Fadl Rebellion against Government is Put Down
It seems fairly clear from McClatchy's account that the slummy Sunni Arab district of al-Fadl in Baghdad went into rebellion against the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday and Sunday, after the arrest of Adil al-Mashhadani. The latter was the leader of the Awakening Council or Sons of Iraq paramilitary that has been patrolling Sunni Arab neighborhoods. The Awakening Council then kidnapped 10 Iraqi troops and launched an all-out struggle. Hard fighting by the troops of the Shiite-dominated central government, backed by US soldiers, bested the rebels, who were forced to surrender and release their hostages.
The bad news is that the Sunni rebellions may start up again. The good news is that the Iraqi Army stood and fought against the rebels.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday.
' Baghdad
- At 5 p.m. a magnetic bomb attached to an Iraqi Army officer’s car detonated in the neighborhood of Ghadeer in eastern Baghdad on Sunday. The car was empty but the blast wounded two people passing by.
- At 8 p.m. two people were killed when a magnetic bomb attached to their car detonated in Adhamiyah, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad. Eight people nearby were also injured.
Basra
- A roadside bomb killed seven people in the Hamdan Industrial Compound in southern Basra on Sunday. Morgue officials received seven corpses from the incident but police said only six people were killed. Six were garbage collectors and the seventh was a policeman.
Kirkuk
- An unidentified man was found shot dead in Karat Amour village in northeast Kirkuk on Sunday morning.
Nineveh
- At least 17 people were wounded when a car bomb detonated in a market in the town of Qayara, about 25 miles south of Mosul.
- Gunmen shot down an employee of the Mosul medical care department in Mosul around 3 p.m. The employee was about to leave his office when the gunmen opened fire. He died immediately.
Anbar
- A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Fihaylat area in (about 17 miles south of Falluja). Six policemen were wounded ,two of them in critical condition and among the wounded were two officers.
- A roadside bomb detonated at the gate of Anbar University targeting the head of the security, the brigadier general Ali Mikhlif Al-Asafi. The brigadier general was wounded in the incident and his injury is serious. '
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/30/2009 01:10:00 AM
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5 Comments:
That Iraqi troops backed by American troops stood up to some Sunni "rebels" is hardly good news to me. The US military was saying Iraqi troops could stand up against Sunni (or substitute any constituency) rebels without US help any month now through 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.... Before 2004 the US had disbanded the army to help things along, and after that the surge ensured that the Bush policy of divide and conquer was most assuredly on automatic pilot. And today, well, US troops were helping again so I have to ask what has changed. There was a very early window of time that the US could have artfully managed the sectarian and tribal divides in Iraq to the good of Iraq, but BushCheneyRumsfeld chose to heave a rock through the window so they could "control" the situation. Today's news requires only a bit of slant to produce a useful cud for US media to chew through another media time unit.
This is unpossible. I heard repeatedly, and over and over and over, from nearly all of the U.S. foreign and political policy establishment that "THE SURGE IS WORKING" and therefore the war had been won and everyone was wrong to worry about stuff.
A lot of Fadl residents, including the district's Mukhtar (Notary) are saying that the local Sahwa had become a criminal gang and charging protection money openly and on a large scale.
Obviously, one can't take that for granted, but the other Sahwas have not been targeted, and members of his group are saying that they were negotiating the surrender of their heavy weapons before the confrontation which has ended abruptly too.
Some of the Shiia extremists are trying to frame the incident as secterian or political, claiming that the guy was al-Qaeda or the head of the Baath party, but everything died down too quickly for them.
ref : “Hard fighting by the troops of the Shi'ite-dominated central government, backed by US soldiers, bested the rebels...”
It is this conceit implicit of The West that continues to deny the quite evident fact apparent: that it is Iraqi troops who now preserve, protect and defend the surrounded, despised and increasingly desperate to exit American occupation forces... rapidly running out of the wherewithal to bribe or bully their opponents to not besiege their isolated bases or threaten their few remaining, all too vulnerable lines of supply, mon Professeur :-/
Sunday's Fadhil fighting was on the E. side of the river, where Sunni hold on turf and bridge access is weak. It's likely a tactical push-back, forced on the Sunni militia. Not an 'uprising' initiated at a location where they will lose. Thugs don't risk Apache missiles to defend their protection racket.
Look at a map. Adhimiya (adjacent to Fadhil) and Karrada (down at the University oxbow) are the residual Sunni enclaves E. of the river. Expect to see more Sunni access routes E. of the bridges reduced, before general fighting resumes or an negotiated accomodation occurs.
Re Sawa/SOI/Awakening as extorting thugs: a local monopoly on lethal force and ability to tax is kinda the foundation of gov't. I'm not saying it's good, or that some merchants and residents wouldn't rather pay Maliki's forces for protection. But see if failure to pay your parking fees here doesn't lead to a one-sided conversation with armed men. Gen. Odom cites effective VC tax collectors as a leading indicator of our failure in VN.
Baghdad map at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/images/baghdad_nima_2003.jpg
Sectarian cleansing map at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/baghdad_navigator/
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