

The fighting between Iraq's Shi'ite factions appears to be metastasizing. What started in Basra and jumped to Baghdad's Sadr City has now spread across the capital, eyewitnesses tell Iraqslogger. Here's one set of reports, just from the Sha'b district.

*Clashes erupted again on Thursday in the Sha'b area, including Thursday afternoon in the Sabah al-Khayat square of the northeastern district. Three cars carrying at least five Mahdi Army gunmen armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and PKC launchers passed through the square in front of an Iraqi forces checkpoint, security sources said. The militiamen fired into the air as they approached. Iraqi forces returned fire and a clash ensued. Three militiamen and one policeman were killed in the firefight, along with five militiamen and one policeman injured. * *At 1:00 am in Sha'b on Wednesday night, more than 70 Mahdi Army fighters attacked a police station. Two policemen were killed along with seven Mahdi Army members, and eight militiamen were injured in the fighting. Locals also report that a sound bomb had landed in Sha'b's main market Wednesday, forcing people to close their shops. Some suspect that Mahdi Army elements may have been involved in the attack as a way to force Iraqis to observe the "civil disobedience" called for by the Sadrist leadership. * *On Thursday evening, a **Sahwa [neighborhood watch] checkpoint was attacked in Sha'b, locals say. Two cars filled with armed men approached from different directions firing Kalashnikov rifles at the installation, then a gunman in one of the vehicles fired an RPG rocket. *Sahwa forces returned fire and forced the attackers to run... *In the last two days, as **Sahwa checkpoints have drawn attacks from Mahdi Army militiamen, locals say that several of the installations have been merged together to make them more defensible. Iraqi authorities also brought reinforcements from other **Sahwa councils into Sha'b on Thursday. Locals say that Mahdi Army militiamen have targeted the residences of some **Sahwa members in the area. *

Now. Sha'b is in eastern Baghdad, not that far from Sadr City. But even in southwestern Baghdad, clear on the other side of town, there's trouble, Iraqslogger reports:

*Eyewitnesses in the southwestern areas of Risala and

Muwasalat report that even in these places, where the Mahdi Army is not in control of the area, continued on Thursday to move around the area in their automobiles and fire into the air defiantly. * *Meanwhile, in nearby Bayya', the corpse of a member of the Badr organization, widely recognized as the paramilitary wing of the Supreme

Iraqi Islamic Council was found in the street on Thursday, locals say. * *Heavy fighting also erupted in the al-Muhit Street that runs around the perimeter of Kadhimiya. As four American Humvees passed in the street, members of the Mahdi Army attacked them, according to local sources. The clashes continued for 15 minutes before the militiamen fled, leaving behind seven of their dead. Four injured militiamen were arrested by the US forces. Eyewitnesses said they saw one US soldier injured in the attack. *

American forces are involved, too. There's been at least one air strike on Sadr City. And several Mahdi Army commanders tells the Washington Post that "they had been fighting U.S. forces for the past three days in Sadr City, engaging Humvees as well as the Stryker [armored vehicles]. By their account, an Iraqi special forces unit had entered Sadr City from another direction, backed by Americans, but otherwise the fighting had not been with Iraqis."

"If Abu Muqawama was leading one of those U.S. units into Sadr City past a bunch of Iraqi Army soldiers hanging out on the outskirts, he would not be happy."

He would be asking himself a) why is he the one establishing the authority of the Iraqi state and not the Iraqi Army and b) why is he duking it out with a militia with broad popular support so that another Iran-backed political party can win a bigger share of the vote in the fall? Now Iraqi Army units are calling for U.S. and UK military units to lend direct support in Basra as well. In Lebanon, in September 1983, the U.S. lent direct support to what it assumed was a national institution, the Lebanese Army, in the battle at Souk el-Gharb. By doing so, it became, in the eyes of the rest of the Lebanese population, just another militia. The U.S. history in Iraq is more complicated, obviously, but what's happening now is the U.S. is throwing our lot in with ISCI in the upcoming elections. And all Abu Muqawama is saying is, there better be a whole lot of quid pro quo going on as well.

*(Photo: Kareem Raheem/Reuters) *

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