Blast hits funeral north of Baghdad, killing 50

Recent attacks raise worries that Sunni insurgents are reorganizing

Marines Raise Flag At Iwo Jima

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber struck the funeral of two anti-al-Qaida Sunni tribesmen in a town north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens, police said.

The blast was the latest this week to break a period of relative calm in Sunni areas, raising concerns that Sunni insurgents are reorganizing.

Over the past months, violence has dropped with the increase in U.S. troops and the growth of so-called Awakening Councils, groups of Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents who have joined American forces in fighting al-Qaida-linked militants.

Thursday's attack took place in the town of Albu Mohammed about 90 miles north of Baghdad, during the funeral of two brothers who belonged to the local Awakening Council and had been killed in an attack a day earlier, police said.

The suicide bomber walked into a tent crowded with mourners in the village and detonated explosives strapped to his body, police in the nearby city of Kirkuk said.

The head of the local Awakening Council, Sheik Omar al-Azawi, was just pulling up at the tent in his car when the blast went off.

'Thunderous explosion'
"I first heard a thunderous explosion and when I turned my eyes to the tent I saw fire and smoke coming out," al-Azawi, 51, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"Panicked people were jumping and running in all sides and then we started to evacuate those who were killed and wounded in our private cars until police and medical teams arrived," he said.

He said the bomber, believed in his late 50s, was dressed in traditional Arab robes and that guards in charge of searching mourners allowed him in without a search.

At least 50 people were killed and 50 injured in the blast, the police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because

they are not authorized to talk to the media. The blast was the deadliest attack since March 6, when a bombing in central Baghdad killed 68.

Thursday's attack came on the heels of a string of suicide attacks on Tuesday that killed 60 people in four major cities in central and northern Iraq.

The U.S. military has touted the relative calm in Sunni areas as a major success of the troop surge and the strategy of encouraging Awakening Councils and other Sunnis — some former insurgents — to turn against al-Qaida.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday that despite this week's stepped-up violence, the overall situation in Iraq has markedly improved over the past year.

"We have said all along that there will be variants in which we will see al-Qaida and other groups seek to reassert themselves," Bergner said.

Fighting with Shiites increasing
But the new Sunni violence comes as fighting has increased between U.S.-Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen, particularly members of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

On Wednesday, fresh clashes broke out in the Baghdad Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen, leaving two men dead and 18 people wounded, police said.

In the southern city of Basra, a U.S. drone killed four militants when it fired rockets at militiamen who attacked an Iraqi army patrol.

An offensive launched on March 25 by Iraqi forces against Shiite militants in Basra touched off an uprising by Shiite militias across southern Iraq and in Sadr City.

On Wednesday, the Iraqi government said it was replacing two senior military commanders overseeing operations in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

Officials insisted the two — security army commander Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji and police chief Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf — had not been fired but were being reassigned to positions in Baghdad after their assignments ended.

The two Iraqi officers will be replaced by new security commander Maj. Gen. Mohammed Jawad Huwaidi and new police chief is Maj. Gen. Adil Daham, officials said.

U.S. officials have praised Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the determination he showed in confronting the militias, but they have also said the Basra operation was hastily arranged and badly executed. Critics said it highlighted the Iraqi army's poor leadership and the low morale among its rank and file after some 1,000 troops deserted or refused to fight in Basra.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24177055/

جمهورية العراق Jumhūriyat ul-ʿIrāq (Arabic) كۆماری عێراق Komarê Iraq (Kurdish) Republic of Iraq
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: الله أكبر   (Arabic) "Allahu Akbar"  (transliteration) "God is [the] Greatest"

Iraq removes top commanders in Basra

Separately, roadside bombing kills 2 U.S. Marines in Anbar province

BAGHDAD - Iraq's government removed the top military and police commanders in Basra on Wednesday, weeks after a botched crackdown on militia fighters there triggered the country's worst fighting in months.

Iraqi army Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji and police Major-General Abdul-Jalil Khalaf were among the country's most senior commanders and were widely respected by U.S. and British military leaders.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, no relation to the Basra commander, said the two were recalled to senior staff positions in Baghdad as a "reward for their successful mission against the criminals in Basra."

Also Wednesday, the U.S. military said two Marines were killed by a roadside bomb in western Anbar province. The statement said the blast occurred on Sunday while their vehicle was under attack by enemy fighters.

The two deaths raise to at least 4,036 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The bloodshed came a day after nearly 60 people died in a series of bombings in four cities in northern and central Iraq that were blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.

The bombings struck directly at U.S. claims that the Sunni insurgency is waning and being replaced by Shiite militia violence as a major threat.

Still, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voiced optimism that his government would soon defeat al-Qaida in Iraq. "We are today more confident than any time before that we are close to the point where we can declare victory against al-Qaida ... and its allies," he said Wednesday in an address to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

U.S. declines to comment
U.S. military spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner said he had seen reports that the Basra commanders had been replaced but declined to comment further, saying: "The change in leadership is one that I would defer to the government of Iraq to further characterize."

The two commanders were dispatched to Basra last year and won enthusiastic praise from U.S. and British brass for battling militia and fighting infiltration of their forces. Both survived numerous assassination attempts.

But their fate was widely seen as sealed after the crackdown in March failed to dislodge militia fighters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from the streets and triggered fighting that spread to other southern cities and Baghdad.

Last week Iraq fired 1,300 soldiers and police for failing to stand and fight during the crackdown. U.S. commander General David Petraeus told Congress the campaign's planning was "not satisfactory" and he had envisioned a more gradual operation.

The increase in violence and the crackdown's uncertain outcome have brought the war back to center stage in the U.S. presidential election at a time when Washington is preparing to withdraw 20,000 troops over the next four months.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki personally oversaw the crackdown, and U.S. commanders say they were given just days notice. British press reports have said Mohan was one of those who had urged a slower approach like that sought by Petraeus.

Despite the failings of the initial operation, U.S. commanders have described the overall crackdown in Basra as a success, not least because Iraqi forces took the lead and rapidly dispatched 6,600 extra troops to the area.

"In Basra the Iraqi army forces in particular are finding improved support from the local citizens in terms of tips, in terms of their cooperation," Bergner said.

Continued raids
Iraqi forces have continued raids on suspected militiamen in Basra since the main fighting there ended, and scored a victory in the town on Monday, freeing a kidnapped British journalist when they stormed the house where he was being held.

An unmanned U.S. drone fired two Hellfire missiles at militants attacking Iraqi soldiers in a Shiite militia stronghold in the southern city of Basra on Wednesday, killing four of the gunmen, the military said.

In Baghdad, clashes between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen in the Sadr City district killed two men and injured 18 other people, police said Wednesday.

The airstrike in Basra occurred about 1 a.m. after militiamen attacked an Iraqi army patrol with rocket-propelled grenades on the eastern side of the Hayaniyah district, the U.S. military said. A vehicle suspected of containing more weapons and ammunition also was destroyed.

The area has seen some of the fiercest fighting since a government offensive against the militias in Basra began March 25.

In Sadr City, a police officer said those injured in gunbattles Tuesday included three women and three children. Sadr City is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It is also home to an estimated 2.5 million Shiites.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said sporadic shooting was still going on and it was too dangerous to venture out on the streets.

Ferocious response
The ferocity of the Shiite militia response to the government crackdown has surprised Iraqi security forces -- which are dominated by Shiites -- raising doubts about whether the Iraqis could handle an all-out war without U.S. help.

The New York Times reported that an 80-strong company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions Tuesday night in Sadr City, leaving a crucial stretch of road undefended for hours despite pleas by American soldiers in the area for them to stay.

The Iraqi company leader, who was identified as Maj. Sattar, and his troops complained that they were short of ammunition and overall poorly equipped to battle the militias and had no means to communicate directly with the U.S. troops positioned behind them, according to the newspaper.

It added that an elite Iraqi unit was rushed in and began to fight its way north with the help of the Americans.

Soldiers fired
The report comes just days after the government fired most of the 1,300 soldiers and policemen who had deserted or refused to fight during its offensive against Shiite militants in Basra last month.

The U.S. military said the New York Times report was factual and the Baghdad command would address the issue.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman in Baghdad, called it "a snapshot of one area where U.S. soldiers are in close support of their Iraqi counterparts" and stressed that it is a new army and Iraqi soldiers and national police are taking casualties daily in fighting in other areas.

"This is one company-sized unit, part of a recently formed Iraqi army battalion," Stover said, adding that 65 other Iraqi battalions were operating in Baghdad with "varying degrees of experience and capability."

"The older units are able to conduct independent counterinsurgency operations and others obviously need more work, better leadership and more experience," he said in an e-mailed statement.

Other violence
In other violence Wednesday, a mortar shell slammed into a house in eastern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and wounding three others, police said.

Gunmen also opened fire on a minibus near Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing 2 women and wounding 3 men, police said.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24153685/

   Wars are won or lost not by what takes place on the battlefield but what takes place in men's hearts. The War In Iraq is being lost to al-Queda In Iraq and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army by the Iraqi army in spite of American military and monetary support because of the lack of Iraqi patriotism. Ultimately all soldiers fight and die for a flag and what that flag represents. General Petraeus strategy of paying Sunni tribes to fight against al-queda is doomed to fail because patriotism can't be bought. The Iraqi army , which is mostly Shite, won't wholeheartedly fight the Mahdi Army which is Shite without patriotism and loyalty to a flag. Why the Iraqi government has never instituted a military draft is beyond me. (Saddam Hussein conscripted Sunni and Shite men into The Republican Guard and had Iraqi Shites fighting Iranian Shites in the long Iraq/Iran War)

    In my opinion, the first thing Iraq should do is burn the American fatigues and uniforms that obviously Haliburton sold to them and wear their own unique Iraqi uniform. ( Ask any soldier, policeman or fireman the importance of a uniform). The second thing that needs to be done is forced conscription to the Iraqi army from Sunni, Shite and Kurd across all tribal lines, refusal to be conscripted resulting in death, imprisonment or deportation. The third thing that needs to be done is pay the soldiers well and indoctrinate them to be loyal only to Iraq and it's constitution, represented by the Iraqi flag and motto. Now Iraq would have the spirit of the Marines in the Battle Of Iwo Jima and that spirit of Iraqi patriotism would permeate the whole Iraqi society, politically and economically. By now America should be helping Iraq like the French helped Americans in the Revolutionary War but the supreme question is, where is Iraqi patriotism?

tags: iraq  war on terror  bush  government  power  al_queda_in_iraq  mahdi_army  politics  

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