A 96-hour assignment has turned into an open-ended mission for some Hawai'i Stryker brigade soldiers in Baghdad as fighting continues in Sadr City against militants loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
About 150 soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry "Gimlets" out of Schofield Barracks were sent into the Baghdad slum on March 26.
Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army has fought battles with U.S. and Iraqi forces in Sadr City after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on militias loyal to al-Sadr in Basra in the south. The fighting has spilled over into the capital.
"We had some significant contact when we first arrived," Capt. Scott Bailey, a Schofield soldier, said in an Army release. [...]