What in the hell is going on in Najaf? Breaking on cnn right now

[AlCzervik]

iraqi troops massed around the city, us military doing fly overs.

[Anita Garcia]

1. Yes, what the hell is going on!

[AlCzervik]

2. cnn saying now that there were approx. 250 insurgents massed in Najaf

planning on killing "Pilgrims".

[kentuck]

5. Is this old news ??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

<snip>
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S.-backed Iraqi troops on Sunday attacked insurgents allegedly plotting to kill pilgrims at a major Shiite Muslim religious festival, and Iraqi officials estimated some 250 militants died in the daylong battle near Najaf. A U.S. helicopter crashed during the fight, killing two American soldiers.
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Mortar shells, meanwhile, hit the courtyard of a girls' school in a mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad, killing five pupils and wounding 20. U.N. officials deplored the attack, calling the apparent targeting of children "an unforgivable crime."

Two car bombs exploded within a half hour in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing 11 people and wounding 34, police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader said. Three ethnic groups — Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen — are in a bitter struggle for control of that oil-rich area.

...more

[Marie26]

3. From CNN International:

- 150 gunmen massed to kill religious pilgrims, & leading Shia cleric Al-Sistani
- Iraqi army attacked, found 600 gunmen (thugs) entrenched
- major casualties, called for US ground & air support.
- US helicopter downed, two dead.
- 300+ gunmen killed in clashes
- Security forces say operation 90% over.
- "Unimaginable violence" if Al-Sistani had been killed.

[msongs]

6. why unimaginable violence if sistani is killed? he is just one person so

it would be tragic and sad, but not grounds for unimaginable violence. after all, he would be going to martyr's heaven so that would be good news would it not?

ain't religion grand?

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[me b zola]

11. al-Sistani is the Shia leader who kept most of the Shia from fighting the US

Al-Sistani is the Shia leader that has/had been more powerful than al-Sadir. Al-Sistani has in the past called on the Shia to not pick up arms against the US, to work within the new system for social/economic justice.

...but peace is not what *co is seeking...

[salin]

7. thanks - a little confused between bullet points, though

-150 gunmen massed to kill religious pilgrims, & leading Shia cleric Al-Sistani
vs
-300+ gunmen killed in clashes.

?? (to the reporting, not to Marie26)

I can not imagine the violent reaction had something happened to Al-Sistani.

[Marie26]

10. I think that

The Iraqi troops were responding to initial reports of 150 gunmen, but were surprised to find over 600 gunmen totally entrenched in the area. It sounds almost like an ambush. The reporter said that the gunmen were using sophisticated military tactics and weapons. The battle was very fierce - morters also hit a local school, killing five children. What's weird is that the gunmen were both Shiite & Sunni - thugs uniting to cause chaos? It sounds like this could have been so much worse, though, at least the gunmen were stopped in time.

[salin]

14. thanks for the additional info

sounds like the violence headed off what could have been much, much more bloody/tragic.

May the way out of this chaos (for Iraqis and those sent to Iraq) be found - soon.

[sendero]

4. Looks to me like..

... we decided to escalate, and so did the "insurgents".

[Dover]

8. Najaf

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2007/01/01-28_index.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/najaf.htm

[Strelnikov_]

9. Could be related to what Juan Cole was warning about

the other day.

http://www.juancole.com/

AP is reporting new details on the killing of 5 US troops in an operation that began at Karbala a few days ago. The troops were helping plan security precautions to stop Shiite pilgrims being blown up during the Muharram commemorations of the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, al-Husayn. Guerrillas dressed in US uniforms and speaking English showed up, infiltrated the building, killed a GI, and captured 4 others, taking them to Mahawil in Babil province, and then executing them there.

Mahawil, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city, is a Sunni Arab guerrilla arena of action, and it now seems likely to me that this was a Sunni Arab operation aimed at harming security arrangements. Shiite Mahdi Army ghetto militiamen don't know English. If I were in charge of Karbala, I'd put extra extra security around the city for Tuesday's Ashura commemoration of Imam Husayn's martyrdom. The only thing I can't figure out is that it clearly was an inside job, and so how would there have been Sunni Arab guerrilla sympathizers at this police and army meeting at Shiite Karbala. Maybe mixed units were involved.

[Dover]

12. Reuters

Jan 28, 2007 — NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces were fighting a group of Sunni insurgents holed up in orchards in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf on Sunday, the provincial governor said, and a witness reported seeing a helicopter come down.

A Reuters reporter at an army checkpoint about 1.5 km (one mile) from the fighting said he heard a burst of machinegun fire and saw smoke coming from a U.S. attack helicopter circling above the battle.

He said the helicopter, which had been rocketing the militants, came down and smoke was rising from the site. It was not immediately clear whether it had crashed, he said.

Police in Najaf, seat of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite clerics, refused comment on the fighting and the U.S. military said they did not issue statements on ongoing operations...cont'd

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2829671

[Peace Patriot]

13. What the hell are we doing killing people in Iraq! What the hell are we

doing taking sides in this sectarian war? We might as well have plunked U.S.soldiers down in Rwanda, choosing sides. This is unconscionable! I am so angry that these criminals Bush and Cheney are ESCALATING this war, when 70% of the American people want it stopped, when Congress wants it stopped, when even U.S. generals are saying its nuts. I DON'T understand this--even though I lived through the same goddamned thing during the Vietnam War, with the U.S. training its own tools--the south Vietnamese "army"--for the puppet government of south Vietnam, and sending Vietnamese to slaughter Vietnamese, in combination with our firepower, helicopters, and battalions. Same thing. Another civil war. But this time we know what it's about--it's about shoring up the puppet government until they can sign the oil contracts, giving away the profits to outside multinationals. Is our democracy so broken that we can't stop this? That slaughter just unfolds before us, and we are helpless in the grip of the war profiteers?

I try to stay calm, and methodical, in for the long struggle to reclaim our country. But sometimes it just gets to me. Here we are killing people again, and we have no idea who they are. We have no reliable information at all. Here we are using the biggest killing machine ever devised by man in a RELIGIOUS WAR that we know nothing about.

Aw, me! It is so enraging and dismaying!

[SanCristobal]

17. Question from the Devil's advocate:

Shouldn't we have put troops on the ground in Rwanda?

[Zhade]

UN troops, yes. But then, we didn't invade Rwanda and spark the sectarian killings.

So your analogy is, once again, woefully flawed.

[SanCristobal]

24. Wasn't meant to be an analogy.

I just think that the Rwandan genocide is a stain on the reputation of every nation that did nothing to stop it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

41. Why UN Troops only, Zhade? French & Belgians backed the genocidal Rwandan gov't.

Bet they don't mention that in recent history textbooks.

In nay case, it looks like this incident in Najaf is a similar situation where US troops allowed our "allies" to massacre a travelling group of tribesmen after gunning down their tribal leader.

But no need to think, it's all undifferentiated sectarian violence sparked by our presence, nothing to do with the death squads we (and France, and Belgium) supported...

[tabasco]

21. As part of a larger UN humanitarian effort, sure, why not?

What does that have to do with invading and occupying a country that was not a threat to us?

Btw - I can still remember the days when republicans screeched "we're not the policemen of the world!"

They sure are able to turn their supporters' opinions around, aren't they?

[Peace Patriot]

23. Peacekeeping missions don't take sides in a sectarian war!

If it were a LEGITIMATE peacekeeping mission, with world consensus, sponsored by the UN, that is a far different situation than this one! We destroyed the country, we broke it into pieces, now the pieces are at war with each other, and we are shoring up one side and killing people on the other side, with NO legitimate right to do so, no world consensus, no UN peacekeeping force, no understanding of what we are doing, or who we are killing, or what right they may feel they have to fight, and the most ill intentioned, incompetent diplomats this country has ever had, whose solution is to kill some more people.

The Bush Junta decided to commit this act of war against the advice of the UN, and with nearly all of our major allies in opposition. They furthermore did it with 56% of the American people in opposition. (Feb. '03). It has no legitimacy. They slaughtered an estimated 100,000 people in the initial bombing alone, jailed and tortured many innocent people, and set up a puppet government with the parties who would negotiate away the country's right to the oil profits. They permitted their buds at Halliburton et al to loot the reconstruction money, leaving the Iraqi people without clean water, with inadequate electricity and with ill equipped hospitals, and with complete civil disorder. And they are forcing US soldiers into multiple tours--to the point of exhaustion--a situation of slave labor! The term "cannon fodder" has never been more apt. These soldiers are in an impossible position, in the midst of a disaster born of pure greed.

They had no right to do any of this. They have no interest--zero, zilch--in the welfare of the Iraqi people, and no understanding of them. They INVADED them. And now they're continuing to invade them--from the inside of the country, choosing sides in the chaotic power struggle that is going on, with no right to do so. You think the Bush Junta is STOPPING the violence? Sorry, I'm not drinking that kool-aid. They are war profiteers and S.O.B.s. They've got a puppet government holed up the "Green Zone," about to sign the oil contracts. That is ALL they are interested in. And they are killing anyone who gets in the way of that. The "Iraqi army" also has no more legitimacy than the south Vietnamese "army" did--and the same problem, constant defections--because this so-called army is just a tool of the invaders.

It's looking more like Rwanda every day--with the U.S. taking sides, and exacerbating the violence, not stopping it.

[ima_sinnic]

30. excellent, succinct , heartbreaking analysis

I wish I could recommend just your message.

[madokie]

36. thanks for that, I agree 100%

nothing to add just an atta boy

[Leopolds Ghost]

42. Uh, Peace Patriot, it's sad to think the US should not have "taken sides" in Rwanda.

The Rwanda genocide was a holocaust perpetrated by the majority of the country, funded and armed by the French and Belgian neocolonialists, against an unarmed and defenseless minority.

The genocide stopped in every area of Rwanda the day the Tutsi rebels siezed that area.

The reason 1 million died is because we did not want to embarrass France by "taking sides" and refuseed to back the Tutsi rebels, who relied on support from the leader of Uganda, who was someone we could not control and therefore did not support.

I am sure you are familiar with the Tutsi rebels, you know, the folks who siezed Rwanda in a lightning operation that is studied in war colleges today, stopped the genocide, and subsequently invaded the Congo and rounded up the perpetrators of the genocide.

(unfortunately kicking off an even larger holocaust in the Congo, driven by famine and violence after the collapse of the central government.)

Similarly, we did not back the president of Uganda in his effort to take down the murderous Milton Obote, because Obote was a US client.

So it's sad to see people who think we should not have "taken sides" in a "senseless massacre" that was carefully coordinated, just like the carefully coordinated massacres being undertaken by US, Saudi and Iranian allies in Iraq.

The difference is that Iraq is a proxy war with each side massacring each others' civilians, whereas Rwanda was a carefully planned extermination campaign by the government, supported by Western powers, and the rebels who stopped it were left to invade the country and end the genocide without US help.

[donheld]

29. Do they have Oil?

[pampango]

33. No oil in Rwanda. Does that mean that the world

community should intervene in slaughters or should not intervene?

China blocks UN intervention in Darfur, precisely because Sudan does have oil contracts with China. On the other hand, you could make the case that the world ignores slaughters in places like Rwanda, precisely because they do not have oil.

If the UN is hamstrung by veto threats, does allow the rest of us to shrug our shoulders and move on? No one would urge military force in all cases, but we still have individual moral responsibility to do something about slaughters and oppression, even when an international body is prevented from doing anything.

It is like fighting poverty in our own country. We push the government to do more, but we are still individually responsible to do what we can regardless of what the government does or does not do.

[donheld]

39. Of course not, but with Bushie it does

sadly.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[salin]

18. kicking - this deserves much more attention and discussion.

[Zhade]

22. 373? Fuck.

This is madness.

[justiceischeap]

16. Is this in the same area the CBS reporter was begging about...

Getting coverage on CBS for and CBS said it was too graphic? Saying the story was too important not to tell?

If it is, seems maybe we put her in charge of this war 'cause she seems to have a clue.

[DemReadingDU]

19. Lara Logan was talking about Haifa street

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x43532

[KharmaTrain]

20. We're One Carb Bomb From All Hell Breaking Loose

IRC, there's a big pilgrimage in either Karbala or Najaf coming up in the next couple weeks. It's a major event for the Shiites where millions gather. Last year Sunni's blew up the Golden Dome that sent the insurgency into civil war...an assasination of a major Shiite cleric like Al Sistani or a major explosion that kills hundreds of Shiites at a pilgrimage and the bloodletting will be tragic. Among the targets will be our own troops...who the Shiite militias have pretty much avoided; going after their own Shiite rivals or Sunnis...but now will see us in the way of getting retibution.

The situation just gets worse and worse.

[salin]

25. odd thing is that the reporting says the militants are both

Shiite and Sunni... reporting sounds like working together - but could it be groups of each gathering to attack each other? Situation sounds dreadful.

[ima_sinnic]

34. that Golden Dome bombing was so psy-ops

--I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that US "allies" or even US operatives themselves were behind that bombing. At the time it happened, Shiites and Sunnis were just about to come together to expel the invaders. The timing was just too perfect.

[rman]

40. That'd be slightly more than just psychological operations

Bombing is quite a material event. So it would be more appropriate to call it a false-flag operation if it were done by US or allied operatives (which i agree is rather likely).

[salin]

26. AP article from Monday am:

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-36/117007255893690.xml&storylist=international

Iraq: 300 militants killed in battle
1/29/2007, 7:04 a.m. ET
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi officials said Monday that 300 militants were killed in a fierce battle between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and insurgents allegedly plotting to kill pilgrims at a major Shiite Muslim religious festival. Elsewhere, bombings and mortar attacks targeting Shiites killed at least 15 people.

The fighting that began Sunday near the Shiite holy city of Najaf had largely subsided by Monday as Iraqi security forces frisked suspects while others patrolled elsewhere on the battlefield.

A U.S. helicopter crashed during the fight, killing two American soldiers whose bodies were recovered, the military said. The statement did not give any information on why the aircraft crashed — the second U.S. military helicopter to go down in eight days.
--- snip---

Brig. Gen. Fadhil Barwari also said 300 militants had been killed, including 30 Afghans and Saudis, and 20 were captured. Iraqi security officials said earlier that one Sudanese was among the fighters detained.

The figures could not be independently confirmed. The Iraqi Defense Ministry, which oversees the army, said it could not yet give a casualty toll because sporadic fighting was ongoing.



Also listening to an NPR report right now... says fighting has stopped but that Iraqi and US forces are still surrounding the area.

[maddezmom]

27. USA Today: Reports: Fierce Najaf battle involves 'apocalyptic' group

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/reports_fierce_.html

[salin]

28. thanks - useful summary of the unfolding news coverage.

[annabanana]

31. from WaPo

"The fighters, who called themselves the Soldiers of the Sky, are driven by an apocalyptic vision of clearing the Earth of the depraved in preparation for the second coming of Muhammad al-Mahdi, a Shiite imam who disappeared in the 9th century, according to Ahmed Duaibel, a spokesman for the provincial government in Najaf."

Gee.. Who the hell does this remind me of

[bdamomma]

32. we are ethic cleansing the area, this has got to stop.

[TZ]

35. what is really scary and puzzling..

we all have heard that its Sunni vs. Shiite in Iraq with Iran being Shiite and Al-Quaeda being Sunni.
What I heard is that this group of 600 well armed fighters were mostly Sunni with some Shiite thrown in too. And that they wanted to kill al-Sistani who is very well respected and a moderating influence. Now we have a large well armed group of both ethnicities trying to kill a large and powerful moderating influence. That really scares me, seems worse than strict sectarian violence in some ways..also the fact that no one knew anything about this group till now if very frightening..:scared:

[paparush]

37. Iraqui army "stumbled" upon a large assembly of militants..

They engaged, then called for US support. Claim to have killed 350+ militants.

[TZ]

38. I heard they got a tip too..

that it was happening but it was only 100-200 fighters and when they arrived they found 600!! Whatever the story truly is it does show that our intelligence in Iraq is not very good (that's an understatement I know) and thats what upsets me. I hate the war but used to have faith in at least our abilities to fight when we had too..but now I wonder. I am glad I don't personally know anyone over there:scared: