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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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September 6th,
2007 - U.S. Troops Battle Suspected Militiamen |
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U.S. Troops Battle Suspected
Militiamen By Kim Gamel Associated Press September 6, 2007, 4:12PM Baghdad - U.S. and Iraqi
troops backed by attack aircraft clashed with suspected Shiite militiamen
before dawn Thursday in Baghdad, bombing houses and battling more than a
dozen snipers on rooftops. Residents and police said at least 14 people were
killed. The fighting occurred in a
Mahdi Army stronghold of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who had
ordered his militia not to carry out any more attacks for up to six months.
The U.S. military stressed the raid targeted breakaway factions that remain
violent partly as a way of bullying minority Sunnis out of Baghdad. The clashes reinforced the
obstacles to U.S. goals posed by the increasingly volatile Shiite militias
amid signs that infighting within Iraq's dominant religious sect is on the
rise, just days before a key progress report in Washington on the war. "The Iraqi parties are
quarreling over power and the people are dying," said a middle-aged man,
standing next to a hole in his roof and waving a piece of shrapnel he found
after Thursday's raid. "We are fed up," he told Associated Press
Television News. Video from APTN showed
houses with their roofs caved in, and others completely destroyed. U.S. troops also targeted
Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida in Iraq in several raids north of Baghdad
on Thursday, killing six suspected insurgents and detaining 25, the military
said. The number of U.S. troops in
Iraq has climbed to a record high of 168,000, and is moving toward a peak of
172,000 in the coming weeks - a level that could extend into December, a
senior military official said Thursday. Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock,
director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the increase is the
result of troops rotations, as several brigades overlap while they move in
and out of the war zone. Previously officials had predicted the number could
go up to about 171,000. Bombings, shootings and
mortar attacks left at least 28 Iraqis dead nationwide, including 18
bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in Baghdad and south of the capital -
apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by militia
fighters. After a period of relative
calm, recent days have seen an uptick in violence. The Iraqi government,
meanwhile, called a critical independent U.S. assessment of its security
posture unacceptable interference in its affairs. The study, released
Wednesday and led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, found that Iraq's
security forces will be unable to take control of the country in the next 18
months. It said the Iraqi National Police is so rife with corruption it
should be scrapped entirely. The assessment was expected
to factor heavily into Congress' debate on the war, with U.S. Ambassador Ryan
Crocker and top commander Gen. David Petraeus due to begin hearings on
Monday. Yassin Majid, an adviser to
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said "it is not the duty of the
independent committee to ask for changes at the Interior Ministry, especially
when it comes to security apparatus." "This is an Iraqi
affair, and we will not accept interference by anyone in such work, whether
the Congress or others," Majid told The Associated Press by telephone.
"The report is inaccurate and not official and we consider it
interference in our internal affairs." Majid also stressed that
al-Maliki's government had fired some members of security agencies over
corruption charges and links to militias and had extended that policy to
other agencies. "The al-Maliki
government will do this with all state agencies. We will not take dictation
from reports," he said. Last week, al-Sadr said he
ordered his Mahdi Army to halt all attacks to give him time to restructure
the militia. The announcement appeared aimed at distancing himself from
suspected Iranian-backed factions he can no longer control. The U.S. military has
welcomed the Mahdi Army cease-fire but kept up operations targeting what it
calls rogue elements of the militia that it says are continuing violence,
including attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. "The multinational
force continues to stand with the government of Iraq in welcoming the
commitment by Muqtada al-Sadr to stop attacks by his followers," the
military said in a statement on Thursday's raid. "However, a few attacks
on coalition forces and innocent Iraqis have continued. Our assumption is
that these groups are not honoring Sadr's orders and thus will not be subject
to the restraint we have observed for those who are responding to Sadr's
orders." The operation in the western
Baghdad area of Washash involved Iraqi and U.S. special forces acting on a
tip against a Shiite cell accused of attacking local police and engaging in
extortion as well as execution-style killings of Sunnis, the military said. The troops called for
airstrikes after coming under fire from more than a dozen snipers on the
rooftops of surrounding buildings. The military reported that
four buildings were damaged, "including two enemy strongholds that
sustained major damage and two surrounding buildings that sustained moderate
damage." No casualties were mentioned in the statement. Residents reported hearing
explosions at about 3 a.m. that persisted for nearly an hour. A police officer, speaking
on condition of anonymity for his own safety, said U.S. helicopters had
attacked the area, killing 14 civilians and wounding 10. There was confusion
at the scene, however, as some residents said they thought it had been a
mortar attack and said 27 people had been killed. © 2007 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/5114055.html |