Basra residents asked to give up weapons(by April 8, separate from the 72 hr deadline)

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office says the Iraqi government has given residents of Basra until April 8 to turn over "heavy and medium-size weapons" in return for a reward.


Government adviser Sadiq al-Rikabi says the deadline is separate from a three-day ultimatum for gunmen in the southern town to surrender their arms and renounce violence or face harsher measures. That expires later Friday.

The move instead appears to be aimed at noncombatants who may have weapons like machine guns and grenade launchers, either for smuggling purposes or to sell to militants or criminal gangs.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080328/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons

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Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. Maliki is driving his Government into the ground.”

more:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635838.ece

[brooklynite]

1. Give up their guns? Do the Republicans know this?

[soothsayer]

2. Gun grabbers! Even Saddam let you have weapons...any kind you wanted

[Ian David]

3. "My Rocket-propelled grenade launcher has killed one less person than Laura Bush's car." n/t

[Robbien]

4. What the article is not saying is that Maliki is offering money for the guns

Turn in guns and you get a pile of money.

Bet a lot of broken, unusable guns are turned in for the cash and Maliki will declare it a win.

[Blue_Tires]

7. but that's OUR goddamned money!!!

I don't get it...half of the population we are paying to arm and they switch sides; the other half, we are paying to disarm...

a small part of me wishes I was an iraqi...there are so many different ways of gaming the system its tragic...countless sums are just waiting to be taken/stolen/skimmed etc...

and STOP giving military training and equipment to civvies who are just going to turn right around and use it against you...

[Javaman]

5. And just who is going to enforce this????

al-Sadr??

[bemildred]

6. Iraq PM offers money for arms

Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has extended a deadline to April 8 for Shia fighters to hand over weapons or face "severe penalties".

In a statement on Friday, he said: "All those who have heavy and intermediate weapons are to deliver them to security sites and they will be rewarded financially."

The Iraqi government has been struggling to contain a crisis set off earlier in the week after a military crackdown in the southern city of Basra sparked clashes across the country.

More than 130 people have been killed in the fighting and a three-day lockdown has been imposed in the capital.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/443E0166-B886-4025-B59D-D9E5EE69FF70.htm

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. "From my cold dead fingers"

"Last refuge of the populace against tyrannical government."


Blah blah blah blah blah.

It's like some cruel but funny God decided to take everything dear to conservatives and twist it just so, tweak it just that little bit to fuck with their heads.