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Meanwhile, bombings killed dozens of Iraqis. In Mosul a suicide bomber drove into a military base and killed at least 13 police officers, according to the Associated Press. Mosul is the latest hotbed of insurgent violence. Seven Iraqis were also killed when a suicide bomber targeted a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad. The tactics and the targets are both hallmarks of the Sunni insurgency. The American troop surge and the defection of some insurgent groups to the American side has put tremendous pressure on radical religious insurgent groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). American commanders still call...
Could Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attempts to re-establish control over Basra backfire? There is a growing possibility that it could become a wider intra-Shi'ite war, drawing in the forces loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose ceasefire has been key to the success of the U.S. "surge"? If so, the consequences for American military strategy in Iraq in an all-important political year will be grave...
...could. Unlike many other southern cities where fighting has escalated in recent weeks, Maliki has built an independent power base among the security forces there. But Tuesday's sweep of Basra could turn sour in other southern cities where the central government's power is weak. Indeed, many Shi'ites are seeing this not just as an example of the Shi'ite Maliki taking on other Shi'ites (including Sadrists) but of America backing the Prime Minister up in a de facto Shi'a civil war. Iraqi government forces have attacked Shi'ite militias and gangs in at least seven...
...Iraq. They also come as he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates waffle over whether to withdraw five combat brigades by July, reducing troop levels down from about 158,000 to 140,000 - the pre-surge peak. If the fighting spreads to other southern cities and attacks by Shi'ite militias increase, intra-Shiite violence may be the wrench that jams the whole works of a meaningful reduction of troops...
While the focus this weekend on attacks on Baghdad has now turned towards Basra, violence has surged for weeks throughout the Shi'ite south, where Americans have suffered fresh losses in old haunts in the cities of Nasiriyah, Hilla and Diwaniyah. Meanwhile, the Shi'ite infighting in Basra has forced British forces to stall the planned withdrawal of some 1,500 troops. Some 4,000 British troops have been hunkered down at the Basra airport after turning the city over to Iraqi forces last year. So far they have not been drawn from their base into this week's fighting...