The Iraqi Government Continues to Assert Itself

A couple of days ago I noted that the Malaki regime was finally taking a strong stand against independent militias in Basra and the Kurdish north [here]. Now comes news of fierce fighting between government forces and militias throughout the country.

The Telegraph reports:

IRAQI security forces fought fierce battles with militias and insurgents in cities across the country overnight as the government struggled to impose its authority.

In the northern city of Mosul, troops and police killed six insurgents linked to a Sunni extremist group and shut down five bridges across the Tigris River in a bid to quell the fighting, police said.

...

In the far south, in Basra, tensions between a local Shiite tribe and the provincial governor erupted into a firefight in which masked gunmen fired rockets at the government headquarters, killing at least one policeman.

...

Earlier, Iraqi army troops regained control of the Shiite holy city of Karbala after killing 10 members of a rogue cleric's private army, arresting 281 of his supporters and imposing a strict curfew.

Iraqi forces threw up checkpoints around Karbala, with only residents allowed in or out, after local cleric Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hasani's armed supporters killed at least six soldiers and civilians.

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Iraqi and US security forces have launched a large-scale campaign dubbed Operation Together Forward to isolate flashpoint neighbourhoods and conduct house-to-house weapons searches.

Read it here.

It's going to be a long, slow, dangerous process, but one by one the militias are going to be dismantled and disarmed. This is not civil war. This is pacification.