On 12 July 2007, [...] Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment embarked on a mission to clear Al-Amin District of New Baghdad of Anti-Iraqi Forces, aka Mehdi Militia, aka Jayish al-Mahdi in order to provide freedom of maneuver to Coalition Forces. By 10:20 AM, Baghdad time, they had taken significant amounts of SAF (small arms fire) and RPG (rocket propelled grenade) fire, sporadically. Two AH-64D's were in the area and responded. What would happen next would inspire a movie, that would be nominated for an Oscar, but not win one.
"Now the war is over and in a lot of ways we're still fighting it. It is my accretion that despite what many leaders of this very government said publicly or otherwise, we won. We won through the blood sweat and tears of the troops on the ground, that refused to give up." Doc Bailey
To understand the situation, one must realize the Mehdi Militia was led by Moqtada al-Sadr, a relative of Bani al-Sadr, who had mentored the Ayatollah Khomeni. Moqtada's father had been assassinated, allowing the firebrand mulllah to take the reins of power his father had once held. Moqtada was at the time, for all intents and purposes, the dictator of a Million Man slum in North Baghdad controlled 100% by his Mehdi Militia.
He was receiving direct support from Iran, in the form of finances, equipment, training, weapons, and IED's (improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, car bombs, & booby traps) to include EFP's (explosively formed projectiles) which can penetrate multiple inches of hardened steel armor. The slums controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr were renamed by him as "Sadr City." He refused to let any outsider in, even Iraqi trash collectors were shot on sight. Training was provided to his terrorists by the Quds Force of the Iranian Islamist Revolutionary Guard, which report directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khameni....
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