Letter 18

Hello everyone, I know it has been a little while since I've written everyone a letter to let you all know how I am doing. The weather here is finally getting nice, it is about 78 today with a low around 50. The situation here is tense, there is a curfew imposed throughout most of the day to try and keep the violence down. Our commandos are on alert ready to go on missions and thus we are also on alert, because if they go out, we have to go out with them. The other night they responded to a report of several vehicles entering a mosque with weapons possibly preparing for a jihad. Several elements from our commando brigade responded and were attacked as they approached the mosque. When we arrived at the scene the commandos were firing at a sniper who was up in the tower. The commandos then stormed into the mosque and captured the insurgents. There were a few commandos wounded in the attack but I'm not sure how bad. The next day there were hundreds of Sunnis at the mosque protesting the attack. They believe that the mosque itself was attacked instead of the terrorists that went into it. It is a very intense situation here right now, and I hope that things start calming down soon. Either this will all start to settle down, or we could see a civil war erupt between the Sunni and Shiia. In case anyone was wondering, the Shiia and Sunni are variations of the Islam, kinda like Catholic and Protestant. Except these two groups really hate each other. The Sunni are the ones most responsible for attacks against the US and they were in power while Saddam was president. The Shiia were persecuted under Saddam and now they are in positions of power because the Sunnis refused to vote during the first drafting of the constitution. I'm going to try to remain as safe as I can and hope that things start to cool down over here. I'll try to send some pictures a l ittle later today. Take care and I'll write back more often now that I have my computer back and the internet is working.love,Billy