Maine Owl

"Not authorized to release the information"

They did anyway, as the government police defect to the Mahdi Army.

U.S. warplanes widen bombings of Basra
Two precision-guided bombs dropped on conflict-riddled southern city

BAGHDAD (AP)- U.S. jets widened the bombing of Basra on Saturday, dropping two precision-guided bombs on a suspected militia stronghold north of the city hours after strafing a house and reportedly killing eight civilians, officials said.

Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said U.S. jets dropped the two bombs on a militia position in Qarmat Ali shortly before 12:30 p.m. The southern city of Basra is Iraq's commercial and oil hub, and Shiite militants have been battling Iraqi and coalition forces there for a week.

"My understanding was that this was a building that had people who were shooting back at Iraqi ground forces," Holloway said.

The number of people killed in the latest strikes was not yet known, he said.

Earlier, a U.S. warplane strafed a house in Basra and killed eight civilians, including two women and one child, Iraqi police said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the report.

The U.S. also has demonstrated the Israeli-inspired tactic of loosing "Hellfire" missiles into densely-populated areas as rocket attacks come back at the Green Zone:

U.S. Airpower Joins Basra Offensive
Americans Battle Sadr Militia in Baghdad as Green Zone Is Struck Again

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 29, 2008; Page A10

BAGHDAD, March 29 -- American aircraft struck militia targets in Basra on Friday, the first time that airpower has been called in to aid a faltering ground offensive there against armed groups that operate outside government control.

The U.S. military reported killing 78 "bad guys" in Baghdad in the past three days; American forces backed by combat helicopters continued Friday to battle members of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in Baghdad, while Iraqi forces took them on in the south. ...

At 4 a.m. in Sadr City, a helicopter killed four fighters who were engaging U.S. forces with small-arms fire, officials said. At 7 a.m., a U.S. helicopter's Hellfire missile targeted a vehicle armed with rocket-propelled grenades, killing two fighters in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghdad.

In general, these news stories are written from the Pentagon point of view. It's a "cowboys and Indians (bad guys)" characterization of the conflict. That's a serious mis-characterization, I think. The people in southern Iraq, for better or worse, actually give majority support to these Mahdi Army militias. The U.S./Iraq government attack is actually an attack on the majority of the Iraqi population in these areas.