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Four soldiers killed in two iraq attacks Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Four U.S. soldiers killed in two Iraq attacks
Separately, tense standoff in Najaf continues
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 10:07 a.m. ET May 02, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Iraq, including two who died when Shiite militiamen blasted their convoy in the south, the military said Sunday.
The convoy was attacked Saturday evening with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades near the southern city of Amarah, 180 miles south of Baghdad, a senior military official said.
Two other soldiers were killed in an attack in northwest Baghdad before dawn Sunday, the official said. Two Iraqi security officers and another U.S. soldier were wounded in the attack, he said without providing details.
The deaths Sunday raised the U.S. death toll to 144 since a wave of violence began on April 1. At least 746 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Up to 1,200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.
Najaf attack
Also Sunday, suspected Shiite militiamen fired mortar bombs and grenades at U.S. forces in the holy town of Najaf in southern Iraq overnight, witnesses said.
There were no reports of casualties in the Najaf attack, which also targeted the city's U.S.-led administration office.
Tension was running high in and around Najaf, where militiamen of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr control most of the area.
Al-Sadr is wanted by U.S. forces for the murder of a rival Shiite cleric a year ago. His followers rose up against U.S.-led occupation forces in several towns and cities last month after one of his aides was arrested for an alleged role in the same murder.
U.S. forces have vowed to capture or kill 30-year-old al-Sadr, who hails from one of the most respected families in Najaf, the theological center of many Shiites worldwide.
The uprising has largely died down but his militia, the Mehdi Army, still controls Najaf, nearby Kufa and Karbala and maintains a presence in many other towns including Baghdad.
Little hope for peaceful solution
Representatives of Najaf's tribes and the police chief held talks on Saturday with al-Sadr's aides in an attempt to find a peaceful end to the standoff.
But an al-Sadr aide held out little hope for the success of the mediation. A U.S.-led administration official denied reports that negotiations were on the basis of a five-point plan.
"The coalition is not negotiating with anyone on the basis of the five-point plan," Phil Kosnett, the Coalition Provisional Authority representative in Najaf, told Reuters on Sunday.
"The coalition bottom line has not changed. Sadr has to face justice and the Mehdi Army has to go away."
He said there were no direct contacts between the U.S. and al-Sadr. "There are people we talk to and al-Sadr's people talk to."
Al-Sadr aide Qais al-Khazali said the bid by the tribal representatives and police chief to find a peaceful resolution was doomed.
"All political attempts to resolve the issue peacefully have failed...It is because of the American side and not us. We prefer negotiations and want to avoid bloodshed," he said.
Khazali said the mediators were told by al-Sadr's aides: "You will fail as others failed but we bless your efforts."
Fallujah handover
Gunmen waved their weapons in Fallujah’s streets and outside car windows Saturday, cheering what they called a victory as U.S. forces pulled back. But the Marines insisted that they weren’t going far and that a new Iraqi force taking the front line would root out die-hard insurgents.
The new “Fallujah Brigade,” put together by Iraqi generals from Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, likely will include some former army soldiers who fought American forces over the past month, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said.
He promised, however, that anyone who has “blood on their hands” would not be allowed to stay in the force.
Another military official acknowledged that the United States didn’t know who the individual members of the force were and that its fighters and commanders still had to be vetted to ensure that they are not connected to crimes of the Saddam regime. The force’s leadership could be changed soon because of the screening process, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Scores of Iraqis gathered in the streets Saturday morning, some flashing “V” for victory signs and raising the Iraqi flag. Motorists drove through the streets, shouting “Islam, it’s your day!” and “We redeem Islam with our blood!”
Some were masked with kuffeyahs and raised automatic weapons, members of the insurgency that put up stiff resistance against the Marines. Some guerrillas drove through the city, honking horns and waving their guns out the windows.
ANALYSIS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST
Involving Iraqi army seen as gamble in crisis
Dramatic reversal
The new “Fallujah Brigade,” led by Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, fanned out and imposed a cordon around nearly the entire southern half of Fallujah, replacing Marines who were pulling back to set up a second cordon, some five miles from the city.
The willingness to install a relatively unknown armed force with ties to the ousted regime at the forefront of the Fallujah standoff was a sign of U.S. eagerness to find a way out of the siege, which raised an international outcry and angered many Iraqi leaders who supported the United States.
A U.S. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Fallujah model, though not a “hard and fast” policy, might be applied elsewhere.
The force came about suddenly — a dramatic reversal less than a week after the United States was threatening to launch a new offensive into Fallujah. The former generals approached Marine commanders and offered to take over security duties in the city using their own former soldiers, the military official said.
Malik Khalif, who fled the city during the fighting, looked at the remains of his destroyed house. “I don’t mind losing and sacrificing my life or my properties for the sake of the honorable resistance of Fallujah,” he said.
Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, insisted that the U.S. withdrawal did not mean a let-up in the pursuit of the guerrillas. He said Saleh — who served in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and as a commander of the Iraqi army’s 38th Infantry Division — has presented a plan to confront the city’s hard-core militants.
“They understand our view that these people must be killed or captured,” Conway said. “They have not flinched. And their commander has said as much to his assembly of officers.”
Conway said the Iraqi force will be made up of 1,100 fighters, mostly former army soldiers. Another senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about 700 fighters had been gathered under the force so far.
The Fallujah Brigade, effectively, turns some of the insurgents — those who joined for money or resentment at losing their jobs when Saddam’s army was disbanded last year — against the more ideological anti-U.S. guerrillas.
Former Iraqi generals are putting together the force, and the ex-soldiers have been their “recruiting pool,” Conway said. He added that he could not rule out that some of the recruits may have fired on his Marines.
“I’d like to think that has not been the case, but I can’t say categorically that it hasn’t,” he told reporters outside of the city.
Reconstitution of Saddam-era units
The senior U.S. military official said the brigade may be more or less a reconstitution of Saddam-era military units from the Fallujah area.
Conway said he was not concerned that the Iraqi forces, which will be under his overall command, might carry out atrocities or resort to unlawful methods in its hunt for insurgents. But he said Marines would be quick to stop them if they did.
“We don’t see any extremism in any fashion in this group of Iraqi general officers,” he said. “We’re not concerned about that at this point. ... There will be no horrific acts.”
By Saturday, all 700 Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment had pulled out of the industrial zone in southern Fallujah, their main forward base in the city.
If all goes well on Fallujah’s south side, the Iraqi force will next replace Marines in the north within a few days, the official said.
“We are not leaving, we will be right there behind them and will move in if things go wrong,” the official said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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