19 Tense Hours in Sadr City Alongside the Mahdi Army

washington post ^ | March 29, 2008 | By Sudarsan Raghavan

[Flavius]

BAGHDAD, March 28 -- The gunfire struck like thunderclaps, building to a steady rhythm. American soldiers in a Stryker armored vehicle fired away from one end of the block. At the other end, two groups of Shiite militiamen pounded back with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. American helicopters circled above in the blue afternoon sky.

As a heavy barrage erupted outside his parents' house, Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, a political and military adviser to the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rushed through the purple gate and took shelter behind the thick walls. He had just spoken with a fighter by cellphone. "I told him not to use that weapon. It's not effective," he said, referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. "I told him to use the IED, the Iranian one," he added, using the shorthand for an improvised explosive device. "This is more effective."

[KC_Conspirator]

This Wash. Compost reporter is a dirty, rotten, stinking piece of ***t. He ought to be arrested RIGHT NOW for treason.

He is outright encouraging violence and unrest.

[Allegra]

The Left confirms it... There's no such thing as collateral damage. We should bomb the hell out of these "neighborhoods" before sending our boys in there, really soften it up for them.

I, for one, would not shed any tears if Sadr City were to be flattened.

And then we should leave it that way as a warning.

[Kaslin]

The Washington Compost embeds with the enemy. How nice. /sarcasm