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In Holy City, Things Are Going Right
U.S. Forces and Iraqis Work Together in Shiite Stronghold of Karbala
Anthony Shadid, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, June 11, 2003; Page A01
KARBALA, Iraq -- Hundreds of demonstrators surged through streets snarled
with traffic. They coursed past the gold-leaf dome of one of Shiite Islam's
most sacred shrines, past grimy walls plastered with portraits of young men
killed by Saddam Hussein's government and past the hovels of pilgrims.
Through a rickety bullhorn came chants demanding that U.S. forces occupying
Karbala pay the salaries of soldiers in the disbanded Iraqi army and
pensions to veterans.
But the protest Monday was perhaps most remarkable for what was missing.
Not once was there a chant denouncing the U.S. occupation, a staple of
demonstrations elsewhere in Iraq. A request by U.S. troops for the crowd to
make way for military vehicles prompted protesters to shout: "Get back! Get
back!" The crowd hurriedly did.
In a city so sacred that its soil is used to make the stones on which
Shiites bow their heads in prayer, the American occupation of Karbala --
1,110 U.S. troops in a city of 500,000 -- has emerged as a rare example of
a postwar experience gone right.
In gestures large and small -- from reopening an amusement park with free
admission to restoring electricity to twice its prewar level, from stopping
looting with a rapidly reconstituted police force, to a conscious effort to
respect religious sensitivities -- Karbala seems to have avoided the
bitterness and disenchantment that has enveloped Baghdad and other cities.
"It's not Fort Apache," said Marine Lt. Col. Michael Belcher, the city's
senior American officer and a native of Temple Hills, Md.
===
December 28, 2003
Multiple attacks wreak havoc on Iraqi city
4 coalition soldiers, 6 Iraqi police, 1 civilian killed; over 170 hurt
KARBALA, Iraq - Insurgents using car bombs, mortars and machine guns
launched three coordinated attacks in the southern city of Karbala on
Saturday, killing 11 people - including six Iraqi police officers and four
coalition soldiers, military and hospital officials said.
Two of the four coalition dead were from Thailand. An Iraqi civilian also
was killed.
The attacks also wounded at least 172 people, with U.S. Army Brig. Gen.
Mark Kimmitt saying 37 of them were coalition soldiers, including five
Americans.
Some 135 Iraqi police officers and civilians also were wounded, said Ali
al-Arzawi, deputy head of Karbala General Hospital.
"It was a coordinated, massive attack planned for a big scale and intended
to do much harm," Maj. Gen. Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, head of the Polish-led
multinational force responsible for security around Karbala, said from his
Camp Babylon headquarters in comments carried on Polish television.
Orginating file:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3708151/
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