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Juan Cole Calls BS on Iran-Mahdi Army Connection
2008-05-09 00:10:00 Here. I've been wondering about this for some time now. Of course, 100% of the major US news media is reporting that it is indeed Iran that is tearing Iraq apart due to their support for Shia terrorists.Cole helpfully points out that in fact SCIRI is Iran's main support arm in Iraq. In fact, SCIRI's armed wing, the Badr Brigades, at one point was part of the Iranian military. Iranian money helped the SCIRI to buy its way into power in Iraq in 2005. So Iran should be pretty happy to SCIRI and Badr in power in IraqFor some time now, the Mahdi Army has been battling for control over southern Iraqi Shia cities with the Badr Brigades and SCIRI. They have been assassinating Badr fighters and SCIRI leaders in the South. These are the very same SCIRI leaders that are Iran's guys in Iraq.So why would Iran support the Mahdi Army to go around killing the very same guys that the Iranians put in power in the first place? None of this crap makes any sense at all.Sure, the Mahdi Army gets supp...
By: Robert Lindsay
About the Mahdi Army Crackdown
2008-05-07 06:56:00 Although I am not a conspiracy buff by any means, I was quite puzzled when, a while back, the Iraqi government announced a crackdown on the Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army on the basis that it was an armed gang of criminals that had taken over entire parts of cities such as Baghdad of entire cities in the Shia South.Whenever a government starts referring to entire guerrilla armies as "criminals", you know the bullshit is getting awful thick. This is a propaganda game that almost all governments engage in whenever they fight any kind of guerrilla force.It is a testament to either human stupidity or the power of human psychological defense mechanisms that such a steaming load of crap is so easily digested by entire nations of raving patriots out to defeat the evil guerrillas.At the same time, we should also note similar state propaganda lines that no guerrilla army ever has the slightest support, that any support they have is coerced at gunpoint, that all guerrillas are terrorists, that...
By: Robert Lindsay
Sadr Threatens ?Open War? on Iraq Government
2008-04-20 06:50:00 Muqtada al-Sadr: “I’m giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government — either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace … or it will be (seen as) the same as the previous government,” Sadr said, referring to Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime… “If they don’t come to their ...
By: Webloggin
Al-Sadr: ?No Handover Of Arms?
2008-03-31 01:14:00 In yet another sign of weakness by the fledgling Iraqi government, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his outlaw Mahdi Army will not have to turn in their weapons as part of the latest cease fire in Basra. Followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will not hand over their weapons as part of a move to end ...
By: The Hot Joints
Al-Sadr Pulls Back
2008-03-31 00:34:00 Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said today that he was pulling his fighters off the streets nationwide and called on the government to stop raids against his followers and free them from prison. Al-Sadr’s nine-point statement was issued by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shiite mosques. It said ...
By: The Hot Joints
Mahdi Army taking significant casualties in Baghdad, South
2008-03-30 14:00:00 While the size of the Mahdi Army is a constant source of debate, media accounts often put the Mahdi Army at anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 fighters. With an estimated 1,000 Mahdi fighters killed, captured, wounded and surrendered, the Mahdi Army has taken an attrition rate of 1.5 to 2.5 percent over the past five days. More...Photo: About 200 demonstrators held a rally to support the military operations in Basra and Maliki's government, in Diwaniya.
Alongside the Mahdi Army in Sadr City
2008-03-29 05:47:00 BAGHDAD, March 28 -- The gunfire struck like thunderclaps, building to a steady rhythm. American soldiers in a Stryker armored vehicle fired away from one end of the block.
By: Get rich
Iraqi Government Taking on Mahdi Army
2008-03-27 21:56:00 Fighting has erupted in Iraq between government forces and Moqtaqa al-Sadr's Mahdi Army as government forces attempt to wrest control of Basra away from al-Sadr. Clashes have spread to Baghdad and other cities, and large street protests against the government are occurring in Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad sympathetic to al-Sadr. A weekend-long curfew - really a lockdown - has been ordered in Baghdad in an effort to prevent violence from escalating further there. Street battles that started Tuesday in Basra and Sadr City have spread to several other neighborhoods and southern cities, leaving more than 200 dead, including civilians, Iraqi troops and militants. That three-day figure was a rough estimate provided by police and hospital officials who could not give a more specific breakdown. Iraqi officials reported 17 more people killed in overnight clashes in Sadr City, raising the total there to 40. The death toll in the Shiite city of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, also r...
By: Coldheartedtruth
Mugniyah behind establishment of Mahdi Army
2008-02-25 13:42:00 He was described as a “co-founder” of the Mahdi Army, Naharnet reported, based on a translation from the Iraqi daily Al Zaman.Mugniyah helped form the Mahdi Army after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003. He recruited from the Shia communities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and then sent the recruits to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley for training. “The 300 fighters were trained on the use of assault rifles, booby-trapping and kidnapping operations,” the unnamed intelligence official told Al Zaman.Once in Lebanon, the Mahdi Army recruits were sent to bases run by Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, the foreign special operations branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Hezbollah operates numerous bases in the Bekaa Valley, under the supervision of Syrian intelligence.Via The long war journal
Mahdi Army and Islamic Republic of Iran
2007-11-27 22:44:00 From Debbie at Right TruthConcerning "Tom Friedman?s assertion, made in his editorial in the NYT, according to which JAM is alleged to collaborate with IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran)", Albrecht Muth in Iraq, responds: Beginning of Quote from The Case for Illegal Mingling: The same thing has happened among Shiites. Iran seems to have dialed down its support for Moktada al-Sadr?s Mahdi Army in Iraq ? which has been purging Sunnis and Shiites to prevent any mingling ? because many ordinary Iraqi Shiites had become fed up with this pro-Iranian militia and had begun to blame Tehran. On Nov. 8, Agence France-Presse reported that the local police had publicly accused the Mahdi Army of carrying out a four-year killing spree in Iraq?s central shrine city of Karbala. ?The Mahdi Army murdered and tortured and kidnapped people under Sharia law,? the police statement said. ?They are the cause of the deaths of hundreds of people.? The news agency added that ?the statement marks the first time t...
By: Faultline USA
Militia Leader ID?d as Mastermind of Iraqi Kidnappings
2007-10-29 23:11:00 A renegade Mahdi Army militia commander is responsible for the kidnapping Sunday of 10 Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders. Arkan Hasnawi, identified as a former brigade commander in Jaysh Al Mahdi, was behind the kidnappings, which took place in the Diyala Province as the chiefs were returning from a meeting in Baghdad with a representative of ...
By: The Hot Joints
Sadr May Revoke ?Freeze? on Militia
2007-08-31 19:55:00 Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr told his followers Thursday that he would rescind his order “freezing” the operations of his powerful militia if military raids on his offices did not cease in the next few days, according to officials of Sadr’s organization. Sadr’s message came the day after he issued a public statement to his Mahdi ...
By: The Hot Joints
Mahdi army calls six-month truce after fighting leaves 50 dead
2007-08-30 16:28:00 The Iraqi militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, called a six-month truce yesterday after fighting with a rival Shia Muslim group in the holy city of Kerbala left more than 50 dead. A spokesman for the Mahdi army claimed they would lay down their weapons for six months and, during this time, would attack neither other Shia groups ...
By: The Hot Joints
Mahdi Army and Badr Corps Fight Over Shia Shrine
2007-08-30 16:12:00 Informed Comment Two senior aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani--Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i and Ahmad al-Safi-- were kidnapped on Tuesday by the Mahdi Army and are still being held as captives, according to the Kuwaiti News Organization. This report seems to confirm that the Mahdi Army attempted to take over the shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala under the cover of the festival of the birth of the 12th Imam, which had brought a million pilgrims into the city. The shrine is worth millions if not hundreds of millions in pilgrimage revenue annually, and is also a source of prestige among Shiites. The two kidnapped clerics had preached there. [..]Al-Maliki fired 1500 policemen in Karbala on Wednesday and dismissed the police chief, Major General Saleh Khazal Al-Maliki, on grounds of dereliction of duty. (It may be that the police were in some part recruited from or highly sympathetic to the Mahdi Army, and so they declined to intervene in its push to take the shrine by force). In the a...
Al-Mahdi Army suspends all activity
2007-08-29 20:27:00 Moqtada al-Sadr announced that his Al-Madi Army is freezing all activities for the following 6 months. Although the official given reason for this move was internal reorganization, annalist believe that al-Sadr is trying to reestablish his control of the Shiite fraction.The event comes on the same day when US forces arrested 7 Iranians in Baghdad, but released almost immediately, admitting the cause was an identity mix-up.Read more on Mahid Army in the BBC article
Brits Turn Basra Over to Mahdi Army
2007-08-28 13:42:00 [I wonder what the Bush administration plans to do about the Brits turning over Basra, the port of entry through which our supplies must enter Iraq, over to the Mahdi army, the Shiite militia totally hostile to our occupation? Does not look good. Basra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba-sra Ed Kent] …………-230;……. As British leave Basra, militias dig in An Iraqi official says a ...
Mahdi Army linked to kidnap
2007-05-30 10:45:00 The Mahdi Army could have been responsible for the kidnapping of five Britons from a government building in Baghdad yesterday, the Iraqi foreign minister said today.
By: Get rich
Mahdi army leader killed in Basra
2007-05-25 19:23:00 A senior leader of the Mahdi militia army has been shot dead by Iraqi special forces with British support, on the day that Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, appeared in public in Iraq for the first time in three months.
By: Get rich
AP: Mahdi Army Disintegration? BAD News??
2007-03-24 00:00:00 -By Warner Todd Huston Leave it to the AP to turn the disintegration of the organization of one of our enemies in Iraq into a bad thing! That?s what we get with Wednesday?s analysis of the trouble that seems to be befalling the organization of Muqtada al-Sadr?s militia, a group that has ...
By: Publius Forum
AP: Mahdi Army Disintegration? BAD News??
2007-03-23 15:59:00 Leave it to the AP to turn the disintegration of the organization of one of our enemies in Iraq into a bad thing! That?s what we get with Wednesday?s analysis of the trouble that seems to be befalling the organization of Muqtada al-Sadr?s militia, a group that has resisted US led coalition government since day one. Shiite ...
700 Mahdi Army members arrested in Iraq
2007-03-13 17:34:00 BAGHDAD, March 13: The chief U.S. commander in Iraq says about 700 followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are being detained and some militant leaders have fled Baghdad.
By: newkerala.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wea
2007-01-14 05:18:01 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements. ?We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down,? said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr heads the Mahdi Army, Iraq?s largest Shiite militia, headquartered in Najaf. The official asked not to be named because he was not authorized to reveal the militia?s plans. Militia members say al-Sadr ordered them to stand down shortly after President George Bush?s announcement that the U.S. would send 17,500 more American troops to Baghdad to work alongside the Iraqi security forces. The decision by al-Sadr to lower his force?s profile in Baghdad will likely cut violence in the city and allow American forces t...
By: TexasFred's
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