Word: iraqi
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...relative of the Iraqi civilian spokesman for security, Tahsin al-Sheikhli, who was kidnapped from his Baghdad home on Thursday, told TIME that the family suspected breakaway elements of the Mahdi Army to be behind the kidnapping. The gunmen also beat members of Sheikhli's family, killed three of his bodyguards - also from the Mahdi Army - and set the home on fire. So far no demands have been made...
Despite having been initiated by the Iraqi government, the offensive by Iraqi security forces against militiamen in Basra is increasingly drawing in the United States, both militarily and politically. U.S. air power was used in the key port city for the first time on Thursday night in support of Iraqi forces trying to dislodge fighters of Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army, and U.S. troops clashed with Mahdi Army militants in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City on Friday. President Bush, speaking in Washington, called the fight a "defining moment" for Iraq, but the clashes could have important implications...
...There has been Coalition air presence for four days," said Maj. Tom Holloway, a spokesman for the British military in Basra. He said that the request for air support had come from the Iraqi military, relayed through American and British liaison officers at the scene, and approved by U.S. military officials...
...Holloway would not say whether the introduction of U.S. air power had required political approval by American or Iraqi civilian officials, but indicated that the use of American support was a contingency that had been built into plans for the Iraqi military's ground offensive...
...interpreted in Western media reports to mean that the U.S. planes had dropped bombs in Basra. He told TIME Friday night that American planes used heavy machine guns - not explosives - to attack two militia positions. He said the first had been a mortar team that had been firing on Iraqi soldiers, while the second was a fortified position that Holloway said had been "teeming with enemy...