the Shi'ite supremacy begins

[SobaViolence]

BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3732190.stm)


Fighters loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have been handing over their heavy weapons in the Sadr City area of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The militiamen are receiving cash payments in return for rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons.

[SobaViolence]

NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/international/middleeast/11CND-IRAQ.html?hp&ex=1097553600&en=dc097e074e59a9eb&ei=5094&partner=homepage)

Rebels Loyal to Shiite Cleric Begin Handing In Arms in Iraq
By EDWARD WONG

Published: October 11, 2004


AGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 11 — Militiamen loyal to a firebrand Shiite cleric began turning in heavy weapons today in Baghdad as the first step of a peace offer with the interim government and the American military.

Three police stations in the vast slum of Sadr City, where support runs highest for the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, collected hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and other arms. Militiamen were paid for their weapons. The payments sometimes amounted to hundreds of dollars.

The weapons buyback program is scheduled to run through Friday.

In an interview at an American base on the edge of Sadr City, Col. Robert B. Abrams, commander of the First Brigade of the First Cavalry Division, charged with controlling the volatile neighborhood, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the Sadr organization's efforts, despite the fact that Mr. Sadr and his fighters violated truces several times over the summer.

"He has a stated agenda at this point to enter the political arena in this country," Colonel Abrams said. "If he were to bring his militia back together, he knows he'll never have that chance again."

The colonel said that at the end of the week, his officers and Iraqi security forces will make a final tally of the amount of heavy weapons turned in, then give feedback to Mr. Sadr's aides. After that, he said, his soldiers will work with the Iraqi police and national guard to conduct searches throughout Sadr City to root out anyone who still possesses illegal weapons. According to Iraqi law, each household is allowed to have one AK-47 per adult male.

Violence continued to rage in the Iraqi capital following suicide car bombs Sunday that killed at least 10 Iraqis and an American soldier.

The American military said in a statement that two American soldiers were killed and five were wounded in a rocket attack today at 8 a.m. in southern Baghdad. In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomber attacked an American convoy, killing two civilians and wounding 18, hospital sources said in a Reuters report. The American military said there were civilian and military casualties.

The First Brigade has been engaged in heavy fighting with members of the Mahdi Army, Mr. Sadr's zealous militia, since Mr. Sadr rallied his supporters in early August to battle Marines in the southern holy city of Najaf. The marines routed the Mahdi Army there and gained control of a central shrine, forcing many of the militiamen to flee back to their homes in Sadr City. It fell to the First Brigade to force Mr. Sadr to the negotiating table by keeping up attacks against the militia.

American soldiers currently have fairly good control over the bottom third of Sadr City, but less oversight over the rest of the neighborhood, which measures almost nine square miles, Colonel Abrams said.

He said his troops kill more than 10 fighters on a slow day, more than 40 on a medium-paced day and more than 100 on a busy day. Asked how many busy days his soldiers had encountered, he simply said, "A lot, a lot."

Starting about a month ago, the colonel's unit began staging almost nightly airstrikes, using fighter jets and an AC-130 gunship to fire missiles and cannons into the streets. The soldiers decreased the number of ground patrols. The reason for this change in tactics, the colonel said, is because Sadr City "is a minefield right now; it's a very complex minefield."

Militiamen recently began a prolific campaign to plant roadside bombs throughout the streets of the slum, using plastic explosives, artillery shells and other material. On one stretch of road measuring less than 5,000 feet, First Brigade soldiers found 120 bombs, about one every forty feet. Roadside bombs are the most common killers of American soldiers in Iraq, and the colonel said he decided to rely more on airstrikes to root out the militia.

American soldiers have had to do much of the fighting in Sadr City because of weaknesses in the Iraqi police force here, Colonel Abrams said. He estimated that at least 7,000 police officers are needed to properly secure Sadr City, a place of 2.2 million people. Of the 800 police officers assigned to the area, he said, only 500 show up for work.

"They're out-manned, out-gunned and, until recently, out-led by the militia," the colonel said. Because the police officers generally come from Sadr City, their families also face intimidation from Sadr followers, he added.

The Mahdi Army is less a discreet military organization than a populist movement, and, as in the past, it will be difficult to tell whether it has actually disbanded. Colonel Abrams said he intends to scrutinize the command structure of the militia to see if it holds together. But the ultimate measures of whether Mr. Sadr actually honors his peace offer are whether American soldiers and Iraqi security forces can move freely throughout Sadr City, whether reconstruction projects can get under way and whether Iraqis working with the Americans and the Iraqi government are intimidated, he added.

As for this week, he said, "my forces are operating in and around the area and are prepared to respond on short notice in the even that something bad happens."

[Whois]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1324721,00.html

Few Sadr rebels turn in arms

Monday October 11, 2004

Only a small number of followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr handed over their weapons today at the start of a ceasefire aimed at ending weeks of fighting between US troops and insurgents in the Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City neighbourhood.
Iraqi police at one of three arms collection points told Reuters they had received only a handful of weapons from Mr Sadr's Mahdi army militia so far, while officials at at another said they had received no weapons at all.

At Baghdad's al-Nasr police station, Maj Kadhim Salman told the Associated Press that fighters had turned in machine guns, TNT paste, land mines and other explosives. The rebels were supposed to be compensated for the weapons they turned in, but Maj Salman said those responsible for the payments had not turned up yet. Receipts were issued instead.

Malik Jomaa, 20, walked up to the station dressed in a tracksuit and with a white bag containing two grenade launchers slung over his shoulder.

"God willing, there will be no more fighting and Sadr City will live in peace," he said.

Outside Habibiya police station, Associated Press television filmed a pick-up truck offloading some 20 grenade launchers and dozens of mortar rounds while US soldiers kept watch from a distance.

The arms transfer is supposed to last five days, after which Iraqi police and national guardsmen will assume responsibility security in Sadr City, which is home to more than two million people.

In return, the government has promised to release detained Sadr followers provided they have not committed crimes. It has also suspended armed raids into the Shia stronghold in north-eastern Baghdad.

The Iraqi vice-president, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, welcomed the handover today as a "good and positive initiative", telling AP that he hoped other insurgent enclaves would follow Sadr City's example.

The country's prime minister, Ayad Allawi's interim administration has committed more than $500m to rebuilding Sadr City, the scene of weeks of heavy fighting between US troops and Mr Sadr's forces.

This is not the first time Iraqi authorities have tried to make peace with the Mahdi army. A peace deal brokered after heavy fighting in the holy city of Najaf in August allowed Mr Sadr's fighters to walk away with its weapons, and clashes continued in Sadr City.

So far, Mr Sadr has not pledged to disband his militia as the US military and Iraqi government have demanded. But US and Iraqi authorities are eager to end the clashes so they can concentrate on suppressing the country's more widespread Sunni insurgency.

The start of the Sadr City ceasefire coincided with an unannounced visit by the US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, who met yesterday with US and Iraqi commanders for a briefing on progress in US-led efforts to quell armed rebellion across the country.

On his one-day visit , Mr Rumsfeld spent 12 hours on the road from a dusty air base in Iraq's western desert, to the protective zone in Baghdad where the US embassy and the interim Iraqi government are preparing for January elections, to the provincial capital of Kirkuk in the north.

He said he saw evidence that Iraq was on the right track, but added he had witnessed little to indicate they will reach their goal soon.

"It won't be easy and it won't be smooth," he told several hundred South Koreans over dinner at their new outpost on the outskirts of Irbil, west of Kirkuk.

The US military also announced that two US soldiers had been killed and five others wounded today in a rocket attack in southern Baghdad. The names of the dead soldiers were withheld pending notification of their families.

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded today as a US military convoy passed by, witnesses said. First reports indicated it might have been a suicide attack. There was no immediate word on casualties.

[Ali]

Yeah, right. Oh, hey. look, I'm a militiaman coming to hand in my weapons, give me some cash and please don't take a photo of me or follow me home or watch where I go after this, I don't know where any more weapons are and I'm not going to fight any more, promise.

And the few fools who did show up with weapons weren't paid, they got receipts!!!