The Iraq thread 4

[Donnervogel 0]

Boy oh boy...let's get off of that subject then, because our thoughts are completely different.

What do you guys think about militia held up in the Imam Ali Shrine compound? What actions should/could be taken to get the militia out and keep the Holy Site intact?

medival style siege ;)

[Pathy 0]

Trebuchet?

[HOBOMAN 0]

Trebuchet?

Boiling Lime and rocks to through at the insurgents

[Frisbee 0]

A killer going to heaven? Is this a crusade, a holy war where killers will be rewarded for their actions?

Sounds kinda Jihad-ish to me, no?

Quote[/b] ]Trebuchet?

Onager

[Wilco 944]

Al-Sadr reported Wounded

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....ed_dc_1

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Al-Sadr reported Wounded

Wow! Anyway, does anybody have that film from that predator that caught those men firing mortars from Imam Ali shrine's courtyard. I once saw it on television and wonder if is on the net. I'm lazy...

[Wilco 944]

Quote[/b] ]Al-Sadr reported Wounded

Wow! Anyway, does anybody have that film from that predator that caught those men firing mortars from Imam Ali shrine's courtyard. I once saw it on television and wonder if is on the net. I'm lazy...

http://www.mnf-iraq.com/UAVfootage.wmv

[feersum.endjinn 6]

I still hope they can capture Al-Sadr alive, if he dies martyr it can only worsen the situation.

[Ares1978 0]

I still hope they can capture Al-Sadr alive, if he dies martyr it can only worsen the situation.

So do I. I just suspect that neither Al-Sadr or his followers will allow him to be captured alive.

[joltan 0]

I think neither the US nor the Iraqui government can tolerate these militants, so sooner or later they HAVE to storm the mosque (as long as Al-Sadr and his followers don't leave it before - which I doubt very much). This will cause strong emotions among muslims and will be used as a propaganda tool by Qaida and other radical islamists. So far the situation is inevitable and it might be better to get over it quickly.

What's still open is how the US and the Iraqui government follow up to the situation? They could put a lot of effort in blunting the propaganda value by making it as clear as possible that the shrine itself was never the target, and that they'll do ANYTHING to repair the dammages as quickly as possible. Possible including big donations to the shrine & money for high quality restauration works. Oh, and to let locals do the work (and earn the money) - and not Haliburton...

[Ares1978 0]

Storming the mosque could be the worst possible solution, from a hearts & minds perspective. Going after a holy man on holy ground, in a holy city is just not worth it. He would probably do less damage alive and free, than captured or killed under those conditions. The US and the Iraqi government can claim all they want, but it will have little or no value, and in my opinion, if he is killed, there will be problems that can't be solved by throwing money around. If anything, people will be thoroughly offended by donations made by the infidels that killed a holy man and caused the damage to a holy place. They will still want revenge.

[joltan 0]

The point is that I just can't see how they could avoid it. Of course it would be great if they could capture Sadr alive and if they wouldn't need to storm the mosque but were able to get them to surrender or leave. But that's unrealistic - and if they want to bring peace to the country they have to crush the militants - especially those that operate as open and prudent as al-Sadr.

How it works out when you leave militas armed that oppose the central government can be seen in Afghanistan where the Warlords fight amongst each other and against the central government. That's no way to bring a country to peace. The only way a modern nation can work peacfully is when the central government is the only power authorized to use force. And the militants pose a danger to that.

[bucket man 2]

So who actually "started" this new wave of Mahdi army fooling around? Werent there a ceasefire between Al Sadr and coalition? Was it the US airstrikes or did Al Sadr brake it? Or was it actually someone elses fault?

And yes I understand that it brobably was not the fault of some specific group or army but still Id like to know a bit more.

[Ares1978 0]

So who actually "started" this new wave of Mahdi army fooling around? Werent there a ceasefire between Al Sadr and coalition? Was it the US airstrikes or did Al Sadr brake it? Or was it actually someone elses fault?

And yes I understand that it brobably was not the fault of some specific group or army but still Id like to know a bit more.  

To my knowledge they are blaming eachother for breaking the ceasefire. I don't think anybody knows which side shot first.

[turms 0]

Quote[/b] ]BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Mass protests against the U.S. assault on the sacred Shi'ite Muslim city of Najaf broke out in five Iraqi cities on Friday, with some demonstrators calling for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to step down.

I hope the shiite doesnt hit the fan..in other developements, al-sadr has been wounded, according to his aides. But then again...

Quote[/b] ]Spokesmen for the leader of the radical Shi'ite Muslim uprising in central and southern Iraq said he had been wounded in a bombing raid, though his injuries were not life threatening. Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said Sadr was unhurt and that a truce took effect in Najaf last night

The situation is quite chaotic now...hard to say anything for sure.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Like some of the reports we saw earlier in this thread I saw this article in the Washington Post it deals with what is happening day to day for the soldiers in Iraq.

Quote[/b] ]Death, Duty in Forgotten Corner of War

Remembering Gunny and the Kid, a Hard-Hit Unit Goes Back on Patrol

By Doug Struck

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A01 QAIM, Iraq --

Word spread fast. It was Gunny. And the young kid, Nice.

The news was passed in low voices, quiet conversations. No one wanted to say it loudly. The Marines heard it and looked away. They squinted at the heavy sun, kicked their boots in the dust. Their faces hardened. They spat their dip and shifted the guns on their shoulders. They swore. What else was there to say but goddammit.

Gunnery Sgt. Elia Fontecchio, 30, was killed by a roadside bomb, set off by someone who was watching a U.S. Marine foot patrol finish its work on Wednesday, Aug. 4. A half-hour later, Lance Cpl. Joseph Nice, 19, was stringing concertina wire across a road when a single sniper bullet passed through his body.

They were deaths 14 and 15 for the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment since it arrived in February. With 156 Purple Hearts as well, the casualty count for this battalion is higher than that of any other unit in Iraq, save for fellow Marines in turbulent Fallujah.

But to the men here, this is a forgotten war. They are at the western edge of Iraq, the last stop before Syria. The world hears what happens here only in a faint whisper. They are far from the headline cities -- Najaf, Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi -- where every spasm is seen by a thousand eyes.

Isolated at this far-flung outpost, the men live packed bunk to bunk, they guard one another's backs, they depend on the group to help ward off fear and loneliness. And they face losses in their own searingly personal way. When one man is killed, the rest are asked to go back where he died, to face the same danger, in the name of duty. They do it, they say, for their comrades, for themselves and for a country that expects it of them.

Fontecchio didn't have to go out. His duties taking care of the company meant he was usually busy at the camp, with no time to patrol. Gunnery sergeants, always called "Gunny," occupy a special place in the Marine Corps. Part supply officer, part morale booster, part problem solver, the gunnery sergeant is responsible for the well-being of the unit. He ranks high enough to get things done, but not so high that he doesn't work and play with the enlisted men.

Fontecchio was ideal for the job. He led with humor, which made him popular. When the company commander, Capt. Trent Gibson, gave him his most recent evaluation, the two men smoked cigars as Gibson told Fontecchio his only fault was he sometimes was too nice. Glowing reviews had moved Fontecchio up the ranks quickly; to be a gunnery sergeant after 12 years in the Corps was impressive.

So was his physique. A weight lifter, he kept a detailed calendar by his bed of his near-daily workouts, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding," with pages marked by Post-its. "He was what you think all Marines are supposed to look like," said the assistant operations officer, Capt. Rory Quinn, 29, of the Bronx. "He was a physical stud."

He also did not like to stay in camp too long. As his comrades recalled the events in interviews, that Wednesday Fontecchio joined a patrol.

At an Iraqi police station, they were told that Checkpoint 43, a two-room cinder-block police shelter, had been bombed. The checkpoint is in a lush fringe of the Euphrates River, where the desert suddenly yields to green fields of corn, okra, peppers and tomatoes. It is a pretty spot. And low: Small cliffs nearby offer a clear view of the road below. Four vehicles -- with about 25 men -- went to investigate.

As trained, the Marines dismounted and dispersed, scouting for clues or other bombs. After about 25 minutes, they started to pull back. The men walked toward their Humvees. Someone -- perhaps on the cliffs above, perhaps hidden in a field, maybe passing on a nearby road -- decided this was the moment to explode the foot-long, 155mm artillery shell that had been buried near Fontecchio's vehicle.

"You don't hear the blast. It doesn't register," said Staff Sgt. Shelby Lasater, 32, of Plano, Tex., who was about 150 feet away. "It happens so fast. You see a ball of fire, black smoke, then shrapnel, dirt, trees and branches flying. You feel the heat."

Lasater followed his sprinting medical corpsman toward the center of the blast and found Gunny. "I asked him how old was his son. He told me. I said, 'You're going to see him.' "

Within minutes, one of two attack helicopters that were supporting the patrol dropped onto the road. Marines shoved in Fontecchio's litter and loaded two of the wounded into seats. The "golden hour" so critical for survival of trauma victims was barely 20 minutes old when Gunny arrived at Camp Qaim. The Marines who unloaded him said he was talking. He would be all right, they believed.

The patrol resumed its hunt. A half-hour later, the men heard the blast of another roadside bomb about a mile away, near the police station. A patrol from W Company was closest and began to block off the area. Lance Cpl. Nice pulled off a roll of the razor-sharp concertina wire strapped to the hood of one of the Humvees. With heavy gloves, he unfurled the coil of wire, dragging it across one of the roads to stop traffic.

Like all the Marines, Nice wore a heavy vest with hardened plates in the front and back, the body armor that has saved many lives in this war. But as he turned to grapple with the wire, a single shot rang out. It pierced his side, under his raised arm, where the vest has only canvas webbing to allow flexibility. The bullet passed through his lungs and heart and exited the other side. He dropped on his back in the dust.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61168-2004Aug12.html

That is only an exerpt I recomend reading the other 5 pages to you all.

I note once more that there is the apearence of an expert sniper hitting the spot under an arm raised for a few seconds is no mean feat.

This looks more and more like a Vietnam style long drawn out war. I think we can only expect more and more casualtions among coalition troops for George Bush Jnr's fantasy war.

Sadly Walker

[DarkLight 0]

This looks more and more like a Vietnam style long drawn out war. I think we can only expect more and more casualtions among coalition troops for George Bush Jnr's fantasy war.

Sadly Walker

Maybe that's the only way how the USA government (notice that i'm not bitching against americans) will see that their way of thinking and acting is wrong...

Sad...

[bn880 5]

So who actually "started" this new wave of Mahdi army fooling around? Werent there a ceasefire between Al Sadr and coalition? Was it the US airstrikes or did Al Sadr brake it? Or was it actually someone elses fault?

And yes I understand that it brobably was not the fault of some specific group or army but still Id like to know a bit more.

To my knowledge they are blaming eachother for breaking the ceasefire. I don't think anybody knows which side shot first.

As far as I can connect the dots, it was just another attack by US forces. Otherwise they would not have gone this far anyway, it was planned...

And I think a lot of people know who shot first.

[denoir 0]

Najaf truce brings calm to city [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

A temporary truce appears to be in place in Iraq's holy city of Najaf, which is reported calm after more than a week of heavy fighting. Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has set out conditions for an end to the clashes between his men and the Iraqi-US force.

Supporters of the cleric say he was wounded in the fighting, but this has been denied by government officials. The joint US-Iraqi offensive in Najaf has triggered pro-Sadr protests in a number of towns and cities.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Friday outside Baghdad's Green Zone, where most of the Iraqi government ministries are housed.

There were similar protests in Kufa, Samarra, Mosul, Falluja and Diwaniya, with some supporters of Mr Sadr demanding the resignation of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the withdrawal of American forces from Najaf. In the southern city of Basra, a UK journalist has been freed after being abducted from his hotel on Thursday by militants demanding that the Americans withdraw from the Shia holy city.

They threatened to kill James Brandon, a 23-year-old freelance reporter for the Sunday Telegraph, unless their demands were met within 24 hours. However, he was taken to Mr Sadr's Basra office and freed on Friday.

New orders

Najaf itself is calm despite the occasional burst of gunfire, the BBC's Matthew Price reports. Our correspondent says the shrine of Imam Ali - the centre of much of the fighting - appears to be peaceful and after a night of shelling, there is no longer any black smoke hanging over it.

Mr Sadr and his followers are believed to be based in the shrine. On Friday morning, ambulances were allowed into the area to bring out a handful of Sadr supporters injured in the conflict.

A US military official said troops had been given orders to halt the offensive, which was launched on Thursday with 2,000 US marines and 1,800 Iraqi troops.

"We are allowed to engage the enemy only in self-defence... That was a blanket order for everybody," Maj Bob Pizzitola from the 1st Cavalry Division was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency. The US-led force is maintaining a cordon around the shrine, the cemetery and the old city.

Fate uncertain

Government officials say talks are under way with aides to Mr Sadr in the hope of resolving the standoff which has now entered its ninth day. A spokesman for the cleric said a number of demands had to be met for the fighting to end.

Among them:

[*]US forces must withdraw from Najaf

[*]Sacred Shia sites must be administered by religious authorities

[*]The release of captured fighters and amnesty for Sadr supporters

[*]The restoration of basic services in Najaf

Earlier, Interior Minister Falah Naqib told the Reuters news agency the cleric would "not be touched" if he left the shrine peacefully.

"We will go after the criminal elements which have penetrated the Sadr movement, but not Moqtada," he said. Mr Naqib also denied that the cleric had been hurt during the overnight shelling of the area.

Reports of Mr Sadr's injuries came from his aides, who described them as not life-threatening. Reports by Arab TV stations suggested he had been hit by shrapnel in the chest, leg and arm.

Mr Sadr is thought to have about 1,000 loyal fighters. It is not clear how many have been killed in more than a week of fighting. Iraqi and US officials have said that, in the event of an assault on the central area, only Iraqi forces will enter the shrine, to avoid inflaming Shia sentiment.

I mean it's a shitty situation either way. An attack will inflame the situation, and could possibly bring down the Iraqi government. Not doing anything about isn't a choice either. We're talking about an armed militia that openly rejects the new government.

I see two options. One is to let the US forces go in and for the Iraqi government to loudly protest. The Americans are already well-hated so this is unlikely to make things worse, while the Iraqi government can save face. On the other hand it would be an overt display of how much the Iraqis actually have a say on. And this would not look too good politically.

Another option is like with Fallujah to look the other way and hope that things will get better in a while. This is however most likely not a solution - just a postponement of the problem. Fallujah is again a good example of that. As soon as these recent revolts started, they kicked out all Iraqi government forces and officials from the town and we're back at square one.

Although the US forces are superior in numbers and weapons, the combat zone equalizes that. A huge cemetary, mosques etc - bad for tanks and lots of positions for ambushes, snipers etc Also when al-Sadr's men take up positions inside mosques, they're seen as taking a last stand, defending their faith. When US troops fire back then they're infidels out to destroy Islam. So the situation is very asymmetric.

Thanks to the complete incompetence of how the occupation was handled and the grave miscalculations made, the US forces are pretty much limited to making bad or worse decisions.

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ] NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) Shiite Muslim rebel chief Moqtada Sadr laid down a list of conditions for an end to more than a week of deadly clashes pitting his militia against US troops and Iraqi forces, a spokesman said.

Sheikh Ali Sumeisim spelled out the conditions -- notably for the withdrawal of the US-led forces and handover of Najaf to the Marjayia, the Shiite religious authority -- during a news conference at a hotel in the besieged Shiite holy city of Najaf in central Iraq.

If all multinational forces, Iraqi police and soldiers leave Najaf and the Marjayia agrees to take responsibility for the city, "the Mehdi Army would pull out from Najaf", Sumeisim said, while stressing they refused to disarm.

All basic services must be restored in Najaf, and Sadr's Mehdi Army recognised as an ideological movement with its members allowed to carry weapons for self-defence, Sumeisim continued.

Those jailed for supporting the resistance, all imprisoned clerics and women must also be released from prison, the spokesman added.

Resistance fighters must no longer be persecuted and Sadr's organisation should be allowed to decide for itself whether it becomes a political movement, under the conditions.

"All followers of Sadr's movement should be under a legitimate constitution written by a free, elected government," Sumeisim said.

"Lastly, all efforts should be aimed at building a free, independent, unified Iraq," he added.

Meanwhile, a Mehdi Army leader described Sadr's health as satisfactory after he was lightly wounded early Friday while inspecting his fighters.

Meanwhile thousands of Iraqis are marching towards Najaf with the aim of creating a human chain around the Imam Ali mosque

and the Iraqi National Guard and police in Basra has joined the Mahdi army while tens of thousands of Iraqis are calling for Allawi`s resignation.

All in all the tally at the end of the week is yet a thousand more Iraqi lives spilled in vain because of an incompetent government and occupation forces.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]http://www.mnf-iraq.com/UAVfootage.wmv

thanks.

[Bernadotte 0]

Storming the mosque could be the worst possible solution, from a hearts & minds perspective. Going after a holy man on holy ground, in a holy city is just not worth it.

I agree, even if the attack is by an all-Iraqi force.

But I keep wondering what the ventilation system is like in the mosque and why they simply can't flood it with tear gas or similar agent.  I can't imagine that too many of the insurgents are equipped with proper masks.

Any thoughts on this question from folks who know more than I about such things?  ...Which is probably all of you.  

[Donnervogel 0]

Any thoughts on this question from folks who know more than I about such things? ...Which is probably all of you.

note that the insurgents are not all in a single building nor has the US access to the mosque itself. It's a whole city district (and a pretty large one) that marks the area of the mosque and that is still in the hands of the insurgents.

take a look here

[Bernadotte 0]

...It's a whole city district (and a pretty large one) that marks the area of the mosque and that is still in the hands of the insurgents.

take a look here

Thanks.  Interesting images.  Nasty situation.  I don't envy the security forces.  

[denoir 0]

Sadr tells his supporters to keep fighting [The Independent]

Quote[/b] ]

By Donald Macintyre in Najaf

14 August 2004

Muqtada Sadr made a dramatic late night appearance before about 2,000 of his insurgent supporters and urged them to go on fighting elsewhere in Iraq in case a de-facto truce in Najaf proved to be an American "trick".

Sadr's rallying call shortly before midnight in the dazzlingly lit Imam Ali shrine, which has been his base for nine days of fighting, came hours after US commanders in the city acknowledged they had given troops orders to stop shooting in the old city.

His arm bandaged after sustaining minor injuries, Sadr called for the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, and his interim government to resign and said that what his spokesman, Amal al-Shabani, said was a "truce" agreed by the Americans applied only to Najaf.

Hundreds of his militia later paraded through the great hall of the shrine chanting "No to Allawi" and "Allawi has made Iraqis fight each other".

As US armoured vehicles began to pull back from their tightening encirclement of the old city, Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Sadr still appeared to be fully in control of the holy sites and insurgents carrying AK-47s frisked reporters as they arrived at the shrine's compound.

While Sadr made his appearance, US forces were bombing the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, where they killed eight and wounded 16. In Hillah, 250 of Mehdi Army militiamen surrounded 20 Polish troops as they took refuge in a police station. There were demonstrations in several cities, including Baghdad, in support of the radical Shia cleric.

The streets of Najaf yesterday were still eerily quiet yesterday, apart from sporadic explosions and gunfire, and still largely empty of traffic, except for the occasional Iraqi police convoy racing through the city in a show of control,. But in the late afternoon, about 1,000 pro-Sadr demonstrators were allowed by American and Iraqi forces to march through the town from the neighbouring city of Kufa, through the line of US tanks and on to the Shrine of Imam Ali to exchange ecstatic greetings with the militants.

The few residents venturing out of their homes were either visiting the handful of shops that were open or passing across American lines in the no man's land between the US cordon around the old city and the inner circle tightly controlled by the Mehdi Army occupying the holy compound and the inner section of the vast and hallowed Wadi al-Salam cemetery.

Many were laden with personal belongings. None had good words to say about the Americans, and some ­ particularly but by not only the young and jobless ­ spoke with evident admiration of Muqtada al Sadr. Others were either distinctly muted ­ expressing fear of possible retaliation if they criticised the radical cleric openly ­ or downright hostile in their responses to Sadr's role in eight days of conflict, which had imprisoned many indoors and deprived many homes of water and electricity, halting the fans which have been the only respite from the 120F heat.

One 40-year-old woman bearing her cloth-wrapped bedding and a folded rug on her head was returning to her home inside US lines with three of her nine children because her sister in Karbala could no longer accommodate the entire family, made refugees by the conflict. Umm Fadil clutched her three-year-old daughter, Zeinab, and declared: "Muqtada Sadr is just another man looking out for himself. He doesn't look after the people. If he cared for the people, why is he fighting? Why are people being killed?"

The intense emotions provoked by the conflict among Shias long suppressed by Saddam Hussein were most evident in a charged debate yesterday between a local factory owner ­ who gave his name but begged it not to be used ­ and his son in the firm's small office.

The son, deeply religious, said: "I am ready to join Muqtada al-Sadr now. Did the Americans come to Iraq because of Saddam Hussein? No, they came for money and oil and because they want to destroy Islam. They want to control the country and leave the poor people suffering." The father, too, said that "when the Americans they said and we thought they were liberators. Now we think of them as occupiers. Of course Muqtada al-Sadr has the right to resist the occupation but this is not the right time. We should wait and see what happens with the elections."

The father said, with tears running down his cheek: "For 35 years we were imprisoned. We couldn't say anything. Now I want to rest, but I fear this will not have happen because we have oil." But the kidnapping of a British journalist had been "barbaric". And of his son's enthusiasm for joining the Mehdi Army, he said: "I completely disagree with him. We will quarrel when you have gone."

But it was Thasser Sala, 22, returning to his home with his wife and son because of the relative lull in fighting who probably summed up the feelings of many residents. " I don't care about either side ­ the Americans or al-Sadr. All I want to do is work and look after my family." As dusk fell, the one defiant sign of life across a deserted tract of the city was of 20 young men playing football on a stretch of wasteland, apparently oblivious of the perilous stand off a mile or two away that the world is watching.