BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi forces plan to stay put in a southern sector of Baghdad’s Sadr City where they are battling militiamen rather than push deeper into the Shiite bastion, a top US general said on Monday. There are “no plans to go beyond where we are,” said Major General Jeffery Hammond, commander of US forces in Baghdad.
Hammond said the main aim of the push into Sadr City was to stop lethal rockets that are being fired from Sadr City towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and US embassy. “My aim is to push the 107-mm rockets out of the range,” Hammond told a group of journalists from Western media outlets on Monday.
Hammond said the strategy of the security forces was paying dividends and that it was becoming more difficult for the ”criminals” to fire off rockets and mortars. |