Posted on 01/10/2007 8:05:40 AM PST by pissant
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi and U.S. troops chased militants in and out of alleys and conducted house-to-house searches Wednesday in a central Baghdad neighborhood, a day after fierce fighting that killed 50 insurgents.
An Iraqi army officer said 15 suspects had been arrested in Baghdad's troubled Haifa Street section. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
U.S. and Iraqi forces spent the day Wednesday in a mopping up operation, trying to ensure that insurgent forces were cleared from the dangerous neighborhood. The Haifa Street region has come under attack by Americans several times in the war, only to see the return of militant gunmen when the military pressure eased.
The latest operations came hours before President Bush's expected announcement that he would send 20,000 more soldiers to Iraq despite growing opposition on Capitol Hill.
A prominent hard-line leader of Iraq's Sunni Arabs also lashed out against the new security plans by Bush and Iraq's prime minister, saying in an interview published Wednesday that they were plotting to kill Sunnis.
Meanwhile, bombings and shootings across Iraq killed at least 19 people late Tuesday and early Wednesday, including a U.S. soldier who died from a gunshot wound in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
A suicide bomber walked into a crowd of people milling outside a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing four civilians and wounding a dozen others, police said. Around the same time, another bomber targeted the convoy of the Tal Afar mayor. A child was killed and four other people including a driver were hurt, but the mayor survived, police said.
Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi said a new security plan announced by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki days earlier had three or four phases, and that "the first stage has already begun."
Al-Obaidi did not elaborate on what steps the government had taken or say whether the Haifa Street operation was part of the security plan. He said that offensive was launched in response to the killings of 27 people there on Saturday.
"This is what made us decide to go into Haifa street," al-Obaidi told The Associated Press. He added that at least seven foreign Arabs were captured, including some who entered Iraq recently.
An Iraqi army general, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the plan, said the Haifa Street battle was not part of the new Baghdad security plan.
U.S. tanks lined the streets in the neighborhood, a militant Sunni Arab stronghold located just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone _ home to the U.S. Embassy and other facilities.
A security official at the Medical City hospital complex, where some of those wounded Tuesday on Haifa Street were taken, according to police, who were interrogating 20 injured suspects inside the facility. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Al-Maliki aides have said the assault would target Sunni insurgents first, rather than Shiite Muslim militiamen blamed in sectarian killings.
In an interview published Wednesday, Sunni leader Harith al-Dhari _ head of the influential Association of Muslims Scholars, a group with ties to some Sunni insurgents _ said the offensive would not provide balanced security.
"This government has taken as its job to slaughter, arrest, abduct and displace (Sunnis). It is not taking its responsibility for a real security or economy or even providing services for the Iraqi people," al-Dhari was quoted by the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan as saying.
"Now they want to implement the new security plan with the collaboration of the American president George Bush," he added.
U.S. officials have said the additional U.S. troops deployed under Bush's new strategy would work with Iraqi troops to put down both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen.
But al-Dhari, who left Iraq for Jordan after al-Maliki's government accused him of inciting terrorism, said the security plans were intended to target the Sunni minority.
"This security plan intends to attack and besiege (Sunni) villages and cities, to arrest and eliminate the youths who are thought to be with the resistance, or potential insurgents," he said.
On Tuesday, U.S. jets flew low over Baghdad, and helicopter gunships swooped in to pound the neighborhood. The U.S. military said about 1,000 Iraqi and U.S. soldiers carried out "targeted raids to capture multiple targets, disrupt insurgent activity and restore Iraqi Security Forces' control of North Haifa Street."
"This area has been subject to insurgent activity which has repeatedly disrupted Iraqi Security Force operations in central Baghdad," said a statement quoting Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division Baghdad.
He said no American or Iraqi soldiers were killed in the operation. He did not address the number of militants killed, while the Defense Ministry reported 50 deaths among insurgents.
Meanwhile, President Jalal Talabani said the government should delay the execution of two of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants. Iraqi officials have said the two men were expected to be hanged in the coming days, but no date has been released.
Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to death after being found guilty along with Saddam of involvement in killing 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the northern town of Dujail.
Saddam was executed Dec. 30 in an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of the execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the gallows. The executions of the other two men were postponed until after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which ended a week ago.
"In my opinion we should wait on the executions," Talabani said Wednesday at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. "We should examine the situation," he said without elaborating.
In violence elsewhere, four members of a family died when their house in Baghdad's Sadr City section was destroyed Tuesday night. Police initially said the attack was from two mortar shells, but later a police official and witnesses said the home was fired on by U.S. aircraft. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
Sadr City is the largest Baghdad enclave of Iraq's Shiite majority, and a base for the Mahdi Army, a militia led by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. U.S. troops have been conducting raids on homes there in recent weeks.
Hopefully many more strikes are coming to Sadr's slums.
Cut their heads off.
I'll settle for a large caliber shot between the eyes.
Nabbed ????
forget that,
need more killing !!!
We've killed 81 in the last 3 days.
Good idea. Also, recall all the visas from NBC, CBS, etc. We could wrap this within a month.
We've killed 81 in the last 3 days.
.
.
.
Should have put numbers up like this a year or two ago.
Better late than never.
Let me guess, the DBM will soon announce another "wedding" that was taking place?
We've been killing them in bunches throughout or visit there. Some weeks its one-sie two-sies, other weeks its by the bushel.
For the desired effect -- the number needs to be 81,000 in three days... EVERY three days, for a few months.
For the math challenged out there -- in three months that would be about 2.5 MILLION Islamists destroyed..
In reality -- that more accurately reflects the size of the problem in the region.
Semper Fi
this was sure a nice family neighborhood.
---
Haifa Street in Baghdad - a timeline By The Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/haifa_street_chronology
A timeline of notable occurrences on Baghdad's Haifa Street:
_Jan. 9, 2007: U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, backed by American warplanes, battle suspected insurgents for hours, and Iraq says 50 militants are killed.
_Jan. 6, 2007: Police find the bodies of 80 people, many showing signs of torture, including 27 bodies discovered near Haifa Street.
_Dec. 20, 2006: Gunmen kill Mitashar al-Sudani, a 60-year-old comedian known for his portrayal of the lighter side of life in Baghdad, as he was driving on Haifa Street.
_Oct. 29, 2006: The bodies of Iraqi state television presenter Sherin Hamid and her driver are found dumped in the Haifa street neighborhood.
_July 26, 2006: Clashes break out between Iraqi soldiers and insurgents on Haifa Street. Six insurgents are killed and 27 are detained, some of them foreign Arabs.
_July 15, 2006: Seven people are wounded after a mortar attack near Haifa Street.
_June 24, 2006: Fighting in the alleys and doorways of Haifa Street kills a member of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, along with five Iraqi soldiers and three police officers. Eight suspected insurgents are arrested.
_June 23, 2006: Iraqi and U.S. military forces clash with attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles in Haifa Street.
_Oct. 28, 2005: Suspected insurgents fire a mortar from a cemetery and it explodes on Haifa Street near a soccer club. No causalities are reported.
_Feb. 15, 2005: U.S. troops and gunmen exchange fire in the area around Haifa Street.
_Jan. 27, 2005: U.S. and Iraqi forces clash with insurgents on Haifa Street.
_Jan. 21, 2005: American soldiers seize mortar rounds, TNT and weapons in a raid.
_Jan. 7, 2005: U.S. troops set up a base on Haifa Street.
_Dec. 19, 2005: Gunmen stop a car carrying election officials and drag them into the middle of Haifa Street, killing them in front of passers-by.
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