As I posted yesterday the Iraqi government is preparing for a final thrust into Sadr City to clear out Mahdi Militia thugs who have been hiding and using weapons amongst the people living there in order to attack the Iraqi government and US forces:
raqi soldiers for the first time warned residents in the embattled Sadr City district to leave their houses Thursday, signaling a new push by the U.S.-backed forces against Shiite extremist who have been waging street battles for seven weeks.
Iraqi soldiers, using loudspeakers, told residents in some virtually abandoned areas of southeastern Sadr City to go to nearby soccer stadiums, residents said. UNICEF says about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Sadr City, most of them from the southeastern section.
U.S. forces have increased air power and armored patrols in an attempt to cripple Shiite militia influence in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people that serves as the Baghdad base for the Mahdi Army led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The U.S. military is trying to weaken the militia’s grip in the slum and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes from Sadr City on the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices.
Like most Islamo Fascist criminals the Mahdi have been using the residents of Sadr City as human shields, setting up command posts next to hospitals and firing rocket and missile launchers in neighborhoods with families. All of these acts are war crimes - but the SurrenderMedia will never remind people of that. Conversely, at least the Iraqi Army is trying to warn innocent citizens to move away from the Islamo Fascists.
Interestingly enough soccer fields don’t strike me as long term housing areas. My guess is this will be quite short. Ed Morrissey has more on the matter at Hot Air.
Interesting comment at the end of Bill Roggio’s latest entry, I think you’ve already linked to it somewhere.
“On May 1, the Iraqi government sent a delegation to confront Iran on its involvement with the insurgency, but Sadr, who is currently in Iran, refused to meet with the Iraqi government representatives. ”
Refused to meet or wasn’t allowed to meet? Interesting question.
Whichever is true, a couple of things are obvious from that statement:
1) Sadr isn’t with his forces
2) Sadr doesn’t even have realtime communication with his forces.
3) Sadr thus isn’t capable of giving any orders to his forces.
4) No one would bother following any orders even if he did give them, which he can’t be bothered to do.
5) Thus, Sadr is an empty figurehead who has already lost any vestige of real influence or power.
6) The Mahdi Army is thus leaderless and directionless, and will react like a blind, confused beast - with anger but with no purpose or plan.
7) Like any blind beast, the Mahdi Army will quickly lose any battle against a focused opponent, and will be destroyed.
Left by WWS on May 8th, 2008