#1 Al-Mahdi Army militias routed without a shot fired
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:39 am
timesonline
[quote]They came at dawn, thousands of Iraqi troops and US special forces on a mission to reclaim a lawless city from the militias who ran it.
By the end of the day, al-Amarah was under Iraqi Government control - without a shot being fired.
The city had been taken over by the Shia al-Mahdi Army two years ago after British troops handed it to an ill-prepared Iraqi Army. “We can't say al-Amarah was entirely bad, there are good people here, poor people. But the city was controlled by the al-Mahdi Army, and these people are all backed by Iran,â€
[quote]They came at dawn, thousands of Iraqi troops and US special forces on a mission to reclaim a lawless city from the militias who ran it.
By the end of the day, al-Amarah was under Iraqi Government control - without a shot being fired.
The city had been taken over by the Shia al-Mahdi Army two years ago after British troops handed it to an ill-prepared Iraqi Army. “We can't say al-Amarah was entirely bad, there are good people here, poor people. But the city was controlled by the al-Mahdi Army, and these people are all backed by Iran,â€