Guerrillas Ambush, Kill 10 US GIs
Over 100 Iraqis Killed or Found Dead
Muqtada condemns Iran for Talking to US
As best I can piece it together, Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq ran a sophisticated sting on US troops in Diyala province on Memorial Day, killing 8 GIs. First, they shot down a helicopter with small arms fire. Two servicemen died in the crash. The guerrillas knew that a rescue team would come out to the site. So they planted a roadside bomb that killed the rescuers. And, they knew that yet another rescue team would come out to see what happened to the first. So they planted roadside bombs and destroyed the second team, as well. Altogether 6 rescuers were blown up in this way. The guerrillas run this routine on Iraqi police and troops in the capital all the time. As US troops increasingly take on policing duties, they become vulnerable to the same operations that have wrought such mayhem on Iraqi security forces.
Also in Diyala, 21 bodies were found in the streets of Baquba, the capital of the province, according to Reuters.
Reuters reports that 2 other GIs were killed in a Baghdad roadside bombing. Two other, much bigger blasts then shook the downtown and the southwest, killing 44 persons between them:
' BAGHDAD - At least 23 people were killed and 68 others wounded when a powerful bomb in a parked bus exploded in central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - At least 18 people were killed and 41 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a busy market of a mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad, police said. '
Al-Zaman says that the bombs in the Shiite neighborhood actually targeted a Shiite religious edifice (Husayniya) (in the Amil district) and so was less random than it seems on the surface.
This is the second religious building to be hit in the past two days, with the Sufi shrine of Abdul Qadir Gilani suffering damage on Monday. Every day, Iraq's landmarks are more pockmarked and less whole, as if a leprosy were eating away at its features.
Al-Zaman also sniffs that this surge business doesn't seem to be working very well if you can get all this mayhem in a single day still.
Police found thirty bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday.
Then some other shadowy group ran a sophisticated sting on some high-powered British security guards at the Ministry of Finance (that kind of kidnapping is always in part an inside job-- someone at the ministry tipped the 40 gunmen to the presence of Britons in the ministry). I guess I just can't entirely understand how 40 guerrillas drive around downtown Baghdad, surround government ministries, and kidnap people from them. The Ministry had government police and guards. It just seems to me that this kind of thing cannot happen unless the Iraqi government security forces are in on it or wink at it.
I just want to express my admiration for the thoroughness and even-handedness of this Times of London (via Australian News) article on the kidnapping of the 5 Britons from the Finance Ministry on Tuesday. It is incredible that reporters in Baghdad can still gather news at all, much less this comprehensively.
Over two hundred civilian foreigners have been kidapped in the past 4 years, and over 60 of them were killed. It is my impression that most of those who survived were often secretly ransomed by family members (something the USG discourages because the ransom is essentially a contribution to the guerrilla war effort).
Al-Hayat reports that young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held a meeting with the governors of the southern, Shiite provinces. He agreed with them to form joint committees made up of Mahdi Army militiamen and police and army troops to prevent clashes between them. Muqtada also rejected the talks held on Monday between the US and Iran, criticizing Tehran for this "Iranian acceptance of an American-British-Jewish Mandate" over Iraq. (He used the word 'intidab,' a reference to the colonies or Mandates established by European Powers in the Middle East after they had defeated the Ottoman Empire in WW I. The League of Nations philosophy was that the Europeans should use this opportunity to grow the Middle Easterners up so that they could establish their own governments. The Middle Easterners mostly felt that they didn't need the help.)
Muqtada said, "It is most regrettable that generally they [the Iranians] are inadvertently or deliberately forgetting, in such negotiations, to demand that the Occupier depart." He said implicit Iranian acceptance of the Anglo-American-Jewish "mandate" is "completely rejected, and there is no excuse for it at all." He said that the lack of an official Iraqi government partner in the Iran-US talks denied them "the cover of legitimacy and of Law." He said that both the people and the religious authority were unhappy with the talks.
The respected editor of the weekly "Hawadith" in Kirkuk was assassinated in that city.
Tom Engelhardt on the mammoth US embassy in Baghdad and its significance.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/30/2007 12:32:00 AM
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8 Comments:
I am interested in if the allegations that Iran is providing weapons and weaposn technology to Iraq are credible in your opinion. We have been so misled about what led up to our involvement in Iraq, that I have a difficult time believing anything that comes out of the White House at this point. You seem like you know what you are talking about so what is your opinion?
Personnally, I find it very weird indeed, that the US/Iranian talks took place in Iraq, were explicitly dedicated to Iraq situation, yet no single member of the Iraqi government was present.
What does it mean ? That neither the US, nor the Iraqis think this puppet government has any importance ? that the only two powers that counts in Iraq are indeed Iran and the US ? That the Iraqi government is so insignificant that it doesn't even deserve a simple physical presence ?
What kind of agreements do they have to keep secrete from the Iraqi ?
I do still think that the less damageable exit of this quagmire for the Iraqi would be an alliance between the Sunnis and the Sadrists. But then the outcome won't be to the taste of the US, because it would be anti-occupation and anti federalism and opposed to the give away of the oil industry benefits to the foreign companies.
So the US, or at least that fraction of extremists behind Cheney is working under cover to push for more chaos and sectarian hates in order to prevent such an alliance. IMO, it's not a case if each time the Sadrists are reaching out to the Sunnis, there is a new big shrine bombed and if some days ago, the Sufis mosquee was the target of the same kind of dirty work. I won't discard immediately the possibility, that the American have some thing to do with these bombings, as you do. The Americans have just as much interests at sake there as the Salafis; they could manipulate the Salafis, encourage them to do it (providing the arms, or the informations.. etc.)
Shooting down a helicopter is supposed to be hard.
If step 1 of a more elaborate plan was to shoot down a helicopter at a specific time - after the bombs have been laid, but before they have been detected and in a specific place - where the rescue route would be known in advance then there has to have been an advance in shooting down helicopters.
Or it could be that the bombs were placed anyway - maybe entirely independently - and the helicopter downing made it so the bomb victims happened to be rescuers.
The first time there have been two months in a row of more than 100 US dead and we're up to six months in a row of 80+ deaths. Before this run, there had never been three months in a row with 80+ deaths.
The surge may be putting more troops in harm's way, but that's all it is accomplishing. It is not decreasing the capabilities of the guerillas.
Iran is not the main driver of the insurgency/resistance. If the US admits defeat and that it cannot have long term bases or a pro-US government in Iraq, then admitting that to Iran is almost as good as admitting it to anyone else.
The best people for the US to concede defeat to though, are the Iraqis.
But if the US hopes Iran can help secure a government that will accept US bases and limit the hostility of the Iraq government to the US vision of Middle East policy, then that is another structurally impossible goal.
Iran will accept "payment" for efforts to help the US reach the goal, but when the goal is not met and the US concedes defeat in the end anyway, there is nothing Iran can really do to help.
"Al-Zaman also sniffs that this surge business doesn't seem to be working very well if you can get all this mayhem in a single day still."
Are any effects of the surge still visible? They seem to me to have completely disappeared.
I would have thought that the latest seizures of western personnel are going to show the way forward to the insurgents. The two US soldiers at Mahmudiyya have not been found, in spite of thousands of US troops out searching. The five Brits, we have to wait and see.
As has been seen in Gaza and Lebanon, it's not that difficult to hide western "hostages" from searches.
I should think we will see a lot more such events in the future, once it has been seen how successful a tactic it is, for derailing the US occupation.
Now Reuters is reporting that Bush is comparing the occupation to South Korea.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday.
I can't remember the last time a South Korean guerrilla attacked an American vehicle with an IED. It seems the Bush administration is getting more and more out of touch with reality. I didn't think that was possible. Live and learn.
ref : “Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq ran a sophisticated sting on US troops... The guerrillas knew that a rescue team would come out to the [helicopter crash] site.... And, they knew that yet another rescue team would come out to see what happened to the first...”
“the mouse teaches the cat how to catch it”
interesting that Mr. Bush and the WarCons, Western media pundits depict themselves and their troops as "being on the offensive" in IRAQ when, in fact the AngloAmerican Occupation Forces' posture is entirely (Zone) Defensive and, (incident) Rapid Reactive.
imho, this: ‘a static Occupation that is somehow on the offensive moving’ is perhaps the most bizarre delusion that many Americans, most of their political leaders and even some members of the Officer Corps, themselves ~ profess to be ‘What Our Troops Are Doing Over There in IRAQ’.
How to end the Iraq war? Troops out now, that's how, whereupon, empowered by our victory over the powers that be, we go on to change the world. Anything less and there is no world.
initial reports had 3 Germans among those kidnapped. Update ?
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