10,000 Iraqi troops bring calm to Sadr City

Children play alongside an Iraqi tank on the streets of Sadr City, a Shia slum and stronghold of the al-Mahdi Army, and the last no-go area in Baghdad

Deborah Haynes in Sadr City UK Guardian Newspaper
Read Inside Iraq, Deborah Haynes's blog from the front line

Crouching in the shade under the back of a tank, four Iraqi soldiers stir sugar into small glasses of tea as they take a break from guard duty near a row of battered shops in the heart of Sadr City.

Passers-by throw wary glances at the troops as they come to terms with the new order in Baghdad's Shia slum, a stronghold of al-Mahdi Army militia until only three days ago when thousands of Iraqi forces took control.

The unprecedented attempt to stamp government authority on one of the last remaining no-go areas in Iraq followed seven weeks of fighting between US and Iraqi forces and militiamen that left more than 1,250 people dead and 2,500 wounded. Of the injured, about 600 people have lost at least one limb.

The Army moved in under a ceasefire deal struck ten days earlier between the main Shia political bloc in the Government and supporters of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the charismatic Shia cleric who commands the al-Mahdi Army.

The offensive, involving 10,000 Iraqi troops, came after their successful campaign to restore Basra, Iraq's second city, to government control. No US forces are involved. They instead keep watch from the southern third of Sadr City.

“There are no winners and there are no losers,” said Falah Shanshel, the leading MP for Hojatoleslam al-Sadr's political wing. “The victory was to stop the bloodshed of local people and to make sure that the sort of destruction you see all around does not happen again,” he told The Times as he toured the battle-scarred district, where building after building lies in ruins, wrecked by Hellfire missiles, roadside bombs, rockets and bullets.

The guns are finally silent in Sadr City, but tensions between the two sides remain, with local leaders accusing Iraqi soldiers of mistreating residents as they conduct operations in the sprawling township - a charge the military denies.

Gathered in the cramped front room of a sports club, members of the district council and the mayor held a meeting yesterday with several members of parliament's human rights committee. They aired a number of grievances about alleged violations of the ceasefire deal, while also discussing reconstruction plans.

Hassan Athub, the Sadr City mayor, said that soldiers were out in the street offering water to pedestrians only if they cursed Hojatoleslam al-Sadr. He also said that troops forced one man who works at the Ministry of Interior out of his car in front of his wife, and took his pistol and 400,000 Iraqi dinars. “You have to make sure that commanders keep their soldiers disciplined and prevent them from making provocative actions,” Mr Athub said.

Mohamed el-Haidari, an MP on the committee, promised to relay the complaints to the Government and asked the councilors to collect accurate information on any further alleged abuses.

“We should all work together to make this [ceasefire] agreement work,” he said.

Colonel Qassim Abdul Raheem, an army spokesman, rejected the abuse claims, insisting that the troops were receiving a warm welcome. “Only bad people who are worried about the security forces will make such fake allegations,” he said, adding that soldiers have been delivering food, water, medical equipment and other assistance across the whole of Sadr City.

Before Tuesday they had only been able to gain access to the southern third, which has been under the control of US and Iraqi forces since late March. Forays any faurther had been deemed too dangerous until now.

“We have not faced any fighting.Not even one bullet has been fired,” Colonel Raheem said. The only challenge was finding and defusing roadside bombs. Eighty have been recovered so far.

Residents, however, are angry at the destruction of shops, apartment blocs and offices in repeated US airstrikes against militants.

Surveying the blackened rubble of his apartment in despair, Faiz Mohammed said: “There was an airstrike and artillery rounds. Everything is destroyed. Thank goodness my family and I moved out the day before the missiles dropped.”

Across the road is another legacy left by the push to regain control of Sadr City. A wall made from ugly concrete blocks lined side by side stretches as far as the eye can see, cutting off the bottom third of the district.

Residents say that it prevents free movement and hurts commerce. The US military, which constructed the barrier, argues that it is designed to make life difficult for the militants.

Driving through Sadr City, home to about two million people, it was clear that conditions remain strained despite the ceasefire. A lot of shops and market stalls are closed, there are fewer men, women and children than normal in the street and hardly any cars on the roads.

“People are still worried about the security forces,” Mr Shanshel, the Sadrist MP, said. “The Government has to rebuild this confidence.” He also urged Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, to focus on reconstruction projects to return life in this impoverished eastern pocket of Baghdad back to normal.

29 Al-Qaeda Terrorists Arrested North Of Baghdad

Baghdad, May 22 (AKI) - Joint US-Iraqi forces on Thursday arrested 29 al-Qaeda gunmen in a military operation south of Baquba, police said. According to the news agency Voices of Iraq, the operation was targeting members of the Islamic State of Iraq.“Police forces, backed by US troops, waged a security raid targeting al-Qaeda hideouts in al-Jabal al-Saaed mountain in Bahraz district, south of Baquba, detaining 29 al-Qaeda gunmen, including seven leaders of what is called the Islamic State of Iraq,” General Ghanem al-Qureshi told Voices of Iraq.
Baquba, the capital of Diyala, is located 60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad.

Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed

NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS New York Times

IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.

They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to negotiate with America’s adversaries as appeasement. Senator Obama defended his position by again enlisting Kennedy’s legacy: “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.”

But Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled “Appeasement at Munich” — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.” A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them. If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

Nathan Thrall is a journalist. Jesse James Wilkins is a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia.

Jihadists Admit Defeat in Iraq

http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2008/05/fascinating-jihadists-admit-defeat-in.html

A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year and half ago Al-Qaeda accounted for 60 percent of all jihadist activity!

The author, writing under the pseudonym ‘Dir’a limen wehhed’ [‘A Shield for the Monotheist’], posted his ‘Brief Study on the Consequences of the Division [Among] the [Jihadist] Groups on the Cause of Jihad in Iraq’ on May 12 and it is being displayed by the administration of the Al-Ekhlaas website—one of Al-Qaeda’s chief media outlets—among its more prominent recent posts. He's considered one of Al-Ekhlaas's "esteemed" writers.

The author tallies up and compares the numbers of operations claimed by each insurgent group under four categories: a year and half ago (November 2006), a year ago (May 2007), six months ago (November 2007) and now (May 2008). He demonstrated that while Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq could claim 334 operations in Nov. 06 and 292 in May 07, their violent output dropped to 25 in Nov. 07 and 16 so far in May 08. Keep in mind that these assessments are based on Al-Qaeda's own numbers.

The author also shows that similar steep drops were exhibited by other jihadist groups, and he neatly puts it all together in these two charts:





I don’t have the time to translate these charts right now, or translate the analysis he provides, but I wanted to share this with you immediately because it is a stunning and unprecedented admission of defeat!

Back in March 2007, I predicted as much in a column titled Jihadist Meltdown, and I wrote the following:
• The Al Qaeda-led Islamic State of Iraq orchestrates 60% of the actions, including most of the spectacular mass murders of civilians and military engagements with the American military. Most of the rank and file is Iraqi as is al-Baghdadi himself, but foreign nationals are better represented in the leadership.

• Other jihadist groups such as Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Mujaheddin Army, and the 1920 Revolt Brigades, most of which are Iraqi organizations with longstanding Salafist roots, conduct 30% of the operations.

• Various Iraqi Baathist factions orchestrate 10%.
I go on to describe why I thought that this defeat was inevitable:
This sense that they were running out of time compelled Al Qaeda to take a bold initiative of declaring the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq four months back, appointing the hitherto unknown Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its head. This was no propaganda stunt for Al Qaeda. This was the real thing: the nucleus state for the caliphate, with al-Baghdadi as the candidate caliph.

But this was a fatal strategic mistake for Al Qaeda, a mistake that threatens to pull down all the other jihadist insurgent groups along with it. Al Qaeda tried to leap over reality, but it was a leap into the abyss of uncertainty. Trying to pick a caliph is fraught with historical and judicial complications since there is no historical precedent — not even from the time of the Prophet Muhammad — that would serve for an uncontroversial transfer of power. It is one of the most delicate ideological matters among jihadists, a matter so sensitive that most of them have decided to leave it aside for the time being lest it result in splintering off dissenters.

But Zarqawi's successors, who inherited the leadership after his death last June and who are, for the most part, rash young ideologues who consider themselves the avant-garde of contemporary radical Islamism, felt that the doddering old guard of Al Qaeda — aged and increasingly inconsequential has-beens such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri — would never summon the nerve to force the issue of the caliphate and get it going. So they rushed into action, and it has exploded in their faces, since no other groups seem enthused to join them in this risky venture. This mistake has huge implications for the Iraqi insurgency since Al Qaeda accounts for most of it, and its strategic and ideological failure can quickly be turned into a battlefield rout.
Furthermore, I want to point out something even more critical: this defeat is not only a tactical one for the jihadists; this defeat is strategic in essence since it snuffs out their dream of resurrecting the caliphate, the raison d’être of modern jihad.

In case there are naysayers out there who’d question the Islamic State of Iraq’s relevance to the caliphate, then I’d like to direct them to a 101 page edict published by the ISI under the title ‘Informing the People About the Birth of the State of Islam’ that they put out during January 2007. The ISI legitimates itself by the same premises that the classical theorists of the caliphate (Juweini, Mawardi...etc.) set down for picking a caliph in medieval times. Then a month later, the 'Global Islamic Media Front' republished a 1987 Master’s thesis that further expands on these points and adds the one about the necessity of a Qurayshi ancestry for the would-be caliph—as is claimed by the head of ISI, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, for himself. Numerous works have also been added to bolster the argument that al-Baghdadi’s ‘election’ followed the precepts mandated for a caliph: clearly the title of ‘Prince of the Faithful’ that was bestowed on him had a whole different, more profound implication than the identical one awarded to Mullah Omar, an ethnic Pashtun and non-Qurayshi, during the Taliban days.

Thus, not only is America defeating Al-Qaeda militarily in Iraq but it is also squashing the grand jihadist vision for a caliphate that the Islamic State of Iraq stood for. This point is critical: in this ideological war, victory can only come about when the ideology of the opponent is negated and proven unworkable. The fight in Iraq is doing just that.

I’m not saying that the jihadists won’t keep trying to find a workable formula for the caliphate elsewhere, but for now they have been dealt a severe demoralizing blow.

Iraqi Army enters Muqtada Sadr's Baghdad Bastion
20 May 2008 12:38:10 GMT Reuters By Aseel Kami and Adrian Croft
BAGHDAD, May 20 (Reuters) - Iraq sent its army deep into Baghdad's Sadr City, power base of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on Tuesday to stamp government authority on areas previously outside its control. Soldiers moved into the sprawling slum in the early hours, securing most of the suburb in an operation that an army spokesman said had been coordinated with Sadr's movement to avoid bloodshed. The operation, on the second anniversary of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki being sworn in, marked the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 that the Iraqi army had pushed so deeply into the area. "The security forces have taken control of security for the city completely, God willing," Major-General Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the security forces in Baghdad, told a news briefing on "Operation Peace". The operation marks the latest step by the government to extend control over areas of Iraq that were under the sway of Shi'ite militias or Sunni Arab insurgents. Iraqi soldiers, who previously controlled only the outer perimeter of Sadr City, met no opposition during their advance into the suburb, home to 2 million people. But Moussawi said soldiers had cleared more than 100 home-made roadside bombs before going in. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said no American troops were involved in the operation which he said was Iraqi-planned and -executed. Sadr City is the main stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army, a militia estimated to number tens of thousands that the U.S. military once called the greatest threat to peace in Iraq. The Mehdi Army staged two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004. It has been battling Iraqi and U.S. forces in Sadr City since late March, when a government offensive against its operations in the oil port of Basra touched off a wave of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad and other cities. "I saw more than 40 Iraqi Humvees (army vehicles) in the major street in my district," said 53-year-old Hamza Hashim. Iraqi soldiers took over a disused police station while others moved into high buildings and deployed snipers, he said. Shops and schools in the area were closed, residents said. Moussawi said the army had secured positions in Sadr City and set up checkpoints. It had not yet begun to search for wanted people, he said. Apart from setting up permanent checkpoints, the operation is also aimed at disarming insurgents and providing basic services to residents, he said. Iraq's ruling Shi'ite alliance and Sadr's opposition movement in parliament reached an agreement this month to end the fighting in Sadr City, in which hundreds have died. The agreement called on gunmen loyal to Sadr to lay down their arms. Moussawi said the army entered the city "in coordination with the brothers in the Sadr movement to save bloodshed". Maliki personally oversaw an offensive against Shi'ite militias in Basra, which is now under Iraqi army control, and earlier this month he flew to Mosul in the north when his forces launched a push against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

Iraqi army enters Sadr's Baghdad bastion

20 May 2008 12:38:10 GMT Reuters By Aseel Kami and Adrian Croft
BAGHDAD, May 20 (Reuters) - Iraq sent its army deep into Baghdad's Sadr City, power base of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on Tuesday to stamp government authority on areas previously outside its control. Soldiers moved into the sprawling slum in the early hours, securing most of the suburb in an operation that an army spokesman said had been coordinated with Sadr's movement to avoid bloodshed. The operation, on the second anniversary of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki being sworn in, marked the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 that the Iraqi army had pushed so deeply into the area. "The security forces have taken control of security for the city completely, God willing," Major-General Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the security forces in Baghdad, told a news briefing on "Operation Peace". The operation marks the latest step by the government to extend control over areas of Iraq that were under the sway of Shi'ite militias or Sunni Arab insurgents. Iraqi soldiers, who previously controlled only the outer perimeter of Sadr City, met no opposition during their advance into the suburb, home to 2 million people. But Moussawi said soldiers had cleared more than 100 home-made roadside bombs before going in. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said no American troops were involved in the operation which he said was Iraqi-planned and -executed. Sadr City is the main stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army, a militia estimated to number tens of thousands that the U.S. military once called the greatest threat to peace in Iraq. The Mehdi Army staged two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004. It has been battling Iraqi and U.S. forces in Sadr City since late March, when a government offensive against its operations in the oil port of Basra touched off a wave of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad and other cities. "I saw more than 40 Iraqi Humvees (army vehicles) in the major street in my district," said 53-year-old Hamza Hashim. Iraqi soldiers took over a disused police station while others moved into high buildings and deployed snipers, he said. Shops and schools in the area were closed, residents said. Moussawi said the army had secured positions in Sadr City and set up checkpoints. It had not yet begun to search for wanted people, he said. Apart from setting up permanent checkpoints, the operation is also aimed at disarming insurgents and providing basic services to residents, he said. Iraq's ruling Shi'ite alliance and Sadr's opposition movement in parliament reached an agreement this month to end the fighting in Sadr City, in which hundreds have died. The agreement called on gunmen loyal to Sadr to lay down their arms. Moussawi said the army entered the city "in coordination with the brothers in the Sadr movement to save bloodshed". Maliki personally oversaw an offensive against Shi'ite militias in Basra, which is now under Iraqi army control, and earlier this month he flew to Mosul in the north when his forces launched a push against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

Iraq detains 1,000 in anti-al-Qaida crackdown

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080517/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press WriterSat May 17, 3:58 PM ET
Nearly 1,000 people have been detained in a sweep to break al-Qaida in Iraq's sway in Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, but many of the fighters have fled to nearby areas, where troops are hunting for them, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Iraq's leaders presented the crackdown as a success so far in depriving the terror network of what has been its most prominent urban stronghold since it lost hold of cities in Iraq's western Anbar province. But the flight of al-Qaida fighters raises the concern they can regroup elsewhere, as has often happened in the past. Yassin Majid, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said most of the leading insurgents had fled to the outskirts of Mosul or to a neighboring country amid the operations. He did not name the neighboring country. Mosul is about 60 miles from the Syrian and Turkish borders. "Operations will continue and the Iraqi army will not leave Mosul until security and stability have been accomplished," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, whose forces are working with the Iraqi troops in the operation, said he didn't believe significant numbers of militants had escaped. He said Iraqi forces have surrounded the city with a circle of berms and checkpoints controlling entry and exits. But he said some al-Qaida leaders, who directed their Mosul followers from outside the city, may have stayed away from Mosul ahead of the sweep to avoid arrest, he told The Associated Press. "It's been very successful," he said. "I think the combination of the arrests plus the uncovering of a number of weapons caches will reduce the number of attacks in Mosul." But he warned insurgents could try to strike back in the coming days with suicide bombings in the city.
The sweep was launched Thursday, after five days of preparatory operations and arrests in the city. U.S.-backed Iraqi police and soldiers have been conducting raids on homes and have fanned out with checkpoints on city streets, though no clashes have been reported in the city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said 1,068 people have been detained over the past week, but 94 were cleared and have since been released. Hertling said those detained included several high- and mid-level al-Qaida figures, including leaders of cells that organized suicide car bombings and facilitators for foreign fighters entering the country. The assault on the Sunni al-Qaida in Iraq group was launched in the wake of two other major crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra and the Baghdad district of Sadr City in the past two months. Those two sweeps continue but uneasy truces with the powerful Shiite Mahdi Army militia have eased the heavy violence they sparked. Al-Maliki said Saturday the series of crackdowns would bring a boost to reconciliation efforts, saying it has "reflected positively on the political process." Al-Bolani told a gathering of some 300 former Saddam Hussein-era officers in Mosul that the army and police would make room for them and that al-Maliki was urging them to return. Many in the crowd cheered the announcement.
Mosul's Sunni Arab population was once a major source of officers for Saddam's army, many of whom were removed because of their ties to his regime in a purge that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion. Their bitterness is believed to have fueled the Sunni-led insurgency. On Friday, al-Maliki offered amnesty and cash to fighters in Mosul who surrender their weapons within the next 10 days. Al-Bolani said no one has surrendered any weapons yet and warned they had "no other choice" but to comply or face being targeted by security forces in the coming days. Al-Maliki made a similar offer to Shiite militias in Basra during the sweep there, but few surrendered weapons. The prime minister returned to Baghdad from Mosul — where he has been overseeing the crackdown — to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday. Pelosi, a top Democratic critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, expressed confidence that expected provincial elections will promote national reconciliation.

She welcomed Iraq's progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation, and a bill paving the way for the provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials. "We're assured the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have," said Pelosi. She also met with Iraq's parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.
Pelosi, who also traveled to Iraq in January 2007 shortly after the Democrats assumed congressional control, has been a sharp critic of the Bush administration's conduct of the war and has pressed for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country this year. She also has called for the Iraqi government to contribute more money to the reconstruction of the country.