Al-Sadr militia driven out of Karbala

Riprorin

Banned
Apr 25, 2000
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Heard a report on the news yesterday evening, but I haven't seen any reporting in print yet.
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
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U.S.-Led Forces Move Into Stronghold of Radical Cleric

KARBALA, Iraq, May 23 ? Building the pressure on a rebel Shiite cleric, the American military killed at least 36 insurgents loyal to him near a mosque in the southern holy city of Kufa late Saturday and early today, military officials and witnesses said. Soldiers seized a cache of heavy weapons and munitions in the mosque afterward, the military said.

The attack came right after American commanders in Karbala said it appeared as if the militia led by the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, had cleared out of the shrine area in the city center here. Members of the militia, the Mahdi Army, had been using two holy shrines as shields in their war against the occupiers.

The withdrawal by the insurgents came after American forces evacuated a mosque in downtown Karbala early Friday that they had been using as a forward base. A spokesman for Mr. Sadr said the two sides had reached a deal for a mutual withdrawal of forces from the city center, but American commanders here denied coming to any such agreement.

It was unclear exactly where the insurgents went. Some residents of Karbala said they had seen militiamen hiding their weapons and leaving town. Another theory held that the insurgents could be regrouping, either in their usual havens in the old city or on the outskirts of Karbala.


But many shops that had been shuttered during the fighting in recent weeks were open again in the morning, and one resident observed that life seemed almost normal. Police began patrolling the old city again for the first time since Mr. Sadr launched his revolt in early April.

"I'm not saying all the Moktada militia have left or are gone or whatever," said Lt. Col. Garry P. Bishop, commander of American forces in Karbala. "But they're not conducting active operations."

Colonel Bishop said he did not intend to send American forces into the shrine area in the near future.

This afternoon, a platoon of combat engineers from the First Armored Division drove through a southern neighborhood of Karbala to gauge infrastructure needs, signaling that the soldiers were trying to move forward with reconstruction projects after nearly three weeks of intense urban warfare in which four American soldiers and at least 250 insurgents were killed.

"Over the next couple of days, we'll work toward assessing the old city," said Lt. Col. John Kem, commander of the 16th Engineer Battalion. "We're still not going into the old city yet. We've just had less than 24 hours of not getting shot at."

The fighting in Kufa, where Mr. Sadr preaches at a shrine every Friday, erupted late Saturday night, as soldiers from the First Armored Division attacked insurgents holed up near the Salah Mosque. The soldiers approached in armored vehicles with air support overhead. The soldiers attacked the mosque area, a nearby mortar position and insurgents posted in a technical college and a building known as Saddam's Palace, the military said in a written statement.

Soldiers killed four militiamen at the mortar position and at least 32 others at the other sites, according to the statement.

Officials at the Salah Mosque said soldiers had forced their way into the building. They pointed out to reporters blood splotches on the walls and on the ground. The soldiers stayed in the mosque until the morning, they said.

In its statement, the American military said that members of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force "entered and cleared the mosque," seizing a .30-caliber machine gun, two 60-millimeter mortar tubes, 12 rocket-propelled grenades, more than 200 82-millimeter mortar rounds and a number of rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The Iraqi commandos were trained in the city of Babylon by Special Forces soldiers, who use them on mosque raids. On May 12, Special Forces and Iraqi soldiers took the lead in storming the Mukhaiyam Mosque in Karbala, a former stronghold for Mr. Sadr's militia, and attacked the nearby Mukhaiyam Shrine.

The American military has been justifying attacks on mosques and shrines by saying insurgents are using such buildings as arsenals. The assaults have not resulted in large protests, which is perhaps an indication of how unpopular Mr. Sadr is in the southern towns he has seized. But the Americans have refrained from sending troops to the three holiest shrines in Shiite Islam - the Shrine of Ali in Najaf and the Shrines of Hussein and Abbas here in Karbala - for fear of inflaming Shiites

"We have no intention of entering the shrines," Maj. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, said in a written statement. He added that Iraqi security forces would go into the holy sites if necessary.

In Karbala, the police started driving through the old city on patrols at 8 a.m. today, Colonel Bishop said. He added that members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a national militia, will begin to conduct patrols with American soldiers on Monday. Many Iraqi police officers and members of the defense corps quit their jobs or joined the insurgents during the uprising, and the American military is now struggling to build them up again.

Colonel Bishop said it appeared that Hamza al-Tai, the local leader of the Mahdi Army, had left the old city and gone into hiding. Early Friday, the Americans called in an air strike on Mr. Tai's headquarters immediately south of the Shrine of Hussein. An AC-130 Spectre gunship pounded the building with cannon fire.

At least 250 insurgents have been killed in nearly three weeks of urban fighting, the colonel said. The neighborhood immediately south of the Shrine of Hussein has met with "complete, total destruction," he added. Combat engineers are expected to enter the area later this week and begin assessing the damage.

This afternoon, Capt. Matthew Warner led a platoon from Alpha Company of the 16th Engineer Battalion to look at possible reconstruction projects in southern Karbala. The battalion has $400,000 for such efforts available from a discretionary fund that each division general in Iraq manages.

The platoon visited several schools, an electricity power substation, a water purification plant and the main hospital.

Everywhere they went, people had a wish list as long as the Euphrates River.

At a recently renovated school, Muhammad Abdul Hassan, a guard, said the front gate needed to be repaired, and that new books and soccer balls would be appreciated.

At a more dilapidated school several blocks away, a 17-year-old barefoot boy, Ali Abdul-Zara, pointed out that the building needed windows, classroom doors and a wall around the compound.

At the power substation, Adil Naji, the manager, said the "big problem" was not having telephones.

The one place where the soldiers were not welcome was Hussein Hospital. It is the city's main hospital, and many of the insurgents who had been killed or injured in the fighting in the last three weeks have been brought there. Naïve as it might have seemed, Captain Warner walked into the lobby surrounded by soldiers with M-16's and asked a doctor if the hospital had any needs.

The doctor refused to allow the soldiers inside the hospital. He said he had patients to see and could not talk. A group of men with cold stares formed a wall in front of the soldiers.

As the captain walked out, he said he counted at least five men in the emergency room with injuries that appeared to be bullet wounds.

A young man walked out of the hospital with a bloody white bandage over his left eye and streaks of blood on his white shirt. A friend guided him to a car across the street.

"See that guy?" said Lt. Rob McMahon. "He's probably a sniper that we hit."


There's the "liberal" NY Times NOT reporting it.
 

Riprorin

Banned
Apr 25, 2000
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"Members of the militia, the Mahdi Army, had been using two holy shrines as shields..."

Wonder when they'll start using civilians as human shields or shooting their own people and blaming it on the US like the Palestinians do to the Israelis.
 

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
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Originally posted by: Riprorin


Wonder when they'll start using civilians as human shields or shooting their own people and blaming it on the US like the Palestinians do to the Israelis.

Elaborate please...
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
58,686
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Already trying to divert your own thread?


What I'd more concerned with is if the insurgents are regrouping somewhere...setting up an ambush.
 

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
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Originally posted by: conjur
Already trying to divert your own thread?


What I'd more concerned with is if the insurgents are regrouping somewhere...setting up an ambush.

perhaps they're just listening to the residents and picking up on the hint to leave. Too bad we don't pick up on the same hints.
 
Dec 27, 2001
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Originally posted by: conjur
Already trying to divert your own thread?


What I'd more concerned with is if the insurgents are regrouping somewhere...setting up an ambush.

Doesn't matter. So long as their chicken asses are out of the shrines our guys can shoot them.
 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
10,737
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Originally posted by: Riprorin
"Members of the militia, the Mahdi Army, had been using two holy shrines as shields..."

Wonder when they'll start using civilians as human shields or shooting their own people and blaming it on the US like the Palestinians do to the Israelis.
Wonder when we'll start counting civilian casualties caused by US forces . . .
 

Riprorin

Banned
Apr 25, 2000
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Originally posted by: lozina
Originally posted by: Riprorin


Wonder when they'll start using civilians as human shields or shooting their own people and blaming it on the US like the Palestinians do to the Israelis.

Elaborate please...

Palestinians Push their Children to the Forefront of Clashes

"The Israel Defense Forces Hebron area commander Col. Noam Tivon said on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority is encouraging children to participate in clashes with the IDF by offering their families $300 per injury and $2,000 per child killed, HAARETZ ON-LINE reported."

"Tivon noted that Palestinians push their children to the forefront of clashes and that the main goal of the Tanzim, Fatah?s paramilitary youth group, is to continue attacks with the goal of killing soldiers and settlers."