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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

No one's talking about the Shia militias

Thinking about the recent Generals' claims (Odierno said that 73% of all attacks last month were from Shia militias, and Petraeus' claim that Iranian supplied, Shia militia fired EFP's accounted for a third of US combat deaths last month,) I got to wondering just what is being done about the Shia militias.

There have been several raids that have targeted particular cells, like the one earlier today that killed 30 in Sadr City, but if Shia militias do account for 73% of the attacks on US troops, we're not talking about just one or two targeted cells.

All of the focus right now is on foreign Sunni fighters. The theory seems to be that if the US can lower the number of "spectacular" bombings (I hate that name,) then the overall number of Shia reprisal attacks might be lowered.

But, if Shia militias are, in fact, conducting this level of violence against US troops, I think there's an issue beyond Al Qaeda, and it's an issue not being addressed in the current "surge" strategy.

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