ABC News:
US military intelligence sources tell ABC News that large shipments of weapons have been smuggled to Iraqi militia over the past five weeks, including dozens of Iranian supplied EFP's , or Explosive Form Projectiles, highly effective against armored vehicles.
The weapons were sent to Moqtada al Sadr's Shi'a militia, known as "Mahdi’s Army" who control Sadr City, a slum in northern Baghdad with a population of 2 million.
US and Iraqi intelligence units on the ground detected the shipments which are believed to be of Iranian origin. In addition, US military sources tell ABC, Al Sadr has been working on his own "surge," actively recruiting hundreds of residents of Sadr City to supplement the 8 to 10,000 militiamen already believed to make up the "Mahdi Army" in Baghdad.
This is the way escalation works. You pretty much force other players to escalate as well. In the end, you have the same problem -- only on a larger scale.
Tags: news | politics | war | iraq | Iran | Bush | Military | disaster | Muqtada al-Sadr | Mahdi Army | insurgency | troop surge
