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Maliki Gives Militias In Basra 72 Hours To Give Up Fight
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If the military operation lasts longer than a week, said Ali Abbas Khafeef, 58, his household of four will run out of food. He said he needs medicine to treat stomach problems and a continuous headache. But he said all of it is worth it if the Iraqi military can bring the city under control.
"It's worse than any emergency situation in the world to have to be under the control of naive and uneducated people," said Khafeef, speaking of Basra's militias and gunmen.
Jasim, the emergency worker, described gains by the gunmen. "After two days we feel that the gunmen are in a better position because they are controlling the inside of the city blocks," he said, "while the military who have the main roads are getting attacked from inside the blocks."
But Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman, said that initial reports showed Iraqi forces making progress.
Two Iraqi army sources said Mahdi Army fighters had captured 14 Iraqi soldiers and their commander. They later released seven soldiers.
U.S. authorities, meanwhile, have identified the bodies of two more private security contractors who were abducted in southern Iraq on Nov. 16, 2006, their relatives said late Wednesday. They were identified as Joshua Munns, 25, a Marine veteran from Redding, Calif., and Paul Reuben, 41, a former police officer from Buffalo, Minn.
The men worked for Crescent Security Group. Five guards were abducted in the attack; one was identified Monday, along with another American contractor. Two Crescent contractors remain missing.
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington and Steve Fainaru in El Cerrito, Calif., and special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Dalya Hassan and Zaid Sabah in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
