U.S. troops clash with Shi'ite militia in Baghdad

Reuters | September 25, 2005

[HAL9000]

BAGHDAD, Sep 25 (Reuters) - U.S. troops clashed with militia fighters loyal to a rebellious Shi'ite Muslim cleric in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing eight militiamen and wounding five, Iraqi police said.

They said U.S. forces entered the poor Shi'ite district of Sadr City seeking to detain a group of militia members suspected of carrying out guerrilla attacks.

The militia, known as the Mehdi Army, is loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a young radical cleric whose followers have led two uprisings against U.S. forces.

The U.S. military said it had engaged what it termed anti-Iraqi forces in several locations in the east of the capital for around 1-1/2 hours.

"There were some anti-Iraqi forces killed," a military spokesman said, but gave no details on numbers. He said no U.S. forces were killed or wounded. No militiamen were detained.

British forces say the Mehdi Army was connected to the detention of two British soldiers in the southern city of Basra last week. British troops freed the two using armoured vehicles.

Sadr has a strong following in Baghdad, Basra and other southern cities. Representatives of Sadr's movement could not be reached immediately for comment on the Baghdad clashes.

[Tom Bombadil]

Neither the UK and the US troops seem to be able to get a handle on things.

That must be welcome news to the Al Qeda folks in Tal Afar, Ramadi, Hit and all of the other towns and cities which are being cleaned out right now. According to Bill Roggio (fourth Rail blog) there are some very significant things happening right now.

Come back in 6 weeks or so and tell us whether you think they still don't have a handle on things.

[verity]

See all the goddam trouble you started. ;-)

[ukman]

>Come back in 6 weeks or so and tell us whether you think they still don't have a handle on things<

OK.

Whether 1 or 10 or 100 terrorists are killed or captured isn't really that important. It's whether the new constitution goes through that's crucial. We'll see.

[ukman]

>Neither... and...<
Congratulations on spotting the deliberate mistake. Just testing you there...

>How many anti-US/UK War protests have you attended?<
None. Like I said, I'm not really that interested.

I'm not rewriting history (it's the US that's been more guilty of doing that ever since the ALLIED victory in WW2). What I wrote was a fairly common view in the UK both during and long after the war; a different and equally valid viewpoint. We could argue about this till the cows come home, but I've said my piece and won't post again here. 'Bye!