Part of Commander-in-Chief's George W. Bush strategy associated with his (still unannounced) decision to go with the "temporary" surge option of sending more U.S. troops into Iraq is the decision to target Moqtada al Sadr's militias and supporters. The following news story is testimony to that policy decision of targeting Sadr's supporters, and this tactical error will throw southern Iraq into the same chaos that currently engulfs Baghdad and Anbar province.
An enraged Shiite population will make it even more dangerous for the American troops occupying Iraq and put the 800 mile land resupply corridor from Kuwait to Baghdad in jeopardy. If the Shiite population becomes sufficiently enraged we will see an emergency U.S. evacuation of The Green Zone. Nothing short of nuclear weapons would be able to quell the violence directed at Americans and even nuclear weapons would work only in the short term. Regional war and World War would follow.
President Bush is push Iraq and the world ever closer to the abyss.
Tension after US soldier shoots Sadr supporter
quote:
by Hassan Abdel Zahra
AFP 8:55 am EST Wednesday 27 December 2006
Tension was mounting in the Iraqi city of Najaf after an American soldier killed a senior ally of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr during a raid on his house.
Sadr supporters and local police told AFP Wednesday that US and Iraqi soldiers had stormed the family home of Sahib al-Ameri, the president of a pro-Sadr political foundation in the holy city of Najaf, and shot him dead.
The US military confirmed one of its troops had shot Ameri in an overnight raid by Iraqi forces, backed up by coalition military advisers.
A statement said Ameri was implicated in recent bomb attacks on US and Iraqi forces, and was shot by an adviser after he fled to the roof of his house and aimed an assault rifle at an Iraqi soldier.
"The coalition soldier observed the man's hostile intent against the Iraqi soldier and shot the man, neutralising the threat and resulting in his death," US headquarters said in the statement.
Hundreds of mourners marched from Sadr's office in Najaf to the revered shrine of Imam Ali chanting anti-American slogans and denouncing Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as a traitor for working with US officials.
Sadr is nominally a supporter of Maliki's US-backed coalition -- although his party's MPs and ministers are boycotting government business -- but he is bitterly opposed to the American troop presence.
His supporters have demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq as the price for their continued support for the unity government.
US commanders have described Sadr's Mahdi Army militia as the most dangerous faction involved in Iraq's sectarian war, accusing his Shiite fighters of involvement in the massacre of Sunni civilians.
Wednesday's raid served only to increase the political temperature.
Sheikh Abdul-Razzaq al-Nadawi, a member of Sadr's office in Najaf held a press conference at the cleric's house in Najaf and accused the Americans of seeking to provoke a confrontation in a hitherto largely peaceful city.
"We condemn this heinous crime," he declared. "Security in the city is back to square one. Targeting Al-Ameri means targeting the whole Sadr trend.
"They always claim that the trend is undermining the political process. We tell them that Najaf is secure and stable. This escalation and provocation is meant to drag us into a comprehensive and open confrontation," he declared.
"Al-Ameri was not from the military, or political cadres or even the Mahdi Army. He was a man running a cultural institution that is in charge of issuing a newspaper," Nadawi complained.
But US spokesman General William Caldwell insisted that the Ameri's house had been raided "because of his illegal activities, not because of his political affiliation."
At an optimistic ceremony last week, the US military handed control of security in Najaf -- a pilgrimage city and home to the holiest shrine in Shiite Islam, the mausoleum of Imam Ali -- to local Iraqi police and military units.
The region is almost entirely Shiite and has been spared the worst of the violence gripping other areas of Iraq since August 2004, when Sadr's Mahdi Army fought a three-week battle with US forces for control of the city.
Najaf police chief General Abdel Karim Mustapha blamed Ameri's death on the American military, as did a senior lawmakers from Sadr's party.
The US military, however, stood by the soldiers involved.
"The suspect allegedly provided recently several IEDs (bombs) to his cell for an attack that he allegedly directed be carried out against Iraqi and coalition forces in the Najaf area," a statement said.
This cut no ice with Sadr's supporters, however, and they called a news conference at the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad to condemn the raid and accuse the US military of deliberately attempting to provoke a reaction.
"They entered the house like animals and killed him in front of his wife and children," declared Sadrist lawmaker Baha al-Araji.
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