
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....