Continued Fallout of War of Holy Cities

Even though Karbala has fallen quiet, there were clashes on other fronts. 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in clashes between the US and the Mahdi Army militia in Kufa, the stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

In the fourth such incident in a week, angry Islamist students in Tehran attempted to attack the British embassy in protest over the fighting in the holy cities of Iraq. They clashed with riot police and were eventually forced back.

Iran also demanded formally that the United States withdraw altogether from Iraq, and expressed its anguish over the desecration of the holy cities. The BBC reports that sympathy may be growing among Iran´s hardliners for Muqtada.

Even the chief ally in Iraq of the US, the United Kingdom, produced an internal memo harshly critical of US heavy handedness in Iraq, instancing the prison torture scandal, Fallujah, and Najaf.