BAGHDAD, Iraq – On a sandy field shrouded in a dust storm, the red flag of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraq Army Division passed from American to Iraqi hands – and with it, control of one of Baghdad's most restive districts.

But while Iraq's new army now runs the optimistically named Forward Operating Base Hope, the question of who really controls the teeming Shiite ghetto beyond its gates is far from certain.

What's disturbing about this attack is that the Mehdi Army, "private militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr," already patrol Sadr City, yet the moment the US pulls back its forces, car bomb attacks erupt. If I were a Shi'ite living there my inital suspicion might very well be that insurgents had infiltrated the official Iraqi forces and that such insurgents, operating under their cover as the official Iraqi units in charge of security in Sadr City, had set off these bombs.

Of course, I'm an American, so I am only allowed to blame terrorists who are in their "last throes." Why, oh why, won't the media cover all the good news in Iraq?

Update [2006-3-12 12:37:28 by Steven D]: Reuters has more details:

* BAGHDAD - At least 40 people were killed and 95 wounded in three car bombs that exploded almost simultaneously in two markets in the Shi'ite Sadr district of Baghdad on Sunday. Police dismantled a fourth bomb in the same area, they said.

* LATIFIYA - Gunmen ambushed and killed a local football player (Mohammad Najah) in Latifiya 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, local police said.

* BAGHDAD - Two civilians were killed and four wounded when a mortar round landed on a paint shop in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Eight bodies were found with their hands tied and gun shot wounds to the head in Rustamiya, a suburb in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Six people were killed and 14 wounded, including policemen, when a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S convoy passed by in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed two police officers in separate incidents in Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two soldiers were killed and four wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad received at least twenty bodies overnight, some with gun shot wounds, a source in the hospital said.

DHULUIYA - Gunmen killed two army officers who work in the Joint Coordination Centre in Dhuluiya, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, the Joint Coordination Centre of Dhuluiya said.