Fighting Erupts in Baghdad's Sadr City

[ECH1969]

Fighting erupted early Monday in a Shiite militia stronghold of Baghdad, and a suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown, killing 10 people and injuring 22.

In Baghdad, sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district starting about 1 a.m. Monday and lasted for more than an hour. Iraqi government television and aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said U.S. aircraft were attacking buildings in the area. "Several aerial and ground raids began in central Sadr City," al-Sadr aide Jaleel al-Nouri said by telephone as detonations could be heard in the background. "We can see several houses on fire."

Kadhim al-Mohammedawi, a civil servant who lives in Sadr City, said by telephone that he could see two houses ablaze and "there's gunfire from all sides." "We can hear women and children screaming," he said.

Col. Hassan Chaloub, police chief of Sadr City, said U.S. jets were flying over the city and at least three houses were ablaze. He said calls of "God is Great" and "There's no God but God" were blasting from loudspeakers in area mosques. Three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=4436234

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Oh dear GOD has it started.

:(

[IndianaGreen]

2. Yes, we have turned on the Shias and their Hezbollah flags

Has anyone told our military leaders what will happen to our troops when the Shias turn against us in a holy war?

[Oversea Visitor]

3. When you have

more than 100,000 people who some Americans who like to describe at 70 virgins you going to get a bloodbath.

They going to die like flies.
But if you kill the 100,000 you get a million.

If they ever decide it is time to die. We all just step of the cliff.
Muslim goverment all over are going crazy over this.
They know the masses better.

[wellst0nev0ter]

4. Is A Ken Kurns Documentary Forthcoming?

replete with the thin, mournful violin cues and voice actors reading correspondences?

[bahrbearian]

8. You mean Ken Burns,, and not for a 100 years

even then the truth will not be told,

[acmavm]

5. Well, the rocket scientists who are running things in Iraq have finally

made the fatal decision to screw with the one guy who can flood the streets with fighters ready, willing, and more than able to kill Americans and soldiers of this puppet government.

What asshole would/could be so stupid as to pick a fight with al Sadr? They tried this what, two years ago? Couldn't kick his ass then. What in anything that makes sense could they be thinking, how they gonna pull it off now?

Obviously the smart ones have left the military. We have the dregs left and they're running things.

[biscotti]

6. * 's inane, childish remark

"Bring it on". Will go down in history's account of this horrific unnecessary tragedy.

[Igel]

7. Just today some DUer on another thread was

saying how hypocritical it was of the US to tolerate Sadr's militia for 4 years while condemning Lebanon's tolerance of Hezbollah, and Hezb's arm build-up (ok, the guy got the chronology a bit out of whack).

Ah.