Occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan takes hits

he U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate as guerrillas brought down a British attack helicopter over Basra, killing five troops, and a U.S. military transport helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing 10 troops out of Fort Drum, N.Y.

Compounding British problems, hundreds of cheering Basra residents gathered around the downed helicopter, throwing stones at soldiers from the British Army’s Quick Reaction Force when they got to the scene. Some Basra residents chanted support for Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army. The British troops then opened fire on the Iraqis, killing four or five, including a child, according to Iraqi police.

It was typical of the occupation force that its spokespeople first tried to blame the Mahdi Army for the deaths of the people, only later admitting that British troops were responsible.

The downing of the attack helicopter is a tactical problem for the British. It proves their helicopters are vulnerable to ground fire. The British occupation force has been using helicopters more frequently, just as the U.S. does farther north, since it began losing trucks and troops to roadside bombs. The British are now reviewing their use of helicopters, according to the May 8 Guardian newspaper.

But the political problem is even greater. During the first years of occupation, the south of Iraq had been overall more cooperative with the occupation than the center of the country. The occupation Mahdi Army in 2004 led an uprising in Najaf and some other cities but then joined the coalition of Shiite-based political parties to form the Iraqi puppet government. Apparently this relationship is changing.

According to the Guardian, “a commander of the Mahdi Army, Jassan Khalaf, was reported yesterday [May 7] as saying that his men brought down the helicopter and threatened more attacks.”

Journalists at risk in Iraq

The BRussels Tribunal, which recently participated in a seminar in Madrid exposing U.S. responsibility for the deaths of Iraqi academicians and scientists, published a report from the Iraqi Journalists Union (IJU) on May 8 that documents 109 journalists killed in the last three years in Iraq.

The report, which names each of the journalists, “took five months of working on the ground, documenting when, where, how and by whom the journalists were killed.”

According to the IJU, 69 journalists were killed by militias or unknown armed individuals, 21 were killed in explosions or fighting, 17 were shot by the U.S. troops and two were shot by the Iraqi troops.

The Belgian anti-occupation group points out that besides the 19 journalists killed directly by U.S. or puppet troops, the occupation authorities are indirectly responsible for the other killings because they should be providing a safe environment for journalists to work in.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, an Al Jazeera correspondent reported that Muhamad Hanif—a spokesperson for the Taliban—said his movement had shot down the U.S. helicopter in Kunar province near the border with Pakistan. Hanif said that the Taliban has acquired advanced weaponry capable of destroying U.S. helicopters.

If the Taliban did shoot down the helicopter, it wouldn’t be the first. Last June, in the same province, the Pentagon admitted that the Taliban shot down another U.S. military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing all 16 Special Forces troops on board.

The Pentagon claimed no hostile fire was involved this time, implying that bad weather was behind the crash. The U.S. offensive in Kunar province depends heavily on armed helicopters.

NATO and other U.S. allies—many of which have refused to operate in Iraq or have left—have begun to replace Pentagon forces in the west and north of Afghanistan, including the capital, Kabul. They are organized under the command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). If the political leaders making this decision are thinking there will be no political repercussions at home because there is little chance for casualties, they may be unhappily surprised.

The ISAF, which had 10,000 troops from 30 countries in Afghanistan, is scheduled to take over anti-resistance operations in the south and east from U.S. troops by the end of the year. The ISAF will then have between 23,000 and 25,000 troops in the country.

Countries like Germany, whose government refused to take part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, are contributing large numbers of troops to ISAF in an attempt to mend relations with Washington and play a role in the U.S.-European alliance that is trying to take control of the oil and gas resources of the Middle East.

These operations and the casualties they will inevitably cause will continue to erode popular support for intervention. The Tony Blair government in Britain just took a beating in municipal elections, with many of its problems stemming from the intervention in Iraq.

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