U.S.-backed assault fails to quell Sadr City

For over a month, the puppet Iraqi army, with air strikes and extensive support from U.S. ground forces, has been attacking Sadr City, a part of Baghdad where the poor Shiite population is concentrated and the Mahdi Army, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, has a significant presence.

Some 925 people have died in this fighting and 2,605 have been wounded. Many of them were children, elderly people and other non-combatants. (Christian Science Monitor, May 6)

An Iraqi politician and member of the ruling party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that the Mahdi Army agreed to a truce with the Maliki government on May 10. He also said that the Iranian government had brokered the deal. (Reuters, May 12) Despite this truce, heavy fighting broke out again on May 13. (BBC, May 13)

Sadr City is close to the Green Zone, supposedly the U.S. occupation’s most secure area in Iraq and where the Iraqi puppet government and U.S. Embassy are based. Nevertheless, Katyusha rockets and mortars supposedly fired from Sadr City have been reaching the Green Zone. For example, the McClatchy news service’s “Daily Violence in Iraq” reported that a Katyusha “slammed into the Green Zone” on May 8. The Kuwaiti News Agency reported that eight rockets hit the Green Zone the next day.

While the U.S. government and its Iraqi clients can’t hide the whoosh of the Katyushas and the explosions they cause, they have admitted very little damage—but won’t allow independent media to see for themselves.

Even though the U.S. command limited its role to close support of the Iraqi puppet division fighting in Sadr City, the fighting caused a noticeable increase in U.S. casualties. Washington will have even fewer troops in July to use on these missions if those sent as part of Bush’s “surge” in January 2007 start coming home, as has been announced.

U.S. military officials released figures May 12 showing “more than 700 attacks a month in Baghdad in March and again in April, primarily at American and Iraqi troops—nearly triple the level in February, before the Sadr City clashes began.” (New York Times, May 13)

U.S. strategy had been to push the Mahdi Army into the northern part of Sadr City out of range of the Green Zone by building a wall along Al Quds Street and then supporting the Iraqi puppet army’s attacks. This strategy hasn’t been working. The Mahdi Army was fighting from prepared positions. U.S. teams escorting Iraqi construction workers have run into heavy fire and pre-laid mines have knocked their tanks out of action. These teams couldn’t complete their mission. (Los Angeles Times, May 11)

Swiss Radio is reporting that the wall is 80-percent finished, but the rockets are still raining down on the Green Zone.

While a May 11 article in the New York Times said, “Under the terms of the agreement, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government would gain control over Sadr City, now a largely lawless area,” a similar truce in March fell apart when the U.S. began constructing the wall, touching off the current struggle.

A live report on National Public Radio May 11 reported that serious fighting was going on around the checkpoint where the reporter was embedded. Another report about a U.S. air strike in Sadr City after the truce was supposedly in effect states that 50 people were killed and at least 147 wounded.

The Iraqi resistance to the U.S. invasion and occupation has been tenacious, even if it hasn’t been united on a national basis. It has been tested and tried over the past five years, sometimes advancing and sometimes retreating. The Mahdi Army too, is still a fighting force, and the reported truce with the puppet government can turn out to be just a temporary lull in the fighting.

In the latest news from Baghdad, the U.S. military admitted on May 12 that resistance fighters had fired a shoulder-to-air missile two days earlier at one of its Apache helicopters flying over Sadr City. While the missile exploded before reaching its target, the incident worried U.S. commanders so much that they rerouted two other helicopters carrying news crews away from the area.