(Sadr City Mahdi-man. Kareem Raheem/Reuters)
Two separate stories in the Times today detail fighting in Bagdad’s Sadr City between US backed Iraqi forces and Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army.Both shed a bit of humor on the casualness of war. Prank calls and IED planting are run of the mill activity…
BAGHDAD — The two Mahdi Army fighters shuffled across the sidewalk, dragging two heavy artillery shells that they laid horizontally in the middle of the Sadr City highway, placing them tip to end like rusting batteries in a pocket flashlight.
A trench, 4 feet long and 2 feet deep, had been dug in advance, taking up half the width of the main street.
It was halfheartedly concealed by an advertising sandwich board, although none of the hundreds of shoppers and passing drivers paid any attention to the two unmasked, casually dressed militiamen carrying out what is a relatively mundane activity for Sadr City, the Baghdad neighborhood that has been the focus of fighting between government forces and the Mahdi Army.
A few hundred yards along the road another roadside bomb was being laid, also in broad daylight. Again nobody blinked, and there were no government or American troops anywhere nearby to hinder the militia’s leisurely preparations.
This was the scene here on Thursday in the center of Moktada al-Sadr’s east Baghdad stronghold, where the Mahdi Army, led by Mr. Sadr, an anti-American cleric, remains in control of much of the district. In other areas there was heavy fighting with American and Iraqi forces, which continued into Thursday night.
“I’ll kill you” prank calls…from an embed:
TAGS: HBO, Iraq, Sandwich, warAs the Iraqi and American officers huddled, the Iraqi lieutenant said some of his soldiers had been receiving threatening calls on their cellphones from members of the Madhi Army warning them to leave. The Iraqi lieutenant could not say how the Mahdi Army obtained their phone numbers, but some Iraqi soldiers who participated in the Basra fighting deserted after their families were threatened.
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April 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
ski mask = essential accessory for street beef.