Another excellent Michael Gordon piece, this time from Sadr City. Check out this detail:
The militias have their own unique way of signaling the presence of the foes. The Americans say the militias have been using trained pigeons to signal the presence of American and Iraqi troops. The Iraqis wanted to know if they could fire on the pigeon keepers as American troops have done during the bitter fighting here.
As long as the Iraqis determined that the flocks of birds were not a coincidence, the Americans advised, the pigeon keepers were fair game.
As if on cue, a group of birds was observed hovering over a rooftop across the street. But the American and Iraqi soldiers had a more immediate concern: stopping the sniper fire down a nearby ally.