources that we do not need...if we would become energy self sufficient--OIL FREE!!--But that is precisely the direction in which Big Oil and the Banks that control it do not want us to take.
Transportation accounts for about 70% of the oil we use. GM had an all electric car about ten years ago that when they ended production and crushed all of the cars despite the protests of those who leased them, could get 300 miles per charge...Mitsubishi is coming out with a smaller car that gets around 180 mpc in 2009.
We could have continued this production! We could have put the money and work devoted to the conspicuous consumption of war into production of autos powered by battery and Brown''s gas--which requires no oil!! But that would have ruined the profits of the Rockefellers...of all of those "useless eaters" who feed at his trough!--the Kissingers...Brzezinskis...Bushs...Cheneys...Obamas and Clintons...all the foul creatures that creep about with smiles pasted on their faces as false as their hearts...
Troops Home Now! The Demopublican Dogs are unfit to rule, contemptuous of life and tied vile heart and corrupt soul to Big Oil and the Banks! - Reply to this comment
- The militants refuse to honor cease fire, oh there is a surprise! The Iranian backed militants hold up in Sader City do not represent the majority of Iraqis. They represent a 6th century Iranian theocracy who cannot and will not tolerate freedom and democracy.
- Reply to this comment
- After all of the lies, we have what we have come to expect...another lie exposed--the recently touted case of Iranian weapons in the hands of freedom fighters..are now admitted not to the Iranian at all...fancy that!
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4886 - Reply to this comment
- I thought it was a 4 day cease fire...jeez.
- Reply to this comment
- Bin Laden and his wife, Zawahiri have influenced Al Qada Iraq to commit psychotic crimes. Civilians were massacred by the thousands. This war is Osama''s gay hallucination. A.Q. motivates with a bizarre sense of revenge and arrogance.
- Reply to this comment
- Hello America
what can Fuzzy say today to get you riled under the collar ?
I suggest that we bring many of these Shiitite Muslim
refugees to America, and provide housing and an Education at Hawvard and then let the best and brightest run for the Presidency of the United States,
and then we will have someone in office with a little better insight as to how to handle these insurgences.
just a suggestion.
sincerely Fuzzy Bear - Reply to this comment
Another day and more Bush/Republican failure that America has to pay for.
Estimated cost to American tax payers? Three trillion dollars and rising. What are we getting for our money? Where is our money going?- Reply to this comment
- AMERICA START WAR CRIMES TRIALS!
STAND UP OR SHUT UP!
Lawyers File War Crimes Charges Against Rumsfeld And Others
In German Court
By Michael Ratner
29 November, 2006
Revolution
On November 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the International Federation for Human Rights, Germany''s Republican Attorneys'' Association, and other groups and individuals filed a formal complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other major U.S. officials. The complaint argues that Rumsfeld and other high-ranking civilian and military officials named as defendants in the case have committed war crimes, and in particular torture, against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Following is an interview Revolution did with Michael Ratner, president of the CCR, who was among those in Germany on November 14 to file the complaint. - Reply to this comment
- Al Qada is a clique of well-organized homosexuals. Bin Laden and Zawahiri lead the group as a rabid gay couple. They have an intense hatred of women and peace. The Coalition should trap and imprison them with covert operations by penetrating their infrastructure. Al Qada has little interest in fighting. They are simply a limp-wristed band of felons.
- Reply to this comment
The road ahead in Afghanistan, and the crucial decision Obama faces.
