[Marxism] US forces clash with Shia Resistance

[Nick Halliday <halliday.nick@xxxxxxxxx>]

And the reason would be to keep them from voting No to the constitution.
The Sunni-Shia Resistance have the votes to shoot it down, so now the
Occupation and its Collaborators have to do some shooting to keep them
from voting. It's the same strategy against the Sunni--disrupt them,
displace them, disenfranchise them.

Never mind the usual template blackops bullshit about Zarqawi's
all-out war on Shia in this article (I say the Z man doesn't even
exist and I've said it since 2003), the second part is the interesting
part of the article. Some misinformation persists in the presentation
though (or is it just that the journalists doing 'journalism' in Iraq
are mostly dipshits, as a lot of their private blogs seem to
indicate). First, the Sadrists never said that their struggle was only
political in the context of Iraq being occupied. In fact, al Sadr has
said he couldn't politically participate in the current government
because of the the Occupation. Second, they are not largely disarmed;
they basically agreed to ceasefires in Sadr City and Najaf. I don't
think they had a lot of heavy weaponry to hand over in the first
place. Third, US military operations against a mixed insurgency (Shia
and Sunni, Arab with some Kurdish) in Sadr City have been almost
incessant and highly destructive with reconstruction (SURPRISE) going
nowhere, making it look a lot like Fallujah, but a lot this
destruction pre-dates the demolition of Sunni cities (as does the
demolition of Najaf, a holy city in Shia Islam):

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050925/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_050925084132

>>Ten militiamen loyal to the firebrand Sadr were killed in clashes
Sunday after US forces moved into Sadr City, a majority Shiite
district of eastern Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.

The fighting follows a week of rising tension in the southern city of
Basra between British forces and Sadr's outlawed Mehdi Army militia
after the dramatic arrest and release of two British undercover
soldiers.

The clashes erupted when US soldiers tried to arrest Mehdi Army
leaders, the official added.

A defence ministry official confirmed clashes took place, but put the
toll at eight militiamen killed and five wounded.

A US spokesman said the clashes started shortly before 1 am (2100 GMT
Saturday) and lasted until about 2:30 am.

"There were a series of engagements," he said, adding that no members
of the US forces were hurt.

"It appears we were going out to conduct an operation with the Iraqi
army who had thrown a cordon around an area they wanted to search. It
looks like they were attacked," he added, giving no further details.

A spokesman for Sadr's office in Baghdad said four civilians were killed.

"Several armoured vehicles arrived in three areas of Sadr City at
about 1 am. American soldiers dismounted and opened fire at random,"
the spokesman said. "People came out of their homes to see what was
going on and four were killed and 10 injured, all of them civilians."

"We're not confronting the enemy without orders from Najaf," he added,
referring to the holy Shiite city which is home to Sadr, who launched
two uprisings last year against US forces in which hundreds of his
militants were killed.

"They want to provoke Sadr people to fight to stop them from taking
part in the political process," the spokesman said.

Sadr assumed a low profile following the uprisings, saying the fight
to get US troops out of the country was now purely political.

His militia was largely disarmed in a US-backed cash-for-weapons
programme, but while much heavy weaponry was handed over, most
militiamen held on to their small arms.

Sadr's movement officially boycotted January's historic general
elections, but has some two dozen sympathizers in parliament, mostly
within the ranks of the dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance bloc.

In another incident involving the Mehdi militia, demonstrators
gathered outside the courthouse in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad,
calling for the release of 17 arrested Mehdi Army members, a lawyer
said.

US forces also raided a Sadr office in the northern town of Kirkuk,
according to sources close to Sadr.

A week ago, British soldiers also arrested two local Mehdi Army
leaders in Basra on terrorism charges after bomb attacks in the area
killed three British soldiers.

The next day, Iraqi police arrested two British soldiers out on an
undercover operation. When British forces surrounded the police
station, an angry crowd attacked them, setting an armoured vehicle on
fire.

British forces rammed their way into the station only to discover
their men had been spirited away by Mehdi Army militiamen to a nearby
house. A second raid resulted in their release.

Tension has since risen in Basra where local authorities are refusing
to cooperate with British forces, and a local judge has issued an
arrest warrant for the two British soldiers.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, himself a Shiite, has ordered an
investigation into the incident while seeking at the same time to
downplay its repercussions.

He also reiterated that militias were officially outlawed and that any
such formations should be incorporated into the Iraqi security
forces.>>


See also:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050925/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_050925184627;_ylt=AjobM6ke87l.YEsdQi09pBubOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4279988.stm

----
NH

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