U.S. tries to isolate militant ayatollah

• Published in: Deseret news (Salt Lake City, Utah : 1964)
• Main Author: Tyler Marshall and David Lamb Los Angeles Times
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Salt Lake City, Utah Deseret Digital Media 19.10.2003
• Subjects: Hassani, Mahmood; Hussein, Saddam
• ISSN: 0745-4724

The battle here between U.S. and Iraqi police and the followers of Ayatollah Mahmood Hassani claimed the life of a U.S. military police battalion commander and left several Americans wounded. Two Iraqi police officers and a large but undetermined number of Hassani's armed followers also were killed. The senior officers' presence underscored the high stakes involved for the United States in ending the standoff without more fighting. Shiites make up a majority of Iraq's population and in general have been supportive of the U.S. occupation, in part because they suffered so during the rule of Saddam Hussein, who is a Sunni Muslim. Any serious erosion of Shiite support could seriously jeopardize America's effectiveness in Iraq. --Thousands of U.S. and British troops conducted a series of coordinated raids and sweeps on the Al Faw peninsula in southeast Iraq aimed at disrupting criminal and smuggling activity from the city of Basra to the Persian Gulf, U.S. commanders said. Krivo, the spokesman, declined to characterize the operation as the largest since Iraq fell to U.S. and British forces last April, but said: "This is a major operation, larger than what we usually see. It will intensify during the next 48 hours." Military officials said the troops, including 2,000 Marines and sailors, had seized oil barges, oil boats, and other vehicles and had arrested 80 persons.