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WASHINGTON D.C. (March 26, 2008) - Some 2,000 Iraqi security
force members yesterday entered Basra, Iraq, on a mission to crack
down on "lawlessness." Meanwhile, Iraqi and coalition forces have
renewed similar efforts in the Iraqi capital.
In Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his national
security ministers decided on and directed the Iraqi-led operation,
while coalition forces have only "limited involvement," Army Maj.
Gen. Kevin Bergner, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said
today.
"The lawlessness is going on under religious or political cover,
along with the smuggling of oil, weapons and drugs," said Bergner,
quoting a statement by Maliki. "These outlaws found support from
inside government institutions, either willingly or by coercion,
turning Basra into a place where citizens struggle to feel secure
for their lives and property."
Now in the second day of a "difficult and challenging" mission
in Basra, the roughly two-brigade-sized force comprising Iraqi
emergency response units, special operations forces, helicopter
operators and conventional forces is seeing some success, Bergner
told reporters.
"Initial reports are that they are making progress and they have
had some tough encounters in their initial day or so of
operations," Bergner said during a news conference in the Iraqi
capital.
The general emphasized the Basra operation is not aimed at
operatives of Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, who pledged in August to suspend offensive
operations against coalition forces and citizens and recently
extended that pledge. Neither is it a proxy war between the United
States and Iran, he said. Both have been reported in news media as
possible motives for the new operations.
"It is the government of Iraq taking responsible action
necessary to deal with criminals on the streets with weapons,"
Bergner said.
He added that the Basra mission reflects the growing ability of
Iraqi security forces, noting that coalition involvement is limited
to transition team members embedded with Iraqis, various
Iraqi-coalition liaison elements and some air assets.
In Baghdad, coalition and Iraqi security forces continue to work
to quell criminal behavior, including Iranian-backed "special
groups" and other elements perpetrating "indiscriminate violence."
Bergner noted that forces, however, are careful to exercise
operational restraint.
"We have not, for example, indiscriminately returned fire on the
locations from which the rockets have been launched," he said. "We
have not undertaken large-scale operations against neighborhoods,
just because that is where the indirect fire originated from."
Likewise, Bergner said, combined forces will continue to "show
restraint" to Jaysh al-Mahdi members who uphold Sadr's ceasefire
pledge.
Bergner underscored that operations in the Iraqi capital, as in
Basra, are not aimed at affiliates of particular religious or
political groups.
"The suggestion that coalition forces and Iraqi security forces
are targeting individuals because of their political affiliation is
simply incorrect," he said. "We are targeting criminals regardless
of their political or other affiliation. People who break the law
are arrested and subject to the rule of law."
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