This will only rachet up tensions. Haven't we learned the lessons of
Black Hawk Down yet?

BTW, if Sadr's troops joined the resistance, their forces would
instantly double. Do we really want this?

---

16 Sadr Loyalists Killed in Assault
U.S.-Iraqi Mission Heightens Tensions With Shiite Cleric

By Jonathan Finer and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 27, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, March 26 -- U.S. and Iraqi special forces killed at least 16
followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday in a
twilight assault on what the U.S. military said was a "terrorist cell"
responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians.

Also Sunday, Iraqi forces found 30 headless bodies in an area north of
the capital. A health official said the killings appeared to have taken
place earlier in the day.

No U.S. or Iraqi service members were killed in the clash with Sadr's
supporters, which occurred in the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood
of Adhamiyah, in northern Baghdad, according to a U.S. military
statement. One Iraqi soldier was wounded, and 15 people were detained.
An unidentified hostage was found at the site, the statement said, along
with materials used to fashion homemade bombs.

Aides to Sadr, who is backed by one of the country's largest and most
feared militias, said those killed were innocents praying in the
al-Moustafa mosque in the Shaab neighborhood, well north of Adhamiyah,
when the assault began at 6 p.m.

The U.S. military said in a statement that "no mosques were entered or
damaged during this operation." The military also said U.S. forces came
under fire as the raid began and then returned fire. It was impossible
to verify where the raid took place because of the nightly
government-imposed curfew that began at 8 p.m., hours before news of the
incident broke.

The killings further inflamed an already volatile political situation as
Iraqi leaders struggle to form a new government in the face of mounting
sectarian violence. An outspoken opponent of the U.S. presence in Iraq,
Sadr has become a potent political force, fielding more than 30 loyal
members in Iraq's new parliament. The incident Sunday was one of the
deadliest encounters between his followers and U.S. and Iraqi forces
since his Mahdi Army militia waged two violent uprisings in 2004.

"I think we are going to have a firm stance against the American forces
because of this crime," Salam al-Maliki, the country's transportation
minister and a close Sadr ally, said on al-Iraqiya television. The
network aired footage throughout the night of bloody bodies lying on a
concrete floor and men wrapping the corpses in blankets by the light of
glow sticks and carrying them away.

Maliki blamed the incident on U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has
accused the Mahdi Army of carrying out a slew of recent killings in the
wake of the bombing last month of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra,
north of Baghdad.

In a statement read by a government spokesman on al-Iraqiya, Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari called for calm and said he had discussed the
incident with Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of U.S. forces in
Iraq, who Jafari said had "promised to investigate."

"We call upon the sons of our people to be aware of what is being
plotted against the country," Jafari said. "We hope that they will enjoy
patience till the conclusion of the ongoing, immediate investigations."

An aide to Jafari, who was endorsed by Sadr's political wing to retain
his job in the next government but is opposed by other Iraqi factions,
said the government was not notified about the raid in advance.

"The incident has injured the whole political process," said the aide,
who spoke on condition of anonymity, referring to the deliberations
about the composition of the next government that have deadlocked since
elections in December. "Some leaders will be dismayed of this situation
and hesitate to participate knowing that such an incident took place and
how the government was not aware. We need to sort of calm down the
situation now."

The clash in the Iraqi capital was one of several incidents Sunday that
had potentially far-reaching political ramifications. Also in Baghdad,
U.S. and Iraqi forces stormed an Interior Ministry detention facility
and found 17 foreign prisoners. News services reported that as many as
40 police officers were detained in the operation, which came after
pledges by U.S. commanders to crack down on abuse of detainees following
recent disclosures of torture in at least two Iraqi-run prisons.

The aide to Jafari said that no evidence of torture was found and that
the prisoners included Sudanese, Egyptians and other Arab nationals, all
of whom were awaiting deportation because they lacked proper
identification. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said
he had "no releasable information" on the incident.

Elsewhere in Iraq, army and medical officials in Diyala province,
northeast of Baghdad, said 30 headless bodies were discovered at 6:30
p.m. in a deserted brush area in Tarfiya, a village outside Baqubah, 35
miles from the capital.

Tariq Shallal Hiyali, deputy director of the provincial health
department, said all of the bodies were male.

In an unrelated case also in Diyala province, a source in the Iraqi
Interior Ministry said Sunday that a security officer had been arrested
about three days earlier and charged with heading a criminal gang whose
members dressed as security officers to kidnap and kill people. The
official, who would not be quoted by name, identified the arrested man
as Arkan Mohammed al-Bawi, 32. He said Bawi had confessed during
interrogation that his gang members wore police uniforms stolen during
attacks on police checkpoints and that they had killed "many people."

The Reuters news service reported that Bawi was a police major and that
his brother is the chief of police in Diyala province.

Iraq has been plagued by incidents in which gunmen dressed as security
officers have abducted and killed civilians. Sunni politicians have
charged that the groups are targeting Sunni Arabs and are being harbored
by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry, an allegation denied by the Iraqi
government.

Also on Sunday, at least 10 more bodies were found in three places in
the capital, an official in the Baghdad police operations room said on
condition of anonymity. Five had their hands bound and had been shot in
the head, and five showed signs of torture and had been shot in the
chest and stomach, he said. All were unidentified men between the ages
of 20 and 40, he said.

Meanwhile, in an incident apparently unrelated to the clashes involving
his followers in Baghdad, Sadr escaped injury when two mortar shells
struck near his Najaf home while he was inside.

Mustafa Yacoubi, a top aide to Sadr in Najaf, said the shells appeared
to have been fired at close range from another house in the
neighborhood, an area in northeastern Najaf that is controlled by Sadr's
Mahdi Army. Angry followers of the young cleric surrounded Sadr's home
after the attack.

The cleric, who is believed to be in his thirties, issued a statement
calling for calm among his followers, who have been accused of deadly
retaliatory attacks on Sunnis following other provocations, which Sadr
often blames on the West.

"I call upon my brothers not to be dragged into the West's plots," he
said in the statement. "Everybody should stay calm."

Correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer and special correspondents Naseer Nouri
and Saad al-Izzy in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Hassan Shammari in
Baqubah contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company