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By Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal
[...] The Iraqi government signaled that it was willing to take on the Mahdi Army inside its Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City and the outlying neighborhoods since Muqtada al Sadr ordered his militia to cease fighting six days after the Basrah operation began in March. Last weekend, Ali al Dabbagh, the spokesman for the government of Iraq, said Iraqi and US forces would "continue [operations] until we secure Sadr City." Multinational Forces Iraq said it was backing the Iraqi government and the military in its efforts.
The operation involves more than military operations, as the Iraqi government seeks to wrest control of the Mahdi Army's grip on public services inside Sadr City. "The aim now is to launch an ambitious plan of 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day public works and services -- improvement projects designed to convince the local population that the Iraqi government -– and not Sadr's Mahdi Army militia – is best able to improve the quality of life in an impoverished expanse of pot-holed streets, open sewers, and joblessness," the Christian Science Monitor reported. "US and Iraqi military are now set up and living among the Sadr City residents in the 'demonstration' area of the southern third of the sector."
Clashes in Sadr City continue as the Mahdi Army attempts to disrupt the government's attempts to gain a foothold in the neighborhood. US troops killed five "criminals" in a series of engagements starting on the evening of April 14 up through this afternoon. Two "criminals threw grenades at an M1A2 main battle tank followed by an additional two criminals engaging the armored patrol with small arms fire," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad told The Long War Journal. "The patrol of Abrams Tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles fired 25mm and 1 x 120mm HEAT round and killed all four."
Two more clashes took place in the early morning and afternoon of April 15. "Today, at approximately 3 a.m. an air weapons team reported five heavily armed criminals with 2 PKCs (machineguns) and multiple AK-47s," Stover said. "The group splits and the (air weapons team) engages and kills two criminals with a Hellfire missile. Finally, at 2 p.m. an (air weapons team) engaged a minivan transporting a mortar tube after radar acquisition identified the point of origin of a mortar attack. Both the minivan and the mortar tube were destroyed and the criminal killed." [...]