Pat Dollard | Young Americans

An Iraqi police officer mans a checkpoint in the southern city of Basra.

“U.S. and Iraqi officials have insisted the target of the crackdown was not the Sadrist political movement but criminals and renegade militias almost exclusively backed by Iran. Al Sadr’s statement: “I am in control”, was probably face-saving bluster to show that he, not Iran, was calling the shots. Some Sadrists however, believed the operation was aimed at weakening their movement before the provincial elections this fall.

Bergner accused “Iranian al-Quds Force of training special groups in Iraq and suppling them with weapons to attack U.S. troops.”

General Bergner noted, “Quds Force supplied the groups attacking the (U.S.-protected) Green Zone with mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, and training.”
The Quds Force is a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which reports directly to Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is classified as a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities”.

Baghdad, Apr 2 - A U.S. Military spokesman on Wednesday conceded there were problems in Basra, accusing Iran of training groups attacking the U.S.-fortified Green Zone.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a U.S. military spokesman, said “there were problems (with Iraqi security forces)in Basra.”

“Overall the majority of the Iraqi security forces performed their mission, though some were not up to the task,” he added.

Baghdad, along with several Iraqi cities, was gripped by clashes and heavy fighting, an hour after the Iraqi PM announced the start of an offensive dubbed as Saulat al-Fursan (Knights’ Assault) to clamp down on violence and to stop the growing criminal activities that paralyzed the oil-hub city of Basra.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have insisted the target of the crackdown was not the Sadrist political movement but criminals and renegade militias almost exclusively backed by Iran. Al Sadr’s statement: “I am in control”, was probably face-saving bluster to show that he, not Iran, was calling the shots. Some Sadrists however, believed the operation was aimed at weakening their movement before the provincial elections this fall.

Bergner accused “Iranian al-Quds Force of training special groups in Iraq and suppling them with weapons to attack U.S. troops.”

General Bergner noted, “Quds Force supplied the groups attacking the (U.S.-protected) Green Zone with mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, and training.”
The Quds Force is a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which reports directly to Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is classified as a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities.

The U.S. military spokesman termed the security situation in Baghdad’s neighborhoods of Sadr city, Shuala, and Kadhimiya as “challenging.”
He accused the three areas of “hosting extremist gunmen posing a challenge to Iraqi security forces to maintain stability and the rule of law.”

Iraqi authorities lifted the citywide curfew imposed on Baghdad on Thursday, but kept a vehicle ban over the the three Baghdadi districts, home to many loyalist of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, claiming the measure was to prevent terrorist attacks against these three strongholds.

(VOI)