Battle of Haifa Street
| The Battle of Haifa Street | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Post-invasion Iraq | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United States  Iraq |
 Iraqi insurgents | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 900 | unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 20 killed (Iraqi forces)[1] | 103 killed, 42 captured | ||||||
The Battle of Haifa Street was a battle fought over three days for the control of Haifa Street, a two-mile-long street in downtown Baghdad, Iraq, between American and Iraqi Army forces and various insurgent forces.
The battle
The fighting on Haifa Street started when reports came in that 27 dead bodies were discovered near Haifa Street in Baghdad; they had been there for a week and were apparently family members of an Iraqi police chief. American soldiers went in to remove the bodies. When the Americans came in hundreds of insurgents started to shoot from the high-rises at the Americans. Heavy incoming fire pinned down the American soldiers trapping them on a rooftop for at least two hours. Some of them that were not on the rooftop couldn't move on the street because of insurgent sniper and machine-gun fire. The fighting became so intense that U.S. Apache helicopters, F-15s, more than a dozen Iraqi gun trucks, Stryker combat vehicles and about 1,000 Iraqi Army soldiers were called in. The U.S. and Iraqi troops battled insurgents in the heart of Baghdad in some of the fiercest fighting the Iraqi capital had seen in months since operation Operation Together Forward. U.S. helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at insurgent positions while fighter jets provided additional cover. Thunderous explosions were heard through out Baghdad from U.S. missile and insurgent mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers were having running battles with insurgents up and down Haifa Street. The fighting lasted for over three days, some 20 Iraqi Army soldiers were killed, and by the end of the battle 103 insurgents were reported dead.
Two weeks later on January 24th the American and Iraqi forces made a new attempt to capture Haifa Street. Then another 30 insurgents were killed along with one American soldier and 35 insurgents were captured. [2]
Aftermath
About 500 Iraqi soldiers and 400 U.S. troops took part in the battle along a two-mile stretch of Haifa Street. The images of the fighting were shown across the world on various news media which coincided with President George W. Bush's speech about committing more than 21,000 extra U.S. troops to Iraq. The U.S. president argued that the additional soldiers will help to secure Baghdad, but on the ground there were signs that problems were yet to come. Within 24 hours of the start of the fight in Haifa Street, Gen. Razzak Hamza, a Sunni Iraqi Army commander of the Fifth Brigade, Sixth Iraqi Army Division, was relieved of duty by the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He was promptly replaced by a Shiite commander. It was reported that the prime minister blamed Hamza for the violence on Haifa Street, and said he wasn’t doing enough to stop it. It was actually believed that the meddling from the prime minister's office was driven by sectarian motives, in part because Razzak had been putting pressure on the Shiite militias. The interference by the Maliki administration raised questions about whether government leaders are truly willing to put Iraq’s sectarian differences aside. Also the operation in Haifa Street gave a glimpse of what could await the 17,500 troops heading for Baghdad. Just a week later there were already reports that American military planners on the ground were arguing with their Iraqi counterparts about the plans for the coming security operation slated for Baghdad. This was one of the few battles where the insurgents and the coalition troops have fought each other 'face-to-face'.[3]