| So now we're moving into the Shi'a center-south region, south of Baghdad, doing what we did in Anbar province. |
Iraqi police said 30 suspected fighters linked to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army were grabbed in a pre-dawn house-to-house search by U.S. and Iraqi raiders in two eastern neighborhoods in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.
| Various reports say that Mookie doesn't have much operational control over the Mahdi Army any more; various factions have split off, and a fair number of those aren't anything more than common criminal gangs. The new effort just might have some consierable success if we can provide basic security for the common citizens. |
The residents have bought into a trend that started in Iraq's western Anbar province, where Sunni tribesmen rose up against al-Qaida and have methodically hunted them down in conjunction with U.S. forces.
South of the capital, Shiite militiamen are facing the same onslaught in communities where they have terrorized co-religionists. On Diwaniyah's east side, U.S.-led ground forces backed by two Polish army helicopters came under fire from machine guns and an anti-tank grenade launcher, the military said. Coalition forces reported no casualties but said two militants were killed in the sweep. The statement reporting the operation said the Polish helicopters were called in after ground forces were attacked with three roadside bombs and small-arms fire.| ``There have been outlawed armed groups trying to take control of the province for a long time,'' he said at a news conference after the meeting. ``They are only criminals and we do not believe that there is [any] political party that backs them.'' |
Al-Sadr and SIIC leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim signed a truce earlier this month. Al-Khudari appeared at pains to give the impression that the cease-fire was holding, and that Shiite fighters involved in the turmoil had broken with al-Sadr. ``We do have problems in the local security forces that make it difficult to ensure security and we asked the prime minister to fill the gaps in this regard,'' he said without elaborating.
Police also clashed with gunmen in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, during a raid in which they detained a Sadrist leader, local authorities said without identifying the suspect. Late Saturday, a mortar crashed near the Shiite shrine to Imam Al-Abbas in the city center, killing one person and wounding two, according to police and an Associated Press employee who was at the scene.
To the north of Diwaniyah, police broke into the house of a leading al-Qaida member in a village near Hillah. They captured Raed al-Alwani, who was wanted in the slayings of more than 100 Iraqis, according to a police officer in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity because he not authorized to release the information.