Blasts in Baghdad as US faces stiffer Shiite resistance

[tocqueville]

by Dave Clark
Sat Jul 29, 2:40 PM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Bomb blasts echoed around Baghdad as sectarian death squads pursued their bloody work and the US military warned it was facing stiffer opposition in previously cooperative Shiite areas.

The US troops' most deadly foe remains Sunni insurgents -- four marines were killed in the mainly Sunni province of Anbar Thursday -- but coalition forces are now being increasingly drawn into clashes with powerful Shiite militias.

This trend is all the more ominous given that US commanders have decided to deploy 3,700 additional troops in the mainly Shiite capital to try to halt a surge in murderous bomb and gun attacks by rival sectarian gangs.

Just southeast of Baghdad, police found the bodies of at least 12 civilians, most of them kidnap victims who had been tortured and shot.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060729/wl_afp/iraq_060729183818

my comment :this is a result from Israel attacks on Lebanon. The shiite is hitting the fan (sorry for the bad pun). This is a very bad sign.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Escalation is always a very good sign

Ask anyone who lived during the Vietnam conflict and they will tell you.

Don

[Swamp Rat]

2. ''I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

[Joanne98]

3. Bush is now uniting the Shiites Across THREE COUNTRIES!

Southern Iraq, Iran and NOW Lebanon. What fucking IDIOTS!

[Javaman]

4. What In find interesting about everything lately..

not a mention of Basra anywhere. It's like it vanished from the map. Or maybe because it's completely controlled by the shiites might have something to do with it.

Oh that's right, the Brits are in charge down there and we all know how much the Iraqi's love them...:sarcasm:

[Igel]

5. It started before that, with

an assault on a prominent Sadrist. And a few other raids in the south. They got reported, but unless you're keeping score it's not obvious.

It may be continuing because of Lebanon, but that's difficult to show.

The Sunnis have finally figured out that things aren't necessarily going their way; this is a good sign. The US isn't stopping their victory, but now can be useful in protecting them. Maybe it's time to negotiate in good faith. But the Shi'ite extremists have now that the Americans don't need to protect Shi'ites, and that the Americans aren't their friends. They have no need to negotiate.

A simple model, but it handles a shockingly large amount of data.