HUMINT: Studying Sadr City

http://humintel.blogspot.com/ ^ | 01/11/2006 | humint

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US troops leave checkpoints around Sadr City - Published: 11/01/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

[EXCERPT] Iraqi troops loaded coils of barbed wire and red traffic cones on to pickup trucks, while small groups of men and children danced in circles chanting slogans praising Al Sadr, who earlier yesterday had ordered the area closed to the Iraqi government until US troops lifted what he called their 'siege' of the neighborhood. Extra checkpoints were set up last week as USSadr City, US troops launched an intensive search for a missing soldier. Shortly after leaving troops dismantled other checkpoints in the downtown Karradah neighborhood where the soldier had been abducted, loading barbed wire coils on to their Stryker armored vehicles.

SadrCity-Strike Posted by: nadioshka on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - 11:56 AM General strike in Sadr City to protest U.S. blockade - By Adel Fakher - Baghdad, Oct 31,

(VOI) – A general strike started in the mainly-Shiite Baghdad district of Sadr City on Tuesday to protest a seven-day-old blockade by U.S. forces. All vehicle movement came to a standstill, government offices and public schools stayed closed and residents blocked side streets in the neighborhood. “The residents of Sadr City went out on a big peaceful demonstration to demand ending the blockade of the district and other Baghdad districts such as al-Karadah-Shu’la, al-Horriya, al-Tobji and Washash,” said Falah Shenshel the head of Sadrist bloc in the Iraqi parliament. “The U.S. forces did not respond to the demonstration and kept the blockade on Sadr City,” Shenshel told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by the telephone. Mosque preachers in Sadr City called on Monday night for the general strike and said it would go on until further notice. The U.S. forces have been cordoning off the district since Wednesday to search for a missing U.S. soldier of Iraqi origin.

Iraq: 69 dead, US death toll over 100 in October - Posted: 30-10-2006 , 13:27 GMT

[EXCERPT] At least 69 people died or found dead in Iraq on Monday, including 33 bombing victims of an attack on laborers lined up to find a days work in Baghdad's Sadr city Shiite slum. The bomb targeting Iraqi Shiites lining up for day jobs in Baghdad's Sadr City slum killed at least 33 people and injured more than 59 others, police said. According to the AP, the bomb tore through a collection of food stalls and kiosks at about 6:15 a.m., cutting down men who gather there daily hoping to be hired as laborers. There were conflicting reports as to whether the blast was caused by a suicide bomber or a device concealed amid debris by the roadside.

US, Iraqi forces raid Shia stronghold of Sadr City (AP) 25 October 2006

[EXCERPT] The US military said Iraqi army special forces, backed up by US advisers, carried out a raid to capture a top illegal armed group commander directing widespread death squad activity throughout eastern Baghdad,’ the military said in a statement. Al Maliki, who is commander in chief of Iraq’s army, heatedly denied he knew anything about the raid: “We will ask for clarification about what has happened in Sadr City. We will review this issue with the multinational forces so that it will not be repeated. ...The Iraqi government should be aware and part of any military operation. Coordination is needed between Iraqi government and multinational forces.”

[EXCERPT] Also Wednesday, the military said it was continuing a search for a US Army translator missing after he was believed to have been kidnapped Monday night in Baghdad. Troops had detained some suspects who could possibly be involved,’ said a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington.

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Last Updated: Monday, 30 October 2006, 17:53 GMT
Sadr City: Restive Shia stronghold

By Hugh Sykes
BBC News, Baghdad

In an aerial photograph of Baghdad there are two prominent features - the River Tigris and Sadr City. The Tigris is a wide, slow moving ribbon of water that curls through the centre of the Iraqi capital. Sadr City is a substantial, almost perfectly square densely populated grid-pattern suburb that looks as if it has been bolted onto the north-east of Baghdad. It did not grow organically like the rest of the capital - it was built in the late 1950s to help solve a housing shortage. It was first named Revolution City - later changed to Saddam City, which was taken as an insult to the Shia who lived there, who were systematically oppressed by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Shia protesters hold poster of Moqtada Sadr

Moqtada Sadr has strong support in the area After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the district was again briefly known as Revolution City. But it was then re-named Sadr City after Ayatollah Mohammed Sadek al-Sadr, a revered cleric who - along with two of his sons - was murdered on the orders of the former Iraqi leader. At least three million people live in Sadr City, almost all of them Shia Muslims.

Separation

It is now the stronghold of one of the Ayatollah's two surviving sons, Moqtada Sadr, whose political headquarters are in a fortified building on one of the main avenues that run through the area. Some Baghdadis refer to Sadr City residents as "shororooghi", a derogatory term that is intended to suggest ignorance and lack of education. Sadr City is, in effect, a Shia township.

US checkpoint at the edge of Sadr City

Many in Sadr City look to the Mehdi Army, not the US, for security It is physically, and psychologically separated from Baghdad by the wide Army Canal and a busy highway that runs alongside it. And, like a South African township, it is not a homogeneous place - there are overcrowded slum districts with raw sewage overflowing into the street, and smarter neighbourhoods with larger houses and better conditions. Some areas of Sadr City have been transformed by American military engineers, who have installed entirely new main sewers and more than two dozen reverse-osmosis water-treatment filters in primary schools.

An American colonel who showed me some examples of this undeniably successful reconstruction urged me to ask local people, "who provides your security?", hoping the answer would be "the police" or "the Iraqi Army". But when I reassured them they could tell the truth, the most common reply was "the Mehdi Army".

Politics and 'protection'

Sadr City is mostly under the control of Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army militia - whose activities range from sectarian revenge killings, and attacks on multinational security forces, to community work and neighbourhood-watch.

Map of Baghdad

The militia have also been involved in protection rackets and extortion at some of the very few petrol stations in Sadr City - mostly by simply adding a premium to the official pump price. Moqtada Sadr is also involved in Iraqi politics at a high level - his party has seats in parliament, and he helps sustain Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's coalition government. Mr Sadr has recently instructed his followers to stop killing fellow Muslims - whether Sunni or Shia - and to concentrate on resisting the US and British occupation and on repelling the extreme Sunni Wahabists of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Whether Mr Sadr's followers in Sadr City heed this instruction remains to be seen - but he has threatened rogue Mehdi Army commanders with the wrath of God. "If you do not obey, you will regret it," announced a preacher who is often a mouthpiece for Mr Sadr, "indeed, I declare that you will be cursed."

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More than 130 killed in Baghdad's Sadr City

POSTED: 10:35 a.m. EST, November 23, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six car bombs killed more than 130 people Thursday in Baghdad's Sadr City, according to Iraq's health minister. Police had conflicting numbers for those killed and wounded, but Health Minister Ali Shummari said the death toll is 133, with 201 wounded. Earlier, police said three car bombings and a mortar round firing occurred within a 30-minute period in Sadr City, a densely populated Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad. The minister said a missile was fired in addition to the car blasts.

In a separate incident, police also said U.S. forces killed four people Thursday when they opened fire on a minibus in Sadr City. The U.S. military later said Iraqi troops fired at a vehicle that posed an "immediate threat" in Sadr City when they were looking for an insurgent who apparently knows the whereabouts of a U.S. soldier kidnapped last month. The action came during a raid, one of several in the area since Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie disappeared October 23 in Baghdad. The operation was designed "to capture a kidnapping and murder cell leader reported" to know about Altaie, the military said, adding the suspect also is thought to be "responsible for attacks against Iraqi civilians."

Iraqi troops carried out the raid with "coalition advisers" in Sadr City, a bastion of support for anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. Four civilians also were wounded in the incident, which occurred on Fallah Street, a busy thoroughfare, the Baghdad police official said. The U.S. military said there were no Iraqi military or coalition casualties. Iraqi forces detained five suspected cell members, the military said. Also Thursday, at least 30 gunmen thought to be from a Sunni neighborhood attacked the Health Ministry, police said. Al-Sadr's movement controls the ministry, and U.S. military commanders suspect the al-Sadr group is at the center of sectarian fighting in the Iraqi capital over the past year. There were no immediate details about casualties at the ministry compound, which is in central Baghdad's Bab al-Mudham area.

At least three mortar rounds landed inside the compound, police said, and the gunmen tried to break into it and fought with ministry security guards. A Health Ministry official said the attackers came from the nearby Sunni neighborhood of Fadhel and that they also struck the Shiite Endowment, which manages Shiite institutions around the country. The violence comes one day after the release of a U.N. report that named October as the deadliest month for civilians since the war began in March 2003.

The report -- which underscored the ravages of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence -- said 3,709 civilians were killed last month. For the two-month period of September and October, a total of 7,054 people died in violent deaths. October also proved a deadly month with U.S. troops, which lost 106 service members -- the fourth-highest monthly death toll for U.S. troops since the war's start. On Wednesday, three U.S. Marines died of "wounds sustained due to enemy action" in Anbar province, the volatile region west of the capital, a U.S. military statement released Thursday said. The American military death toll in Iraq is 2,872, including seven civilian contractors of the military. There have been 52 troop deaths during November. Also Wednesday, U.S.-led coalition forces killed a "terrorist and detained two suspected terrorists" during a raid in Balad targeting an associate of a senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader, the U.S. military said. Balad is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.

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Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station - By Hannah Allam and Mohamed al Dulaimy McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms. The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday. With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed.

"This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me: We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety," an unidentified Sadr City resident said as the televised crowd cheered. "We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that's the truth."

Militia leaders told supporters Saturday to prepare for a fresh wave of incursions into Sunni neighborhoods that would begin as soon as the curfew ends Monday, according to Sadr City residents. Several members of the Mahdi Army boasted they were distributing police uniforms throughout Shiite neighborhoods to allow greater freedom of movement. The government announced it would partially lift the curfew Sunday to allow for pedestrian traffic. In the Diyala province north of Baghdad, Sunni insurgents stormed into two Shiite homes, lined up 21 men and shot them to death in front of women and children, police there said. Later in the day, a Shiite television station showed footage of the victims' burials. And in the western province of Anbar, a suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Fallujah killed a U.S. serviceman and three Iraqi civilians, according to a U.S. military statement. Another American and nine Iraqis were injured. Also Saturday, Iraq's most prominent Sunni cleric made an appeal in Cairo, Egypt, for Arab nations to withdraw recognition of Iraq's Shiite-led government and said U.S.-led troops were complicit in Iraq's sectarian crisis. Hareth al-Dhari, leader of the militant Association of Muslim Scholars, declared Iraqi efforts toward a unity government "dead" and said the current violence is political rather than theological. "The occupying forces have been giving cover to the militias and criminal gangs," al-Dhari said. "The government has been seen setting the atmosphere for them with the curfews to aid them in catching the victims and carrying out their attacks."

Al-Maliki's administration acknowledged it was powerless to interrupt the pro-Sadr program on the official Iraqiya channel, during which Sadr City residents shouted, "There is no government! There is no state!" Several speakers described neighborhoods and well-known Sunni politicians as "terrorists" and threatened them with reprisal. "We'll obviously try to control them as much as we can, but when they (kill) more than 150 people in bombings, they have the right to speak," said Bassam al Husseini, one of Maliki's top advisers. "What are we going to do? We can't stop this. It's too hot right now." Sunni politicians vowed to file complaints against the channel for inciting sectarian violence. Ordinary Sunnis were shocked to hear their neighborhoods singled out for attack on the government's station. "I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what's happening," said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. "I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves." Al-Husseini, the government adviser, also affirmed that a meeting between al-Maliki and President Bush would continue as scheduled next week in neighboring Jordan, despite the threats of al-Sadr's allies to withdraw from the government if it occurs. The Cabinet met for more than an hour to hash out an agenda for the trip, he said. "The meeting will take place. That's the plan," al-Husseini said. "We need to straighten things up." Al-Husseini said the top two items of discussion would be a report from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission that will make recommendations for U.S. policy in Iraq, and a timetable for a withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. "We want to talk about it," al-Husseini said, "to ask, `How long are they going to stick around?" McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Miret el Naggar in Cairo contributed to this report.