Fighting rages between US-backed Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20157140-5001028,00.html

IRAQI security forces fought fierce battles with militias and insurgents in cities across the country overnight as the government struggled to impose its authority.

Violence continued in Baghdad where three car bombs killed at least 12 people and wounded another 58.

In the northern city of Mosul, troops and police killed six insurgents linked to a Sunni extremist group and shut down five bridges across the Tigris River in a bid to quell the fighting, police said.

In the far south, in Basra, tensions between a local Shiite tribe and the provincial governor erupted into a firefight in which masked gunmen fired rockets at the government headquarters, killing at least one policeman. snip

The fighting reflects growing tension between Iraq's US-backed security forces and increasingly confident Shiite militias.

[BOSSHOG]

1. they must be trying to negotiate that last throes thing

[warrens]

2. The problem, security forces

Is they know where you live, and you don't know where they live.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. "Failed insurgency" or "Failed occupation"?

When's the next "get tough" attempt due to fail? When will they get to "Operation Last Gasp"?

[Botany]

4. But Condi said that this fighting was ..

.... hypothetical and I will not talk about a hypothetical civil war.

[movonne]

5. The last I read, I thought there was only 100 of them left...the rest

all deserted...

[Disturbed]

6. The Iraq situation is getting more confusing.

Iraqi Malitias, Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurds are fighting each other and the Govt. troops and police?

[NNN0LHI]

7. I'm starting to wonder if the Govt. troops and police are mercenaries?

I have read there are over 50,000 mercenaries in Iraq. What are they doing there?

And I have read no accounts of open street battles between Shi'ites and Sunnis either. Just death squads wearing uniforms and operating almost invisibly to our troops during curfews and killing both Shi'ites and Sunnis.

I have read accounts of the US trucking in Kurdish snipers to pick off Sunnis occasionally but that is about the extent of it.

Something isn't right here.

Don