Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Iraq Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Pre-Surge Working - Rats Fleeing Ship
swhitebull    2/13/2007 7:03:01 PM
CNN is Reporting tonight that Muqtada al-Sadr has left for Iran. swhitebull
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7   NEXT
Plutarch       2/13/2007 7:42:07 PM
Probably has nothing to do with the surge; if he is indeed in Iran.  It could be a repeat of the "Nasrallah is in Syria" story from last summer.  The source is senior US administration officals (Read: Dick Cheney) so I'm not holding my breath that he is right.
 
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

HYPOCENTER    We missed our chance (again)   2/13/2007 8:42:11 PM
A very interesting development. He's probably sitting across the table of Ahmadenjad right now, crating plans for an Iraqi "tet-offensive".

Were we going to take him out anyway or not? If we were, I'm sad he left and we missed our chance... since he'll now wait to come back until either we are gone or are unable to kill him politically.



 
Quote    Reply

swhitebull       2/13/2007 8:53:29 PM
Now that ive got the kids to bed, im reviewing what I heard on Wolf Blitzer's show, and from CNN's website:
 
 
 
Nothing in the article says that Cheney was the source, nor did Wolf Blitzer's lede.  The CNN report said that al-Sadr's militias were fragmenting, and Ive seen in several other articles that they were also dispersing/disbanding in advance of the surge. The CNN lede also said that there were elements in al-Sadr's militia that were looking to assassinate him, for betraying "the cause", and, as we know, US forces have been detaining many of his top thugs  lieutenants since the announcement of increased US forces. al-Sadr has also-  in an attempt to curry favor with Maliki - has recently said that the surge is a great idea, and that his members in the Iraqi parliament should drop their opposition.  We know that their is still that little matter of the existing arrest warrant for murder over his head, and I wouldnt be surprised if he isnt a prime target of US forces once the surge gets going.
 
 
To me, it all adds up to he's scared shitless for his worthless hide, and went to his backers in Iran for succor and protection.  The key test will be if he is allowed back in the country by Maliki, and what happens to his forces the longer he stays out of Iraq, and if they see him as just another in a long line of sniveling demagogues who are willing to put their own people's lives on the line, rather than their own.
 
 
swhitebull
 
Quote    Reply

Herc the Merc       2/13/2007 8:59:03 PM
He went a few weeks ago to meet family. Obviously he is worried that the coming mayhem anybody could be packing from planet earth. Yup he is hiding in Iran sipping that bootleg vodka and playing video games.
 
Quote    Reply

swhitebull    ABC Reporting as well   2/13/2007 9:11:32 PM
From LittleGreenFootballs:

Mookie Bails

ABC News says the black-turbaned Muqtada al-Sadr has taken it on the lam: Al Sadr Fled Iraq, Fearing U.S. Bombs. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Feb. 13, 2007 — The story tonight in Iraq is not the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country’s most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army.

According to senior military officials al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago, and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.

Al Sadr commands the Mahdi Army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.

Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, “He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house.”

Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr.

Though he is gone for now, many think al Sadr is not gone for good. In Tehran he is trying to keep the Madhi militia together.

 
 
swhitebull - note that the military command is reporting on this, and his fear of JDAMs upo his ass.
 
Quote    Reply

Plutarch       2/13/2007 9:15:33 PM

Yeah it was picked up by the wires now:

 

Al-Sadr left his Baghdad stronghold some weeks ago, the official said, and is believed to be in Tehran, where he has family. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. monitoring activities, said fractures in al-Sadr's political and militia operations may be part of the reason for his departure. The move is not believed to be permanent, the official said

 

 

If Sadr could beat an arrest warrant for murder, survive two uprisings against the US, play king-maker in the new Iraqi government, start the process of Sunni ethnic cleansing, and play an instrumental role in executing Saddam I don’t think he is all that scared about an additional 20,000 troops.  That number only takes the US to 160,000 or so, or roughly where it was in 2004 when his then much weaker militia challenged the US.

 
Quote    Reply

swhitebull       2/13/2007 9:20:45 PM


Yeah it was picked up by the wires now:


 


Al-Sadr left his Baghdad stronghold some weeks ago, the official said, and is believed to be in Tehran, where he has family. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. monitoring activities, said fractures in al-Sadr's political and militia operations may be part of the reason for his departure. The move is not believed to be permanent, the official said


 


 


If Sadr could beat an arrest warrant for murder, survive two uprisings against the US, play king-maker in the new Iraqi government, start the process of Sunni ethnic cleansing, and play an instrumental role in executing Saddam I don’t think he is all that scared about an additional 20,000 troops.  That number only takes the US to 160,000 or so, or roughly where it was in 2004 when his then much weaker militia challenged the US.




We shall see. Visiting his 'family' is a convenient cover for getting out of Dodge before the bullets start flying, with 15 new fresh battalions trained in COIN, combined with those already in Baghdad, led by a General (Petraius sp?) who 1) wrote the current book on COIN; 2) is partitioning Baghdad into 10 grids for cleanup and control operations; and 3) said that Mookie was high on their shit list.
 
swhitebull
 
Quote    Reply

swhitebull    RAT Update   2/14/2007 11:36:13 AM

From CaptainsQuartersBlog.com:

ABC: Sadr Bugs Out

Well, so much for the whole 72 virgins thing and the radical Islamist desire to die in martyrdom:

The story tonight in Iraq is not the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country's most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army.

According to senior military officials al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago, and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.

Al Sadr commands the Mahdi Army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.

Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News' Martha Raddatz, "He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house."

Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr.

 

This couldn't have come at a better time. Congress has tied itself in knots trying to opine on what a disaster the surge will be, and before they can vote on a resolution scolding George Bush for wasting resources, he's already chased one of the worst actors out of Baghdad. Nancy Pelosi will be holding a debate to disapprove of a strategy that has already demonstrated success.

And as for Sadr, this will destroy him and his Mahdi Army. ABC reports that Sadr wants to try to run the Mahdis from Teheran, but his credibility as a jihadi just tanked. Who's going to fight for someone who won't stand up for himself?

And the Iranians surely have to be thumping their foreheads over his bug-out. The US had just demonstrated that the Iranians had backed the insurgencies, which the Iranians disputed, and the chief of the Shi'ite militias announces that he's going to become a remote-control general from their turf. It's going to be very difficult for anyone to pretend that Iran has not actively fueled the insurgencies while Moqtada directs his armies by long-distance telephone calls.

This demonstrates that the US forces have seized the initiative in Baghdad, and that the Maliki government has apparently completely abandoned Sadr. It's a tremendous victory in the preliminary stages, and it sets the table for an end to the hottest part of the insurgencies in the Iraqi capital. (via Power Line)

UPDATE: His supporters claim Sadr is still in Iraq:

An Iraqi government official said al-Sadr was in the Shiite holy city of Najaf Tuesday night, when he received delegates from several government departments. The official, who is familiar with one of those meetings, spoke on condition of anonymity because he has no authority to disclose information on his department's activities.

The denials came after a senior U.S. official said Tuesday that al-Sadr left his Baghdad stronghold some weeks ago and is believed to be in Tehran, where he has family.

 

That should be pretty easy to confirm. Let him hold a press conference in Najaf -- he's safe enough doing that. He's not exactly been a shrinking violet in either Najaf or Baghdad, and if he's still in Iraq, he can confirm it rather quickly.
 
 
swhitebull
 
Quote    Reply

Ashley-the-man       2/14/2007 11:52:58 AM
"That should be pretty easy to confirm. Let him hold a press conference in Najaf -- he's safe enough doing that. He's not exactly been a shrinking violet in either Najaf or Baghdad, and if he's still in Iraq, he can confirm it rather quickly. "
 
While he is Iran maybe he can sit down for a photo op with Osama bin-Laden - if OBL is in fact still intact and not splattered along the walls of some cave in Tora Bora. 
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

swhitebull    OBL Speculation    2/14/2007 12:35:09 PM


"That should be pretty easy to confirm. Let him hold a press conference in Najaf -- he's safe enough doing that. He's not exactly been a shrinking violet in either Najaf or Baghdad, and if he's still in Iraq, he can confirm it rather quickly. "

 

While he is Iran maybe he can sit down for a photo op with Osama bin-Laden - if OBL is in fact still intact and not splattered along the walls of some cave in Tora Bora. 

 

 



Ash, my man.  Your wish is my command:
From CaptainsQuartersBlog.com:


Has Osama Died?
 
Hot Air noted a new message from al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, which pledges allegiance to Mullah Omar and the Taliban. He urges Muslims to unite behind Omar, but makes no mention of his AQ chief Osama bin Laden, who has gone silent for a long period of time:

In a message released Monday, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader called on Muslims to unite under Taliban leader Mullah Omar, stop trying to form secular governments and instead follow strict Islamic Sharia law.
The message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top aide to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, appeared on an Islamist Web site. ...

Al-Zawahiri pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar and called on all his followers to reject animosity and differences and come together under Mullah Omar's banner.

Mullah Omar is the elusive, shadowy Taliban leader who slipped away in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban held Afghanistan with an ultra-conservative government and sheltered al Qaeda.


Arabs tend to speak in flowery language, especially regarding politics, but this pledge of Zawahiri's allegiance sounds like a man without a leader. It has been more than a year since the last tape from bin Laden, one of his longest silences since 9/11. One might have expected an Osama tape crowing about Bush's midterm setback, or about the surge strategy in Baghdad, or perhaps the failure of the previous Baghdad security strategy.

Zawahiri has been more active, sending out a message every few weeks, trying to rally what's left of his organization. Usually they include statements of loyalty to Osama and urging the faithful to rally to bin Laden, not Mullah Omar. His focus on driving followers to Omar's banner in this latest message might indicate that bin Laden has reached room temperature, or less likely, been captured.

Osama hasn't stopped making news, even if he has stopped making tapes. The Washington Post has a lengthy description of the November 2003 series of bombings in Istanbul, which the Post reports as the last AQ terrorist attack personally authorized by bin Laden:

About a week before Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden sat down to a breakfast meeting in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. His Turkish guests had arrived with a plan for a spectacular terrorist strike, but according to accounts two of the visitors later gave investigators, there was no talk of business over the meal.
Instead, bin Laden held forth for an hour about the injustices Muslims were suffering at the hands of Israel and the United States, standard motivational remarks tailored slightly for the occasion: He told the visitors that one of his grandmothers was Turkish.

Afterward, outside the one-story house guarded by high walls and men with Kalashnikov rifles, it was al-Qaeda's military commander who gave the visitors $10,000 in cash and crucial words of guidance.

So began a plot that ended in November 2003 with the staggered detonation of four powerful truck bombs in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. The attacks, which killed 58 people and wounded 750, may have been the last terrorist strikes specifically authorized by bin Laden. Two months after breakfasting with the Turks, bin Laden was making for his base at Tora Bora as U.S.-led forces attacked across Afghanistan.


Like so much of radical Islamist expression, Turkey invited it for their own purposes. In the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey used extremist groups to attack Kurds in their eastern region as part of a civil war that has raged for some time. Like any parasitical infestation, the native Islamist extremists grew, outstripping their portfolio with the government in Istanbul and reaching out to like-minded organizations -- like al-Qaeda. The Turks brought this attack on themselves to a large extent.

These days, though, it is difficult to apply for AQ support, since the leaders have fled into the hills of Waziristan or its environs. Zawahiri now directs applicants to
 
Quote    Reply
1 2 3 4 5 6 7   NEXT



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics