thedrifter
02-20-08, 03:30 PM
Attacks increase as Iraq cease-fire in doubt
By Patrick Quinn - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 14:31:40 EST
BAGHDAD — With deadly attacks against American targets increasing around Baghdad, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.
Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, blamed a flurry of rocket attacks on Iranian-backed Shiites — including one on Monday against an Iraqi housing complex near the country’s main U.S. military base that killed at least five people and wounded 16, including two U.S. soldiers.
“These criminals launched 16 rockets in the direction of Baghdad International Airport, West Rashid and the Victory Base Complex,” he said, adding that they were “apparently unconcerned where these rockets would land and explode.”
He said that attack and others were carried out by “Iranian-backed Special Group criminals,” a term often used to describe groups that have either splintered away from al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or refused to respect the cease-fire he declared last August.
Iraqi police held funerals for 14 officers killed Tuesday night as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. posts in the capital.
The U.S. military has angered some Sadrist factions by carrying out raids against what it describes as Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia. There have been numerous calls from within the militia and its political wing to call off the cease-fire.
The cease-fire has been a key element in a three-piece puzzle that has come together to help reduce violence around by more than 60 percent since June — and by nearly 80 percent in Baghdad. The other two elements are the influx of thousands of U.S. troops last summer, and the creation of a Sunni-dominated force funded by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.
“Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step,” Smith told The Associated Press, using an honorific reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying the cease-fire was extended, “then that means the freeze is over.”
On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr “either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over.”
Al-Obeidi told The AP that message “has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide.”
There are fears, especially among Sunnis, that any return to active service by the Mahdi Army could put Iraq back where it was just a year ago — in chaos and on the brink of a civil war.
“The drop in violence and the quiet which Baghdad witnesses is a clear evidence that this militia was behind all the chaos in the past,” Sunni parliament member, Asmaa al-Dulaimi, told the AP.
She said a lifting the cease-fire “will affect national reconciliation and will further deteriorate the security situation nationwide. Resuming their activities, whether against the government or civilians, will lead to a new confrontation with them.”
Smith said that under current conditions, violence was still dropping. He said the number of civilian deaths in Baghdad had fallen from 1,087 men, women and children killed in February 2007 to 178 in the first month of this year.
He also said the number of execution-style killings carried out by so-called sectarian death squads had dropped some 95 percent, from 800 in February 2007 to below 40 so far this month.
The number of suicide attacks, meanwhile, went from 12 a month last year to just four in January, and the number of roadside bombings was down more than 45 percent in the year since the U.S.-Iraqi operation began, he said.
“While the progress has been significant, we all know Baghdad is not safe from al-Qaida and other extremists,” Smith said.
One thing that has the Iraqi and U.S. military worried is the use of women and mentally retarded people in a series of recent attacks carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq.
Smith said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks against two pet markets in Baghdad earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment, though nothing in their records showed they had Down syndrome, as initially suggested. He said the women had been positively identified as residents from the northeastern outskirts of Baghdad who were in their late 20s or early 30s.
The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings that killed nearly 100 people was met initially with skepticism.
Meanwhile, three Iraqi children were killed and seven others wounded when they were hit by an insurgent mortar attack while playing soccer outside a military supply area on Tuesday near Balad, the military said.
And in Diyala province north of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to push out al-Qaida in Iraq, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 17, said an official in the provincial command operation center. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.
Associated Press reporters Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Bradley Brooks contributed to this story from Baghdad.
Ellie
By Patrick Quinn - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 14:31:40 EST
BAGHDAD — With deadly attacks against American targets increasing around Baghdad, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.
Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, blamed a flurry of rocket attacks on Iranian-backed Shiites — including one on Monday against an Iraqi housing complex near the country’s main U.S. military base that killed at least five people and wounded 16, including two U.S. soldiers.
“These criminals launched 16 rockets in the direction of Baghdad International Airport, West Rashid and the Victory Base Complex,” he said, adding that they were “apparently unconcerned where these rockets would land and explode.”
He said that attack and others were carried out by “Iranian-backed Special Group criminals,” a term often used to describe groups that have either splintered away from al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or refused to respect the cease-fire he declared last August.
Iraqi police held funerals for 14 officers killed Tuesday night as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. posts in the capital.
The U.S. military has angered some Sadrist factions by carrying out raids against what it describes as Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia. There have been numerous calls from within the militia and its political wing to call off the cease-fire.
The cease-fire has been a key element in a three-piece puzzle that has come together to help reduce violence around by more than 60 percent since June — and by nearly 80 percent in Baghdad. The other two elements are the influx of thousands of U.S. troops last summer, and the creation of a Sunni-dominated force funded by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.
“Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step,” Smith told The Associated Press, using an honorific reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying the cease-fire was extended, “then that means the freeze is over.”
On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr “either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over.”
Al-Obeidi told The AP that message “has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide.”
There are fears, especially among Sunnis, that any return to active service by the Mahdi Army could put Iraq back where it was just a year ago — in chaos and on the brink of a civil war.
“The drop in violence and the quiet which Baghdad witnesses is a clear evidence that this militia was behind all the chaos in the past,” Sunni parliament member, Asmaa al-Dulaimi, told the AP.
She said a lifting the cease-fire “will affect national reconciliation and will further deteriorate the security situation nationwide. Resuming their activities, whether against the government or civilians, will lead to a new confrontation with them.”
Smith said that under current conditions, violence was still dropping. He said the number of civilian deaths in Baghdad had fallen from 1,087 men, women and children killed in February 2007 to 178 in the first month of this year.
He also said the number of execution-style killings carried out by so-called sectarian death squads had dropped some 95 percent, from 800 in February 2007 to below 40 so far this month.
The number of suicide attacks, meanwhile, went from 12 a month last year to just four in January, and the number of roadside bombings was down more than 45 percent in the year since the U.S.-Iraqi operation began, he said.
“While the progress has been significant, we all know Baghdad is not safe from al-Qaida and other extremists,” Smith said.
One thing that has the Iraqi and U.S. military worried is the use of women and mentally retarded people in a series of recent attacks carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq.
Smith said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks against two pet markets in Baghdad earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment, though nothing in their records showed they had Down syndrome, as initially suggested. He said the women had been positively identified as residents from the northeastern outskirts of Baghdad who were in their late 20s or early 30s.
The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings that killed nearly 100 people was met initially with skepticism.
Meanwhile, three Iraqi children were killed and seven others wounded when they were hit by an insurgent mortar attack while playing soccer outside a military supply area on Tuesday near Balad, the military said.
And in Diyala province north of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to push out al-Qaida in Iraq, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 17, said an official in the provincial command operation center. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.
Associated Press reporters Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Bradley Brooks contributed to this story from Baghdad.
Ellie