Amid crackdown, bodies still pile up - American-led `Battle of Baghdad' can't stem deaths
By Louise Roug
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times
Published September 5, 2006
BAGHDAD -- The number of killings in the Iraqi capital escalated last week despite an American-led crackdown, with morgue workers receiving as many bodies as they had during the first three weeks of August combined.
At least 334 people, including 23 women, were slain in Baghdad Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, according to morgue figures provided by Ministry of Health officials. Most of the victims were kidnapped, tortured, hogtied and shot.
During the week, at least 394 other people were killed around Iraq in other types of violence, including bombings, mortar attacks and gunfights, Iraqi authorities said.
The spike in violence followed an announcement by U.S. and Iraqi officials at the beginning of the week that the number of killings in the capital had fallen dramatically during August, from more than 1,800 in July. Although August as a whole was less violent than the month before, last week's killings suggested that death squads are still able to move about Baghdad despite checkpoints and curfews.
On Monday, the mutilated, handcuffed and blindfolded bodies of 33 men were found in various Baghdad neighborhoods, according to authorities.
The U.S. military announced Monday that over the previous two days two Marines and three soldiers were killed in separate attacks, while another American soldier died of non-combat injuries. Two British soldiers also were killed as their convoy of armored Land Rovers, which was escorting a reconstruction team, hit a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, according to British military spokesman Maj. Charles Burbridge.
In Baghdad, gunmen abducted a soccer player from the Iraqi Olympic Team. Ghanim Ghudayer, a 25-year-old striker, had just signed with a Syrian team and was about to leave Iraq when gunmen dressed in army uniforms kidnapped him near a mosque in western Baghdad, according to police and Hussein Gitan, a soccer player from his previous club.
At a news conference, Muhammad al-Askary, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said Sunni insurgents had started renting apartments and storefronts in Baghdad and packing them with explosives.
"The insurgents used new ways like renting apartments and shops to booby-trap them by remote control," he said. Iraqi security officials, he added, have warned shop owners and real estate agents to screen potential tenants more carefully.
Gunmen rampaged through a Sunni Arab neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing at least 12 people in another spasm of sectarian bloodshed, The Washington Post reported.
Police officer Husam Ali said members of the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, carried out Monday's attack on Sunnis in the Baiaa neighborhood to avenge the assassination a day earlier of the militia's local leader, Abu Moqtada. Ali said 10 Sunni civilians were kidnapped Sunday night as part of the retaliation.
Sahib al-Amiri, a close aide to Sadr in Najaf, said the Mahdi Army was "not guilty of this terrorist operation" in Baiaa.
Child killed in shootout
A child died in a shootout between American soldiers and insurgents holed up in a safe house in Muqdadiyah, the U.S. military said Monday. U.S.-led forces raiding a house of a suspected insurgent financier came under fire and shot back, killing two suspected insurgents and the child.
A mass grave containing 18 bodies of people apparently executed in the 1980s was discovered in Kirkuk, in the north.
As part of the recent and much-publicized security crackdown, dubbed "the Battle of Baghdad" by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, about 11,000 Iraqi and American soldiers were sent to the capital to reinforce security forces already there. In the past few weeks, soldiers have cordoned off some neighborhoods and flooded those streets with around-the-clock patrols.
"We have seen progress, and a degree of success in the neighborhoods we're in," said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson. "This is going to be ebb and flow."
In Adhamiya, a northeastern Baghdad neighborhood, American troops recently watched the ebb and flow firsthand. Killers had been dumping bodies by the dozens each week in the Sunni neighborhood.
So many corpses were found on one particular street that residents nicknamed it the "Street of Death."
When American soldiers arrived in Stryker vehicles as part of the security crackdown, the bodies stopped appearing.
The Strykers left three days ago. On Monday, soldiers found their first body since then on the Street of Death--a teenager shot in the head.
"We can't stop the killings and the kidnappings," said Capt. Michael Baka, from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. "All we can do is to prevent as many as we can."
In the past, Americans have turned over control of certain areas to Iraqis only to see violence flare up once they leave.
Iraqi forces "lack training and weapons," said a high-ranking Iraqi army officer, who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The terrorists have more powerful weapons."
He added that the Iraqi army "can't accomplish all the missions but depends on the multinational forces to do most of the tasks."
Disagreements on hand-over
Disagreements continued over the hand-over of Iraq's armed forces command from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi government, and the Defense Ministry said a ceremony to mark the transition was postponed indefinitely.
Half of Iraq's 10 army divisions are in charge of their own territories or are in the process of taking over authority from the U.S.-led coalition.
The U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George Casey Jr., last week said Iraqi security forces would be able to assume overall control of Iraq's security within 12 to 18 months "with very little coalition support."
A recent Pentagon report to Congress stated that most Iraqi combat battalion still require support from U.S.-led forces "because their logistics, sustainment, and command and control capabilities are not fully developed."
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times
Published September 5, 2006
BAGHDAD -- The number of killings in the Iraqi capital escalated last week despite an American-led crackdown, with morgue workers receiving as many bodies as they had during the first three weeks of August combined.
At least 334 people, including 23 women, were slain in Baghdad Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, according to morgue figures provided by Ministry of Health officials. Most of the victims were kidnapped, tortured, hogtied and shot.
During the week, at least 394 other people were killed around Iraq in other types of violence, including bombings, mortar attacks and gunfights, Iraqi authorities said.
The spike in violence followed an announcement by U.S. and Iraqi officials at the beginning of the week that the number of killings in the capital had fallen dramatically during August, from more than 1,800 in July. Although August as a whole was less violent than the month before, last week's killings suggested that death squads are still able to move about Baghdad despite checkpoints and curfews.
On Monday, the mutilated, handcuffed and blindfolded bodies of 33 men were found in various Baghdad neighborhoods, according to authorities.
The U.S. military announced Monday that over the previous two days two Marines and three soldiers were killed in separate attacks, while another American soldier died of non-combat injuries. Two British soldiers also were killed as their convoy of armored Land Rovers, which was escorting a reconstruction team, hit a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, according to British military spokesman Maj. Charles Burbridge.
In Baghdad, gunmen abducted a soccer player from the Iraqi Olympic Team. Ghanim Ghudayer, a 25-year-old striker, had just signed with a Syrian team and was about to leave Iraq when gunmen dressed in army uniforms kidnapped him near a mosque in western Baghdad, according to police and Hussein Gitan, a soccer player from his previous club.
At a news conference, Muhammad al-Askary, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said Sunni insurgents had started renting apartments and storefronts in Baghdad and packing them with explosives.
"The insurgents used new ways like renting apartments and shops to booby-trap them by remote control," he said. Iraqi security officials, he added, have warned shop owners and real estate agents to screen potential tenants more carefully.
Gunmen rampaged through a Sunni Arab neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing at least 12 people in another spasm of sectarian bloodshed, The Washington Post reported.
Police officer Husam Ali said members of the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, carried out Monday's attack on Sunnis in the Baiaa neighborhood to avenge the assassination a day earlier of the militia's local leader, Abu Moqtada. Ali said 10 Sunni civilians were kidnapped Sunday night as part of the retaliation.
Sahib al-Amiri, a close aide to Sadr in Najaf, said the Mahdi Army was "not guilty of this terrorist operation" in Baiaa.
Child killed in shootout
A child died in a shootout between American soldiers and insurgents holed up in a safe house in Muqdadiyah, the U.S. military said Monday. U.S.-led forces raiding a house of a suspected insurgent financier came under fire and shot back, killing two suspected insurgents and the child.
A mass grave containing 18 bodies of people apparently executed in the 1980s was discovered in Kirkuk, in the north.
As part of the recent and much-publicized security crackdown, dubbed "the Battle of Baghdad" by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, about 11,000 Iraqi and American soldiers were sent to the capital to reinforce security forces already there. In the past few weeks, soldiers have cordoned off some neighborhoods and flooded those streets with around-the-clock patrols.
"We have seen progress, and a degree of success in the neighborhoods we're in," said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson. "This is going to be ebb and flow."
In Adhamiya, a northeastern Baghdad neighborhood, American troops recently watched the ebb and flow firsthand. Killers had been dumping bodies by the dozens each week in the Sunni neighborhood.
So many corpses were found on one particular street that residents nicknamed it the "Street of Death."
When American soldiers arrived in Stryker vehicles as part of the security crackdown, the bodies stopped appearing.
The Strykers left three days ago. On Monday, soldiers found their first body since then on the Street of Death--a teenager shot in the head.
"We can't stop the killings and the kidnappings," said Capt. Michael Baka, from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. "All we can do is to prevent as many as we can."
In the past, Americans have turned over control of certain areas to Iraqis only to see violence flare up once they leave.
Iraqi forces "lack training and weapons," said a high-ranking Iraqi army officer, who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The terrorists have more powerful weapons."
He added that the Iraqi army "can't accomplish all the missions but depends on the multinational forces to do most of the tasks."
Disagreements on hand-over
Disagreements continued over the hand-over of Iraq's armed forces command from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi government, and the Defense Ministry said a ceremony to mark the transition was postponed indefinitely.
Half of Iraq's 10 army divisions are in charge of their own territories or are in the process of taking over authority from the U.S.-led coalition.
The U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George Casey Jr., last week said Iraqi security forces would be able to assume overall control of Iraq's security within 12 to 18 months "with very little coalition support."
A recent Pentagon report to Congress stated that most Iraqi combat battalion still require support from U.S.-led forces "because their logistics, sustainment, and command and control capabilities are not fully developed."
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:17 AM
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