Dozens of Blasts Rock Najaf; 3 American Troops Are Killed

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 16 — Iraqis meeting to pick an interim national assembly today agreed to send a delegation here in an attempt to convince a rebel Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, to end the fighting with American forces. Dozens of explosions echoed here early today as American marines fired artillery shells into the cemetery from their base three miles to the north, pressing on through the night in renewed fighting with rebels loyal to Moktada al-Sadr.

Barely a day after truce talks collapsed, two American soldiers were killed here on Sunday, part of a force of Army and Marine units that had pushed into the outer edge of Najaf's Old City and battled Mr. Sadr's fighters in the cemetery just north of the shrine of Imam Ali, a mosque revered by Shiite Muslims.

The American military said today that a third soldier attached to the First Marine Expeditionary Force, deployed in Al Anbar Province, was also killed on Sunday.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/international/16CND-NAJA.html

.. they also drop like rocks on the DU board. Sad.

Bring the war home to the American sheeple.

An Iraqi boy watches a burning U.S. Army tank after it came under attack by militants in the eastern Baghdad Shi'ite suburb of al-Sadr city August 16, 2004. Fresh fighting between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mehdi militia broke out in a Shi'ite slum in Baghdad, witnesses said. Photo by Stringer/Iraq (news - web sites)/Reuters

...who risked his life to get that photo. Who knows how it got out of Najaf.

Photo by Stringer/Iraq (news - web sites)/Reuters

The Capital where the Mercenaries of BlackWater and others strut and Preen.

Nice security EH ???

illegal war are devasting.

http://icasualties.org/oif/ count now at 943 US soldiers - the "we don't do body counts" US military will never acknowledge the price being paid by the civilians of Iraq.

Everyone the military kills will be labeled an "insurgent" regardless of the truth.

Our selfish country weeps over 16 dead in a freakin' hurricane and wails at their devastated trailer homes and moans about "rebuilding".

It makes me want to puke because not one of those (that may be an overgeneralization) that do that crap even think about the destruction being had at human hands and cold hearts.

Stories are starting to emerge that the real death toll is being covered up there, too. And that the likelihood of significant aid to those affected is as questionable in Florida as in Iraq.

The pattern of behavior of this wretched excuse for an administration is the same everywhere. It's just far worse where they think they can get away with it (in Iraq), whereas they still feel they have to at least make gestures in the direction of common human decency here at home.

If the media was actually doing what it's supposed to be doing, people would be outraged and this bunch of incompetent fools would be thrown into the deepest hole we could find.
Instead, we sleep walk through the days pinning all our hopes on November.
We don't know what the fuck is happening, butchery at the best, a fucking wholesale massacre at the worst. My biggest fear is that the world will know long before we do, and I fear the karma that we must pay.

Iraqi children look at a burning American armored vehicle attacked by insurgents during clashes with American troops in the volatile Sadr city neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites) Monday Aug. 16, 2004. National Conference delegates called Monday for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to abandon his uprising against U.S. and Iraqi troops and pull his fighters out of a holy shrine in Najaf. Details about the cause of the fire and whether the vehicle was occupied when it was attacked are unknown. (AP Photo/Adel Mizban)




Iraqi youths celebrate on top of a burning U.S. Army tank after it came under attack by militants in the eastern Baghdad's Shi'ite suburb of al-Sadr city August 16, 2004. Fresh fighting between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mehdi militia broke out in a Shi'ite slum in Baghdad, witnesses said. They said U.S. troops were sealing off the area, called Sadr City. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The US is now trying to surround an area containing 2 million people? That's akin to cordoning off Houston! Jesus Christ, what the hell are they thinking over there? I thought the nightmare scenario of the invasion was a Stalingrad - style house - to - house fight in Baghdad. Is the horror of urban warfare in an extremely dense population the plan now?

... or have been gravely injured.

I don't trust anything anymore... not even my own eyes.

I'd never see 'em anyplace else but here at the DU

You're priceless saigon68!

These are the photos Europe sees on a daily basis.

That is why they look on him as a MURDERER and a WAR CRIMINAL.

Except for Great Britain, where they have the subservient POODLE.

Aren't people going to miffed if their loved ones' remains get kinda blown up?

And this is WHAT THE CHIMP GOT

end of the tunnel. The evil doers and freedom haters are getting desperate 'cuz they know we are winning.

The fight is still going on there today.