(from Full Spectrum Disorder - The Military in the New American Century, pp. 53-57, from Chapter 5, "Somalia - The Meanings of Bakara" by Stan Goff)

South Mogadishu - 1993

In Somalia, all (Somali) parties significantly, and predictably, strengthened their defensive postures to ensure they held onto the terrain they already controlled.

A Pakistani attack in June 1993 against Mohammed Farah Aidid’s Somali National Alliance (SNA) in Mogadishu met that well-prepared defense, and the SNA delivered them a decisive tactical defeat that pivoted on a very well-prepared anti-armor ambush – which the Day paper refers to, demagogically, as a "massacre." The SNA’s next major ambush would be against the Americans in Bakara.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have marched in Baghdad to denounce the US presence in Iraq and call for a speedy trial of Saddam Hussein on the second anniversary of his overthrow.

Friday 08 April (al Jazeera, Agence France-Press)

Iraqi leaders have called for a mass demonstration against the US-led troop presence on the second anniversary of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government.

An Old U.S. Foe Rises Again in Iraq
Shiite Mahdi Army Growing Bolder in South
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page A01

GHARAF, Iraq - Over the loudspeakers set up in this small town in a backwater of southern Iraq, the commands came in staccato bursts. "Forward!" a man clad in black shouted to the militiamen. "March!"

Sadr Group Signals Rejection Of Election
Shiite Cleric Eyes Role Outside System
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Around the corner from a five-mile line stretching toward a gas station, past election posters calling voting a religious duty, hundreds of bleary-eyed protesters threw down what goes for prayer carpets among followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr. They put down black-checkered kaffiyehs, the sweaters they wore, sacks of flour distributed as government rations and, most commonly, scraps of cardboard.

By Michael Schwartz - http://www.atimes.com

Sadr City - the overcrowded, under-serviced 3 million-person Baghdad slum that has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq - is the linchpin of the war.

from juancole.com, august 11th, 2004.

The US military pounded Mahdi Army positions in the vast cemetery of Najaf again on Tuesday, with artillery and aerial bombardment. The Americans also began asking the civilian population (ordinarily nearly half a million strong) to leave the city, spurring fears that the US planned another massive assault. The suqs or traditional markests of downtown Najaf have already been reduced to rubble by US bombings.

from juancole.com " US Attack "Uncivilized": Jafari
Fresh Violence in Sadr City 15 US Soldiers Wounded, 3 Dead in recent Fighting".

Before I go over the details, here is my reading of what is going on in Najaf. The truce between the Mahdi Army and US/ Iraqi forces broke down because they had different ideas of what the truce entailed. US-appointed governor Adnan al-Zurufi had demanded that the Mahdi Army disarm and/or leave Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr on the other hand interpreted the truce to entail limiting his militia's activities to certain areas of the city and to have them avoid clashes with police and US troops.

July 17, 2004, by TOM LASSETER, Knight Ridder Tribune News

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - From directing traffic to organizing blood drives, the militia overseen by firebrand cleric Muqtada al Sadr is taking control of Baghdad's largest neighborhood even as Iraqi and U.S. officials demand that the group disband.

Resistance attacks continue despite handover

by Al Jazeera

Tuesday 29 June 2004 6:23 GMT

Three US marines have been killed in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad in the first reported fatal attack on US occupation forces in Iraq since the formal handover of authority to an interim government.

NOTE: Dr. Allawi is the editor in chief of the Baghdad left wing weekly paper Al Ghad. Ibrahim was a left wing political activist for the past 55 years, he was in exile for the past 35 years from the Baath regime. He was sentenced to death in abscentia in the 70's by Saddam Regime. Al Ghad newspaper is the leading newspaper in Baghdad against the occupation, it used to be published as a quarterly in London from 1978. After the collapse of Saddam regime it started to be published in Baghdad as a weekly from the beginning of this year (2004).

Sadr's followers declare cease-fire
Guerillas offer to cooperate with army, police

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has declared a unilateral cease-fire with U.S. forces in the Baghdad district of Sadr City and has offered to help police ensure safety in the area, a statement said today.

'This is the only fun the kids get - shooting at the US sitting ducks'

Who exactly are the Iraqi resistance?

In a remarkable essay, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins the front-line anti-American fighters in Kerbala, Falluja and Sadr City...

UUI Statement Regarding the Announcement of the New Iraqi Government

In one of US tragic play’s chapters, a placement of a new government was announced. This announcement considered as a US extension policy and its efforts to take over the region and the world. That’s after the military government try-out who was about to declare the Marshal Law during the months of April, May, and June last year 2003 under Jay Garner leadership which failed miserably, the formation of Civil Provisional Authorities known as (CPA) headed by Paul Bremer, which in turn formed The Interim Governing Council known as (IGC), through all these chapters the US administration failed to come back with proper solution for the society’s dilemmas – and because they didn’t plan for it at all- they didn’t gain the sufficient legitimacy to handle the situation in Iraq.

A critical perspective on Muqtada al-Sadr.
***

Moqtada al-Sadr’s group, Iran’s betting hoarse

from wpiraq.org

By Fahad Nasir

The bloody developments and continuous war in Iraq between the occupation forces and gangs of al-Sadr have clarified among other facts, the role the Islamic regime in Iran and how it stands behind many horrifying crimes and events whether through the Iranian intelligence (Itlaat) or through various political Islamic movements. This reactionary and terrorist regime, its intelligence agency and bloody “revolutionary guards” stand behind many explosions, armed operations and increasing confrontation with the occupation forces, including current street to street fighting and killing innocent civilians and destroying their houses by haphazard shooting and bombardment by both parties of this war. It also stands behind all manifestations of reaction and brutality which prevail in the south of Iraq. These parts of Iraq are now, in a way, under the rule of the Islamic Republic regime through the Shiite Islamic movements. These reactionary movements impose on people all manifestation of reaction, backwardness, climate of terrorism, killings, sectarian frictions, oppression against women, and rightlessness.

The “Iraqi Resistance” and Worker-communists

from www.wpiraq.org

May 18,2004

“The situation in Nasiriyiah today May 18th is
relatively calm. The Mahdi Army fled the fight against

By Aladdin Saad

TAJI, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi security force base just north of Baghdad Sunday, killing nine people and wounding dozens in the latest attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying troops.

Two Killed in Attack on Convoy in Baghdad
Sunday May 30, 2004 7:01 PM
By MARIAM FAM
Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - U.S. soldiers clashed with Shiite gunmen in this holy city on Sunday, further eroding an agreement to end the bloody standoff with followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Gunmen, meanwhile, attacked a convoy of sport utility vehicles in Baghdad, killing at least two people, witnesses said.

Sadr standoff comes to an end
Iraqi negotiators struck a Fallujah-like deal in Najaf. But what happens to Sadr now?
By Orly Halpern | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD - A Shiite uprising which swept southern Iraq for the past seven weeks, and boosted rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's popularity nationwide, now appears over. Thursday a Fallujah-like deal was struck in the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa, where Mr. Sadr's militiamen had fought for days against US-led coalition forces.

Mehdi Army Grows
by Dahr Jamail; The NewStandard; May 26, 2004

Baghdad, May 25 -- While US troops continue to damage mosques in heavy fighting against resistance forces they say are holed up in holy sites of Kufa and Kerbala, men in the Sadr City area of Baghdad rushed yesterday to join the Mehdi Army, a militia force loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr.

Cleric's forces gather for new offensive

Luke Harding in Abu Ghraib
Tuesday May 11, 2004
The Guardian

The radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, yesterday ordered his followers to launch a new offensive against American and British troops, in what appears to be a final and possibly decisive showdown with coalition forces across Iraq.

Shiite Cleric's Militia Seizes Control of Baghdad Slum

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 10, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, May 9 -- Gunmen and commanders loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr took over the giant Sadr City slum in Baghdad on Sunday, seizing control of police forces, municipal administration and schools and blocking freedom of movement in an area just five miles east of U.S. administration headquarters.

Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Two Attacks
Reports of Fighting Between U.S. Troops and Shiite Militia in Najaf

NAJAF, Iraq, May 6 -- Insurgents attacked U.S. troops Thursday in the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Najaf and Karbala after American armored units in both cities moved to assert authority by seizing key buildings.

Al-Sadr City: Support from the impoverished

By May Ying Welsh in Baghdad - Al Jazeera

Wednesday 28 April 2004, 8:46 Makka Time, 5:46 GMT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed in clashes with guerrillas in the Iraqi flashpoint town of Falluja and two were killed when a building they were searching exploded in Baghdad Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb exploded by a U.S. patrol in Baghdad on Sunday, killing a U.S. soldier and sparking a gunbattle in the vicinity of Iraqi children, the military said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 17 — The United States military command on Saturday closed down long stretches of two strategic highways leading to Baghdad, as American troops labored against insurgent attacks that have severely reduced the flow of food, fuel and other supplies into the capital.

2 Articles:

1. 3 U.S. soldiers are killed in Iraq attack

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 17 (UPI) -- Iraqi gunmen reportedly fired rocket propelled grenades at a U.S. patrol in a Baghdad suburb Saturday, killing three soldiers and wounding three others.

In an effort to toughen the Iraqi forces, Abizaid said the U.S. military will reach out to former senior members of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army — a reversal in strategy. The military has tried to avoid relying on top officials from the ousted regime. "It's ... very clear that we've got to get more senior Iraqis involved — former military types involved in the security forces," he said. "In the next couple of days, you'll see a large number of senior officers being appointed to key positions in the ministry of defense and the Iraqi joint staff and in Iraqi field commands."

Agence France-Presse
April 10, 2004

Imam calls for strike to protest against US offensives

-[T]he Committee of Islamic Clerics has...called for a
boycott of "all American and British goods and