War Is Boring

“U.S. troops battled Iraqi police suspected of links to Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen, killing six in a rare firefight between American soldiers and their Iraqi partners,” the Associated Press reports. ”Friday’s clash underscored the deep infiltration of militants in the country’s security forces.”

In addition to the six police officers, seven gunmen were also killed in Friday’s clash in eastern Baghdad, sparked when U.S. troops arrested a police lieutenant, the American military said in a statement. It said the lieutenant was believed to be helping Iran organize Shiite militants and leading a cell involved in bomb and mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The Iraqi police have been a problem for a long time. Two years ago British troops in Basra told me they suspected local cops of answering to radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr. A year later, reforming the police was the heart of the U.K. strategy to retake Basra. Check it out in my C-SPAN video:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TK228Vsjw8Q" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Related:
Al Anbar cops turn a corner
Brits say cops improving
Basra cops murder U.S. journo
Basra cops = extremists?

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2. VoA News: U.S. Troops Experiment with New Strategy for Afghanistan
3. Axeghanistan ’09: The Baraki Barak County Fair
4. Chad Cops’ Shoot-to-Kill Order
5. West Bengal Cops Outgunned in Rebel Attack