"AT least 15 men were killed and 14 more wounded today in fierce early morning clashes between insurgents and Sunni tribes in the central Iraq Shi'ite province of Babil.

The ferocious firefight came just two days ahead of a planned transfer of security control in Babil by US forces to Iraqi troops.

Police lieutenant Haider al-Lami from Hilla, the capital of Babil, said the battle broke out in Jurf al-Sakhr, a town located on the border of the Sunni Anbar province and Shi'ite Babil, around 5am (1300 AEDT) and raged for about two hours.

Lami said the fighting pitted suspected insurgents against members of the Sunni tribes Al-Osan and Al-Ojan, who had formed anti-al-Qaeda militia to oust the jihadists from their areas.

Doctor Mohammed al-Shammari from the nearby town of Iskandiriyah confirmed receiving the bodies of the victims.

Jurf al-Sakhr had been a violent town after insurgency broke out in Iraq following the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

But since the anti-al-Qaeda groups were formed late last year, a measure of stability was restored. "


http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24531467-5003402,00.html

*waits for the obligatory, "it's the west's fault", reply*

accchhh- I tried to do something and stuffed it up. bah. sorry guys- wil ltry and figure it out!!!!

Gaybriel wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 11:50pm:

accchhh- I tried to do something and stuffed it up. bah. sorry guys- wil ltry and figure it out!!!!

ahh stuff it- I don't know what I did

just for a timeline- I was attempting to quote someone and somehow hit the split button which moved a whole bunch of posts to another thread.

luckily most of these posts were irrelevant anyway - merely predicting how some would respond to the topic instead of addressing it- so I have just deleted them instead of trying to figure out how to get them back

my apologies for this cause I didn't want to delete them- I was just going to request that people try to stick to the topic at hand and not to waste time predicting the responses of others.

again- apologies for the accidental deletion.

*waits for the rotten fruit*

not a problem Gaybriel.

A lot of the posts were junk.

Honest mistake, no biggie.

We were just humouring ourselves anyway!

Another sad example of people killing each other for having a different opinion.

Gaybriel wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 11:50pm:

accchhh- I tried to do something and stuffed it up. bah. sorry guys- wil ltry and figure it out!!!!

Off top.
It is always good to have a moderator account only for moderation purposes and another user account for discussion. This prevents accidents and somewhat slows power abuse as it takes cooling time to get from discussion to moderation mode. It also somewhat deflects winging and whining of disgruntled users.

On top

It is a good example of tribalism versus globalisation.