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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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 Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:12 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | "A statement in the name of al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called on Muslims today to take up arms against their US enemy as American troops mounted a massive offensive against the rebel-held Iraqi city of Fallujah.
"Oh people, the war has begun and the call for jihad has been made," said the Zarqawi statement posted on an Arabic internet Web site often used by Islamists.
"Despite all the agonies that we are suffering, by God, the enemies will only see things that will harm them," he said. "Let us resist them with all our might and let us spend all that is precious in fighting them. Be patient, it is only a matter of days before victory will come with the help of God." |
Yeah, looking at those AC-130 Hellfires pix from Page 1 of this string, all I have to say is, "Where is your friggin' kitchen knife now you coward Zarqawi?" What a totally sick, depraved fool... 
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"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001
Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom |
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Kimmymac
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Joined: 01 Sep 2004
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Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:21 am Post subject: |
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ugh
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The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz |
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:41 am Post subject: |
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HERE is what we are FIGHTING in Fallujah, and elsewhere:
| Quote: | Awaiting 'Martyrdom' Inside Fighters' Lair
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A01
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- In a small safe house in Fallujah, one of many in a town deserted by its residents, a dozen fighters sat on the floor of a half-lit room.
Behind them and against the wall were metal pipes -- makeshift rocket launchers. Mortar and artillery shells, ammunition belts and explosives lay scattered on the floor.
Legs crossed and arms stretched, the fighters scooped rice and beans with their fingers from a communal plate, ending a long day of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan as explosions rocked the city.
This was the scene two days before the massive assault on the city that began Monday, and the men were its target, a dozen of them in sneakers, tracksuits and beards, preaching jihad and the virtues of martyrdom. They were volunteers in the army of Monotheism and Jihad, the organization headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an elusive Jordanian who Iraqi and U.S. officials have said turned Fallujah into a terrorist refuge.
Dressed alike, the men were as different as their accents, a new generation of the jihad diaspora, arriving in Fallujah from all over the Arab world: five Saudis, three Tunisians, a Yemeni. Only three were Iraqis.
"I had a vision yesterday that tomorrow I would finally be granted the martyrdom," said the most recent arrival, a thin man in his early twenties. He had come from his home in Saudi Arabia just a week ago.
"This is not fair," replied the Yemeni, making a joke. "I have been here for months now."
"Don't worry Abu Hafsa," said one of the Tunisians, heavyset and talkative. "It is either victory or martyrdom, and both are great honors."
Outside, artillery shells rocked the low-slung buildings of a city that has been a symbol of violence to one part of the world, and a beacon of resistance to another. The men were gathered in simple, unfurnished house in the neighborhood of Jolan. Located in the northwest of Fallujah, it is one of the districts that U.S. armor entered first two days later, when the battle finally began.
The chunky Tunisian, Abu Usama, started telling a story.
"A friend was injured in an attack," he said. "They took him to the hospital. When he opened his eyes he saw a beautiful woman. He cheered and thanked God that he had finally became a martyr and was granted one of the divine virgins.
"But then he realized that he was still alive and started crying."
That was how they talked of death, not fearfully but in happy anticipation. Death, the young men said, is nothing but the award they awaited. Waiting for the onslaught of American armor, they exchanged Koranic verses and sayings of the prophet Muhammad, divine poetry about the beauty of martyrdom.
"Even if your body was totally torn out, all that you will feel is a slight itch," said one Iraqi fighter. He was young enough that his weight looked like baby fat. He was dressed entirely in black.
"There was this young man who drove a car into an American checkpoint," he went on. "He killed lots of Americans. They found his body after three days with a little scratch on his face, though his car has totally melted in the attack."
Abu Yassir, short and heavily built, a middle-aged Iraqi with a gray beard, arrived late in the meal. He was the "emir," or commander, of the group, one of scores of such bands positioned around the city by Zarqawi's lieutenants. A more experienced fighter than the volunteers, Abu Yassir looked after the others as a father, paying for their meal, and delighting his young charges by delivering dessert: a bag of bananas.
As in most other units in Zarqawi's group, most of the commanders are Iraqis from Fallujah. They had military training in the army or security services of the government of former president Saddam Hussein. The Arab volunteers, who showed up with more eagerness than training, appear to be serving as the foot soldiers.
The hierarchy inverts the assumptions about al Qaeda in Iraq, as Zarqawi renamed his group after recently pledging fealty to Osama bin Laden, according to postings on a Web site. The group has come to represent the infusion of foreign fighters into Iraq, and in Fallujah two days before the battle such Arabs appeared to account for a substantial proportion of the fighters.
Zarqawi gives the group an international cast. But the Jordanian is famously elusive, and almost no one in Fallujah believed he was in the city this week. U.S. commanders agreed, and announced they had set their sights on his top commander, a "son of Fallujah," Omar Hadid.
Hadid represented Zarqawi's group on the mujaheddin shura, the council of holy warriors that has governed Fallujah since April, and represented the many homegrown units that organized themselves and fought independently of Zarqawi's group.
He showed up at the house the night before. The shelling was extraordinarily heavy, hour after hour of thunderous roars. A house down the street was hit and burned through the night. The fighters rushed out of their safe house and were standing on the dusty lane when a white sedan roared up, headlights off.
Hadid jumped out of the passenger seat.
"Is everyone all right?" he asked. "Take care."
Then he was gone. A kind of hum shot through the cluster of fighters, the rise in morale a visible thing. "Was that Abu Abdullah?" they asked one another, referring to the chief by his nom de guerre.
"We are not vicious bloodthirsty people, but we will kill any one who cooperates with Americans," Abu Yassir declared the next day.
The meal was over. Most of the men had gone outside, carrying their Kalashnikovs to the bunkers and ditches that run throughout the neighborhood. One stayed inside. He was chanting from the Koran.
"All over Iraq is a battlefield and we will kill the Americans anywhere," the emir went on. "The resistance won't collapse by the death of the emir. Someone will come up and take his position.
"We don't know about ideologies," he added. "We have one goal: Liberate our countries from the Americans."
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"We are not vicious bloodthirsty people, but we will kill any one who cooperates with Americans," Abu Yassir declared the next day.
On the OTHER HAND....
| Quote: | 'We are not here to liberate Iraq, we're here to fight the infidels'
The Guardian ^ | 11/9/04 | Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Posted on 11/08/2004 6:46:44 PM PST by saquin
In the front yard of a half-built house in Falluja, a dozen fighters sat in a semicircle. With Kalashnikovs in their laps and copies of the Qur'an in their hands, they stared at us suspiciously.
The silence was punctuated by the sound of mortar shelling. With each explosion, the fighters would cry, "Allahu Akbar".
Eventually, the mujahideen started talking: "Who are you?" "What do you do?" "Why the big cameras?"
But mostly they were interested only in converting us to Islam. They were still describing the pains I would go through in hell when another fighter, a short thin teenager, appeared. He was still dressed in his white pyjamas and rubbed his eyes as he listened to the conversation.
"What are you doing?" he asked one of the fighters.
"We are preaching to them about Islam," said the fighter.
"Why? They are not Muslims?"
"No."
The young man looked with puzzlement at the other fighter and said: "But then, why don't we kill them?"
"We can't do that now. They are in a state of truce with us," the fighter said.
The fighters belonged to Tawhid and Jihad, the group that has claimed responsibility for most of the violence sweeping Iraq. Eradicating these men is one of the prime objectives of the US offensive on Falluja.
At first sight, they all looked and behaved the same; young men in trainers and tracksuits preaching Islam. As time passed, they became more relaxed and open about who they were and why they were there.
It became apparent that they were an odd bunch of people from different places and with different dreams.
There were two kinds of mujahideen bound together in a marriage of convenience. One kind, Arab fighters from the new generation of the jihad diaspora, were teachers, workers and students from across the Arab world feeling oppressed and alienated by the west; they came to Iraq with dreams of martyrdom.
The other kind, Iraqi fighters from Falluja, were fighting the army that occupied their country.
They were five Saudis - or the people of the peninsula, as they called themselves - three Tunisians and one Yemeni. The rest were Iraqis.
Most of the time, when they weren't reading or praying, they spoke about death, not fearfully, but in happy anticipation. They talked about how martyrs would not feel pain and about how many virgins they would get in heaven.
I asked one of them, a young teacher from Saudi Arabia, why he was there. He started reading the verses in the Qur'an that urge Muslims to commit jihad. He read about the importance of martyrdom. After 20 minutes, he directed me to another fighter, an older man with a beard and a soft voice who said his name was Abu Ossama from Tunisia.
"We are here for one of two things - victory or martyrdom, and both are great," he said.
"The most important thing is our religion, not Falluja and not the occupation. If the American solders came to me and converted to Islam, I won't fight them. We are here not because we want to liberate Iraq, we are here to fight the infidels and to make victorious the name of Islam."
He continued to explain his jihad theories: "They call us terrorists because we resist them. If defending the truth is terrorism, then we are terrorists."
Suddenly, there was a heavy burst of gunfire. The young Saudi teacher ran to fetch a machine gun. With ammunition belts wrapped around his neck, he and a young Tunisian carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher ran outside.
The Saudi reached a trench. Opening his Qur'an, he read for a while and then pointed his machine gun at the horizon, trying to release the safety catch.
He fiddled with the gun for a few minutes, then turned to me: "Do you know how to make these things work?"
Abu Yassir, a short, heavy-built, middle-aged Iraqi with a grey beard, was the "amir", or commander, of this group. He was a more experienced fighter and looked after the others.
When it was time to break their fast, the men poured food into a big tray and, exchanging jokes, scooped rice with their fingers. I had to keep reminding myself that these people blow up civilians every day in Iraq.
After the food, the amir told his story.
He was a retired military officer and ran a business making electric generators. He was happy to see the back of Saddam Hussein and to get rid of the Ba'athist regime.
But, he said, "as the time passed by and as the occupation became more visible, more patriotic feelings grew bigger and bigger. Every time I saw the Americans patrolling our streets I became more humiliated."
He described how locals from Falluja and other places started to organise themselves into small cells and to attack the Americans.
"We just wanted them to leave our cities. In the beginning I had a 'job' every month, setting IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or firing mortars, and would go back to my work most of the time. But then I realised I can't do any thing but jihad as long as the Americans occupied my country."
He closed his workshop, sold his business and used the money to sponsor the group of fighters.
"The world is convinced that we people of Falluja are happy to kill the innocents, that's not true, even when we execute collaborators and people working for the Americans, I feel sad for them and sometimes cry, but this is a war."
We slept in one of the many empty houses, but every few moments we heard the sound of an explosion. Suddenly, there was a huge blast. We ran outside.
The fighters were already in the street, shouting "Allahu Akbar" every time they heard explosions, believing it would divert the missiles away.
We walked in the darkness until we reached a mosque, were we spent the night listening to the heavy bombing and the shrapnel hitting the walls.
The next day, the mujahideen left the house where they had stayed for the last few days, believing they had been spotted by the Americans.
There they took their final fighting positions and designated one of them, a young Iraqi, as the unit's martyr - a fighter whose task is to explode himself next to the Americans.
The amir told me: "All we want is the Americans to leave, and then everything will be fine, the Kurds will stop talking about seceding from Iraq, the Shias will stop talking about settling scores with Sunnis and each province will elect a council and these councils will elect a president.
"That is the election we see democratic, not an American one."
But, he said: "We are besieged here now. It is a great emotional victory, but bad strategy. It is very easy now for the Americans to come and kill us all."
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But, he said: "We are besieged here now. It is a great emotional victory, but bad strategy. It is very easy now for the Americans to come and kill us all."
"We just wanted them to leave our cities. In the beginning I had a 'job' every month, setting IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or firing mortars, and would go back to my work most of the time. But then I realised I can't do any thing but jihad as long as the Americans occupied my country."
He closed his workshop, sold his business and used the money to sponsor the group of fighters.
And, they're COMPLAINING because we haven't created an ECONOMY for them....????
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Here's a glimpse of how the "ARAB WORLD" views the situation:
Arab leaders urge caution on Iraq strike
By SAM F. GHATTAS, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - As the long-expected U.S. and Iraqi assault on Fallujah rolled forward Monday, Arab leaders were quietly urging caution as Iraq's government sought to portray the offensive as a last resort to flush out militants impeding the country's path to stability.
Media attention in the region was focused on ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which may explain in part why the start of the Fallujah campaign elicited none of the uproar that met an American attempt last April to storm the insurgent stronghold.
"We are determined to clean Fallujah of terrorists," Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said after giving the green light for the major international and Iraqi forces attack on Fallujah, believed to be the base for followers of al-Qaida-affiliated Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of Iraq's most violent and wanted men.
Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, has gained notoriety in recent months as a haven for extremists who behead foreign hostages, kidnappers who seek ransom and bombers who have ravaged the country.
The assault began after sundown Sunday. On Monday, troops fought their way into Fallujah's western outskirts, seizing a hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River. Some 10,000 U.S. Marines, Army soldiers and Iraqi forces are around Fallujah, where commanders estimate around 3,000 insurgents are dug in.
"The Americans picked the right time and circumstances to storm Fallujah," said Maher Shabaytah, a Palestinian guerrilla commander from Arafat's Fatah group in the refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, a notorious lawless territory in southern Lebanon. Sheik Jamal Khattab, a militant cleric in the camp, which has been especially sympathetic to Iraqis, said the Palestinians are now so preoccupied with their own problems that "no one will make a move even if Fallujah is destroyed."
In Egypt, the largest Arab country, the foreign minister expressed concern about civilian casualties - a low-key reaction to the assault.
"All measures should be taken to ensure that no Iraqi or other civilians fall (victim). We hope that the current or future operations in Fallujah or any other Iraqi city will not lead to civilian victims," Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in Cairo after meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Following talks with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Zebari said he supported the offensive, but hoped it would end soon so it does not "cast a shadow" over the Nov. 22-23 international conference on Iraq scheduled to take place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.
"Any Arab country would not accept such a situation (as the militant control of Fallujah)," Zebari said. "We have been patient to avoid shedding blood and sustaining losses."
Moussa said he has spoken with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the "regrettable" Fallujah violence, which the Arab official remarked was "worrying us all as there are victims every day."
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Meanwhile, in some God-Forsaken alley in Fallujah...
| Quote: | U.S. soldiers pushing their way into Fallujah
CTV.ca News Staff
Tens of thousands of U.S. Marines are leading a fierce fight into the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, hoping to succeed in their second crack at a mission insurgents thwarted last April.
Dubbed Operation Phantom Fury, the ground offensive began Monday, after days of relentless pounding from U.S. artillery and warplanes.
As ground forces pressed into the city, two U.S. troops were killed when their bulldozer flipped into the Euphrates River. So far, however, there have not been any reports of American combat deaths.
At least 15 Iraqis were killed during the first hours of fighting, according to doctors.
The U.S. military estimated 42 rebels had been killed in the opening round of attacks, and at least four foreigners, including two Moroccans, had been captured.
U.S. forces stormed Fallujah just after midnight on Sunday, cutting off electricity as they moved in from the northwest and west of the city.
American ground troops seized the hospital and secured two key bridges over the Euphrates River, and fired on a train station, clearing it for Iraqi troops to move in and assume control of.
While tanks advanced, artillery pounded targets and military jets bombed from the sky, a cleric could be heard telling fighters: "God is greatest, oh martyrs. Rise up mujahedeen."
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, issued a call over the Internet for Muslims to attack American targets. "Oh people, the war has begun and the call for jihad (holy war) has been made," he said.
As night fell on Monday, with tanks and warplanes continuing to bombard the city's northern edge, troops advanced on the northwest neighborhood of Jolan. A different force moved on the Askari district in the city's northeast.
I have no choice: Allawi
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Monday he had given the go-ahead to U.S. and Iraqi forces to clear the city of "terrorists."
"I have reached the belief that I have no other choice but to resort to extreme measures to protect the Iraqi people from these killers and to liberate the residents of Fallujah so they can return to their homes," he told a news conference.
The assault force is believed to involve between 10,000 and 15,000 American troops and as many as 4,000 Iraqi troops, although U.S. military officials aren't giving precise numbers. And while they outman and outgun the rebels, it will still be a tough fight.
"Fallujah is a very tight city and the estimates are that there are 3,000 possibly 5,000 heavily-armed insurgents who have had a long time to dig in," Jim Sciutto of ABC News told CTV's Canada AM.
As much as 70 per cent of the population are believed to have fled Fallujah, leaving the city to insurgents -- an estimated 20 per cent of whom are suspected to be foreign fighters.
Despite the threat of countless booby traps and well-established defensive positions, the offensive is considered crucial ahead of elections set for January. So much so, the size of the U.S.-led force is three times the size of the one that was repelled by insurgents in April.
"One part of the country cannot remain under the rule of assassins ... and the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, adding his prediction that, "there aren't going be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces."
Without predicting how long he expects the offensive to last, Rumsfeld said his forces are braced for a pitched battle.
"Listen these folks are determined. These are killers. They chop people's heads off. They're getting money from around the world. They're getting recruits," he said.
His Iraqi counterpart, however, had a different view. In an interview with Al-Arabiya television on Monday, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan al-Khuzaei said he expects the fight to end quickly.
"God willing, it will not be long; it will take a very short period of time," he said.
Allawi has declared a 60-day state of emergency in every part of the country except for the Kurdish north. He has also imposed a curfew on Fallujah, to begin at 6 p.m. local time, and has closed the Baghdad International Airport for 48 hours.
No-win situation
Allawi has faced strong pressure from Iraq's minority Sunni community to continue talking with rebels in Fallujah, rather than allow an all-out assault.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that such actions could undermine the legitimacy of the elections planned for January, and trigger a wave of violence. That sentiment was echoed by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Monday.
"The situation from the point of view of security does not give much of a hope that that will be realized on the date," Solana told reporters.
The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni clerics group, on Monday threatened to boycott elections upon hearing of the Fallujah assault.
"The attack on Fallujah is an illegal and illegitimate action against civilian and innocent people. We denounce this operation which will have a grave consequences on the situation in Iraq," said spokesman Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhi.
Recalling how insurgents beat back the U.S. push into Fallujah last April, Chuck Pena of the CATO Institute says that this is a no-win situation for the U.S. and Allawi.
Allawi can't allow a major Iraqi city to be a terrorist stronghold for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, linked to al Qaeda, Pena says. On the other hand, not every Fallujah resident is an insurgent, or even sympathetic to the insurgency.
"So no matter how hard you try, and no matter how good our weaponry there will be collateral damage. There will likely be innocent civilians killed," Pena told CTV's Canada AM.
"And there will be repercussions, and those repercussions will echo through the insurgency and I think grow the tide of anti-Americanism in Iraq."
He said that it is essential for the U.S. to "achieve something that looks like total victory." That includes capturing Zarqawi, as well as killing or capturing the insurgents -- a prospect he gives a 50-50 chance.
"If we come up empty handed with regard to Zarqawi, we are going to have a little more than egg on our face, especially if he is engaged in a major military operation and there are a fair number of casualties on both sides."
Rumsfeld said he didn't even know if Zarqawi was there.
He didn't think there would be mass civilian casualties, saying U.S. troops were disciplined and had solid rules of engagement to follow. |
While OUR troops make do:
Marines enter trip-wired Fallujah
Billed as the biggest urban fight since Vietnam, US forces launched a major assault at nightfall.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
FALLUJAH, IRAQ – US forces launched an all-out assault on Fallujah Monday night that US and Iraqi officials hope will turn the tide against Iraq's ferocious insurgency.
But the fight - which could bring the most extensive urban combat by US Marines and Army units since Vietnam - promises to be tough.
Before sunset, tank gunners blasted northern avenues of Fallujah after reporting insurgent defensive positions and spotting explosive tripwires stretched across roads. Marine infantry maneuvered behind tanks and armored vehicles, on plains thick with talcum-powder dust, as they prepared to breach the city limits.
Once darkness fell around the blacked-out city, Operation Phantom Fury got under way. US forces laid down a smoke wall in the city's northeast sector to provide cover for advancing troops. Artillery and tracer rounds lit up the sky as vehicles advanced with the aid of infrared strobe lights, visible only with night vision goggles.
The assaulting forces expect an array of booby traps, car bombs, and explosives - all of them asymmetric threats from 3,000 rebels, against the US and Iraqi conventional force strength of some 10,000 - designed by insurgents to take a lethal toll.
"They're seeing wires strung up between houses - even the first houses," says Sgt. Kevin Boyd, chief scout of the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) company, after hearing the news on his helmet radio set. "They are not [car bombs]. They are house bombs."
"This is not going to be easy," replied Cpl. Christopher DeBlanc, a scout team leader of Raider platoon, from Spotsylvania, Va.
"No, it's not," agreed Sergeant Boyd, from Pittsburgh.
Most of Fallujah's 300,000 people have left the city in anticipation of the US assault, which is aimed at disrupting the network of the Al Qaeda affiliate, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In an initial foray earlier Monday, US troops penetrated the western outskirts of the city, capturing a hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River. Four foreigners, including two Moroccans and two unidentified people, were captured at the hospital.
For the main assault - just beginning at press time - the Monitor has been embedded with Raider One, a rare Marine armored vehicle configuration of six dismount scouts, a US Navy medical corpsman, a vehicle commander, his deputy, and a driver.
The LAR company is attached to the 1st Battalion 3rd Marines, one of six battalions that make up the Fallujah invasion force. The marines expect to face ruthlessness from an insurgency infamous for hostage-taking, videotaped murders, and frequent indiscriminate suicide attacks against civilians that have increasingly gripped Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The marines also expect to deliver ruthlessness in return, though they have been drilled repeatedly on rules of engagement that require strict separation of fighters from civilians.
Feels like 'Christmas Eve'
They call their vehicle "Trojan Horse"; the scouts' call sign is "Death Dealers." As they rolled into battle Monday, they strung up an olive-drab cravat showing skull and crossbones, superimposed upon a wooden cross.
"You know what this feels like? Christmas Eve," says Lance Cpl. Matt McClellan, a light machine gunner from Clayton, N.J., with a wry wit. "You wait for it all December, and you know it's coming up."
These marines are young, mostly in their early 20s, and carry pictures in their helmets and cargo pants of girlfriends or newly married wives. This company is experienced, and took part in the invasion of Iraq last year. Sergeant Boyd celebrated his 21st birthday by swimming in the Tigris River, one day after he helped, as point man of the walking scout team, capture Mr. Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
"Game Day" Monday began with darkness and rainfall at 2 a.m., for the marines sleeping beside their vehicles on the lip of Fallujah.
"Of course, it has to rain before we attack," groans Lance Cpl. Cody Williams, the Raider One driver from Chandler, Ariz., as he balls up his sleeping bag and straps it to his pack, which hung off the armored vehicle.
"Now we know it's real," says Corporal Williams, wistfully. "We're wet and miserable."
"What's war without rain and mud?" chimed in Boyd, an Eagle Scout who fired his first BB gun when he was a Tiger Cub, at age 5, and still wasn't strong enough to pull back the pump action on the kid-size rifle.
The marines who will be doing the grunt work were by turns philosophical and funny, as they prepared Monday - apparently nonchalantly - for the urban battle. As dawn broke, the company slipped into points on the north side of town.
Carrying an earthquake
Raider carried enough demolition explosives, if all detonated at once, to produce a detectable seismic event. The quantity elicited jokes, every time someone lit a cigarette. There was also concern that all the predawn rain - which soaked backpacks and gear - was seeping into the explosive store. But Boyd assured his comrades it was tucked in his pack, safe and dry.
The rain also played havoc with the guns, which have been so heavily used that bluing no longer exists on some barrels.
"Look at my SAW [squad automatic weapon], it has turned a nice carrot color," laments Corporal McClellan. When the rain quit, all the marines set to cleaning, brushing, and oiling their rifles, with well-practiced hands.
While waiting for frontline companies to follow them toward the front line staging area, bored after hours, Raider One fell back on mirth. One especially persistent barking feral dog sparked a debate about whether it should be dispatched.
Even when the shelling of Fallujah picked up, and Raider One was tasked with security for the bulldozers creating a path for the marines advance into the city, the challenging days and nights ahead were put aside, if only to make them easier to cope with.
"If this is going to be my last day, I want one of these before I go," says Corporal DeBlanc, picking up a packet of French Vanilla Cappuccino mix, and grabbing a small carton of milk pilfered from the dining hall.
Just after mixing it in a tin canteen, Raider One revved up, and charged up a steep sand berm, closer to the city limits. DeBlanc, standing in the open back with the other scouts, barely kept the Cappuccino from spilling.
He then took a long draught, and passed it around until it was drained.
"Whew!" he said. "Back in the fight."
"They're seeing wires strung up between houses - even the first houses," says Sgt. Kevin Boyd, chief scout of the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) company, after hearing the news on his helmet radio set. "They are not [car bombs]. They are house bombs."
"Of course, it has to rain before we attack," groans Lance Cpl. Cody Williams, the Raider One driver from Chandler, Ariz., as he balls up his sleeping bag and straps it to his pack, which hung off the armored vehicle.
"Now we know it's real," says Corporal Williams, wistfully. "We're wet and miserable."
Raider carried enough demolition explosives, if all detonated at once, to produce a detectable seismic event. The quantity elicited jokes, every time someone lit a cigarette.
GOOD GRAPHIC HERE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2004/11/09/wiraq109big.jpg |
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:46 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "and the men were its target, a dozen of them in sneakers, tracksuits and beards, preaching jihad and the virtues of martyrdom." |
What's wrong with this picture? This is like the Omish listening to a walkman. If these guys are so "holy", why don't they figure out how to make their own shoes and not be wearing Nikes and Addidas sweats? Well, they can grow beards...
_________________
"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001
Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom |
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JB Stone
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | "and the men were its target, a dozen of them in sneakers, tracksuits and beards, preaching jihad and the virtues of martyrdom."
What's wrong with this picture? This is like the Omish listening to a walkman. If these guys are so "holy", why don't they figure out how to make their own shoes and not be wearing Nikes and Addidas sweats? Well, they can grow beards... |
I understand your angst....but, it just makes ME wonder ....
Who'd they KILL to get that stuff....????
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:52 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "Don't worry Abu Hafsa," said one of the Tunisians, heavyset and talkative. "It is either victory or martyrdom, and both are great honors." |
Uh, I don't think you have to consider the victory part...come to think of it, neither category fits. How about, "I'm a idiot trying to face down the most powerful military the world has ever known." Is that a category? 
_________________
"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001
Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom |
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:14 am Post subject: |
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| JB Stone wrote: | | Quote: | "and the men were its target, a dozen of them in sneakers, tracksuits and beards, preaching jihad and the virtues of martyrdom."
What's wrong with this picture? This is like the Omish listening to a walkman. If these guys are so "holy", why don't they figure out how to make their own shoes and not be wearing Nikes and Addidas sweats? Well, they can grow beards... |
I understand your angst....but, it just makes ME wonder ....
Who'd they KILL to get that stuff....????
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Right, frankly I hope it's mostly black market, which probably means it's not very holy...hmph...I think for tossing around "holy" so much there's not very much of it to go around - certainly not in Fallujah at the moment...anyhow, if you're a Muslim, what must you be thinking?
In my view, since the Sunni cleric group "condemned" the Iraqi National/US/Coalition attack, there should be "true" or "spiritual" Muslim clerics around the world that immediately condemn Zarqawi's butchery again...for that matter that Iraqi cleric group should do that as well.
In other words, good Muslims could condemn Zarqawi while, perhaps, opposing strategically an "attack on Fallujah" (although, how else can you oppose and attack and root out Zarqawi?) But, at least I would, sort of, respect that kind of stance...as opposed to this BS of condemning the US and not condemning concurrently Zarqawi.
_________________
"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001
Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom |
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:19 am Post subject: |
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With Airpower and Armor, Troops Enter Rebel-Held City
By DEXTER FILKINS
and JAMES GLANZ
Published: November 8, 2004
FALLUJA, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 9 - Thousands of American marines and soldiers swarmed over a railroad embankment on the northern edge of Falluja on Monday night and early Tuesday, setting off a wild firefight and making their first advances across the deadly streets and twisting alleyways of this rebel-held city.
The move, following weeks of bombings by American airplanes, marked the beginning of the main assault on Falluja, expected to be the most significant battle since the fall of Baghdad 19 months ago.
Most of the 6,500 American troops and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers went over the embankment at six separate points, military officials said, aiming to clear the city of insurgents one house at a time and eventually take several large public buildings in the heart of the city.
The drive into Falluja's downtown came after the interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, gave formal authority to the American-led troops to start the assault. American and Iraqi officials have said elections planned for the end of January would be imperiled if Falluja and other cities in the Sunni Muslim heartland remained in the hands of the rebels.
Hundreds or thousands of insurgents met the American attack, sometimes contesting every inch of the advance and sometimes melting back into the darkened houses of the city they have held for more than six months.
Fire from rockets, mortars and assault rifles would lash out at the Americans from seemingly deserted buildings until heavy return fire destroyed them one by one, leaving only smoking ruins. Then the firing would start from another direction.
Amid the blasts and roar of the battle, loudspeakers at mosques throughout the city were blaring, "Prepare for jihad!" and "God is great!" American commanders appeared to avoid striking the mosques.
The number of insurgents in the city is estimated at 3,000, although some guerrillas, terrorist fighters and their leaders escaped the city before the attack. American military officials estimated that out of a usual population of 300,000, 70 percent to 90 percent of civilians had fled.
In the Askari and Jeghaifi neighborhoods in the northeastern part of the city, American troops were already seen in the streets by around 8 p.m. Monday, said an insurgent who identified himself as Abu Mustafa in a telephone conversation. He said insurgent forces were staying fluid, moving around the city to reinforce spots as they were attacked by the Americans.
By 1 a.m. Tuesday, American troops assigned to those same northeastern neighborhoods had advanced the farthest in the operation - about 800 yards into the city, military officials said. But some of the units farther to the west, under heavy fire and picking their way through abandoned vehicles, rubble and barbed wire, took hours to advance past a single line of houses.
Seven members of the invading force were reported wounded: four were hurt when their vehicle flipped over, and three more when a mortar shell landed near them. Two marines drowned when the bulldozer they were driving next to the Euphrates River overturned Monday afternoon.
"They'll try to pull us into the city," said Col. Craig Tucker, a marine who was in charge of a major unit called a regimental combat team. "They'll win if it's bloody; we'll win if we minimize civilian casualties."
The invasion of Falluja is a calculated risk by the Americans, who had to withdraw during a previous fight for the city in April after unconfirmed reports of heavy civilian casualties sparked outrage among both Sunni and Shiite Iraqis. But they and the Iraqis say they have no choice but to try again to reclaim the city, which has been controlled by the insurgents since early May.
About 2,000 members of Iraqi security forces are fighting with the Americans, and it was too early to assess how well they were performing. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said he anticipated that they would do well, but he acknowledged that some of the Iraqis - how many is uncertain - had failed to show up for the operation.
"Some of these soldiers were on leave and just failed to return, but it did not have a significant impact on our plan," he said.
In Baghdad on Monday, Dr. Allawi announced that he had given the go-ahead to the operation. "I have given my authority to the multinational forces," he said at a news conference inside the heavily fortified compound housing the headquarters of the interim Iraqi government. "We are determined to clean Falluja of terrorists."
Dr. Allawi's announcement came after a night of intense fighting on the western edge of Falluja. The prime minister said 38 rebels were captured in the initial assault on Sunday, on the main hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River. Four foreign fighters - two Moroccans and two non-Iraqi Arabs - were arrested, he added.
That fight had seemed to be over late Sunday night, but around dawn on Monday the insurgents attacked again, provoking a firefight that lasted hours before the outgunned insurgents withdrew.
Just before the marines began to push south into Falluja, the American bombardment intensified, and heavy artillery could be heard pounding positions in or near the city every few minutes. An entire apartment complex was ground to rubble. A train station was obliterated in a hail of 2,000-pound bombs. All electrical power in the city was cut off at about 5 p.m.
General Casey said Monday that his forces were expecting the insurgents to put up a fight. He predicted that they would probably fall back from an outer ring of defenses and retreat toward the city center, leaving a minefield of improvised explosives to slow the progress of American and Iraqi soldiers.
"What we have generally seen is there's an outer crust of the defense, and then our estimates tell us that they will probably fall back toward the center of the city, where there will be probably a major confrontation," General Casey told journalists at the Pentagon by telephone from his headquarters in Baghdad.
Shortly before the invasion began, Col. Michael D. Formica, the Army commander responsible for cutting off access to the city, seemed jubilant as he congratulated his battalion commanders in a radio conference call.
"We're going to see a great attack tonight as we set this country on a path to liberty," he said.
The invasion actually began 26 hours before the troops charged over the embankment. Beginning Sunday afternoon, Colonel Formica's battalions moved into position, forming an impenetrable chain around the city.
A Falluja resident who tried entering the city on Monday said he had found no way through the seal. The resident said the situation was much different from the situation in April, when Americans battled the Falluja insurgents before withdrawing and when there were many gaps that gun runners could exploit to keep the insurgents supplied.
In Baghdad, Dr. Allawi unveiled the first measures of the 60-day state of emergency that he declared Sunday. He said that Baghdad's international airport would be closed for 48 hours and that the borders with Syria and Jordan would be sealed indefinitely except to allow movement of trucks carrying food and emergency supplies.
All roads running in and out of Falluja and the provincial capital of Ramadi, 30 miles to the west, have been shut down, he said, and a round-the-clock curfew was imposed on the two cities starting at 6 p.m. on Monday. Residents have been banned from carrying weapons.
The measures in Falluja could not be immediately enforced, because the city has never been controlled by the interim government. But the intent was to separate civilians, who have now been warned to stay inside, from insurgents. A wave of deadly attacks by guerrillas over the weekend and on Monday left dozens of dead and raised doubts about whether a concentrated assault in Falluja would actually dampen the insurgency in other parts of Iraq.
Two car bombs aimed at Christian churches exploded within minutes of each other in southern Baghdad on Monday evening.
Late Monday, a powerful car bomb exploded outside Yarmouk Hospital, the site of the capital's largest emergency room, where most of the wounded from the church bombings had been taken. At least one policeman outside was killed and two squad cars were incinerated, and the front of the hospital was severely damaged, a police official said. Many people inside were wounded.
An American soldier was killed in eastern Baghdad when his patrol was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said. At least 1,130 American troops have died in the war.
South of Baghdad, a British soldier from the Black Watch Battle Group was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb hit a patrol. It was the fourth death for the storied unit since it rolled into central Iraq last week to help bolster the military presence there while the Americans attack Falluja.
In the northern city of Mosul, where an American Army brigade equipped with new Stryker armored vehicles has been losing ground against insurgents, fighters armed with Kalashnikovs poured out into the streets at a major intersection at 3 p.m. to fire at American troops, witnesses said. One resident, Yasir Abdul-Razzaq, said he had seen small groups of fighters carrying around mortar tubes and exchanging coordinates with one another over cellphones before firing their shells. American soldiers fired back and called in support from helicopters.
A senior American military official in Baghdad said the number of roadside bombs and suicide car bombs had doubled across Iraq recently, with the biggest increase in Mosul.
News agencies reported that two suicide car bombs exploded near American convoys in Ramadi on Monday, though no casualties were reported. Another detonated along the perilous five-mile airport road in Baghdad, apparently next to a sport utility vehicle, the type of car favored by Western contractors. A Reuters photographer at the scene said he had seen American soldiers dragging three bodies from the vehicle, though the dead could not be identified.
Hundreds or thousands of insurgents met the American attack, sometimes contesting every inch of the advance and sometimes melting back into the darkened houses of the city they have held for more than six months.
??????
I thought there was 3,000 of them...????
whatever.
If you read this CAREFULLY, it's as if the NYT wants us to LOSE....!!!!
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Right, frankly I hope it's mostly black market, which probably means it's not very holy...hmph...I think for tossing around "holy" so much there's not very much of it to go around - certainly not in Fallujah at the moment...anyhow, if you're a Muslim, what must you be thinking?
In my view, since the Sunni cleric group "condemned" the Iraqi National/US/Coalition attack, there should be "true" or "spiritual" Muslim clerics around the world that immediately condemn Zarqawi's butchery again...for that matter that Iraqi cleric group should do that as well.
In other words, good Muslims could condemn Zarqawi while, perhaps, opposing strategically an "attack on Fallujah" (although, how else can you oppose and attack and root out Zarqawi?) But, at least I would, sort of, respect that kind of stance...as opposed to this BS of condemning the US and not condemning concurrently Zarqawi. |
Here's the PROBLEM...
You're trying to apply 'LOGIC' to the situation.
These are just a bunch of 17th Century-Minded, Dirtbag Cleric-Believin', Jihad-Hypin', Value-Bereft, Civilization-Hatin', Christian-Murderin', Throat-Slittin', Pajama-Clad, Cold-Hearted, Hell-Bound, Adrenalin-Junkie, Other-Worldly, Hate-Filled, Camel-Ridin', Car-Bombin', Hovel-Dwellin', Hygiene-Avoidin', Wife-Beatin', Freedom-Stealin', Sand-Poundin', Mosque-Howlin', Mask-Wearin', Booby-Trappin', Kid-Killin', Over-Armed, Under-Educated, Plane-Crashin', A**HOLES, that don't DESERVE a fair fight.....!!!!
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Navy_Navy_Navy
Admin
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:42 am Post subject: |
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| JB Stone wrote: | | If you read this CAREFULLY, it's as if the NYT wants us to LOSE....!!!! |
And even if you don't read it so carefully.
Of course they want us to lose.
That's what our leftist media does - sucks up propaganda and feeds it back to our populace under the guise of providing information. Undercuts the support for the war here at home. Provides encouragement for the enemy.
There's no surprise in this except maybe to the media, itself. They still haven't realized that when our generals give them hell in those press conferences, it's the generals we're cheering for. 
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| Navy_Navy_Navy wrote: | | JB Stone wrote: | | If you read this CAREFULLY, it's as if the NYT wants us to LOSE....!!!! |
And even if you don't read it so carefully.
Of course they want us to lose.
That's what our leftist media does - sucks up propaganda and feeds it back to our populace under the guise of providing information. Undercuts the support for the war here at home. Provides encouragement for the enemy.
There's no surprise in this except maybe to the media, itself. They still haven't realized that when our generals give them hell in those press conferences, it's the generals we're cheering for. |
Exactly - and that's why the OLM loved the Kerrorist so much - because he was such a leftist and cozied up so much to communists...the NYTimes would like nothing better than for this country to go leftist/socialist even though they have no idea the horror and havoc such a thing would unleash on the world - because who would oppose the hard line leftists/communists of the world at that point?
_________________
"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001
Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom |
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JB Stone
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | These are just a bunch of 17th Century-Minded, Dirtbag Cleric-Believin', Jihad-Hypin', Value-Bereft, Civilization-Hatin', Christian-Murderin', Throat-Slittin', Pajama-Clad, Cold-Hearted, Hell-Bound, Adrenalin-Junkie, Other-Worldly, Hate-Filled, Camel-Ridin', Car-Bombin', Hovel-Dwellin', Hygiene-Avoidin', Wife-Beatin', Freedom-Stealin', Sand-Poundin', Mosque-Howlin', Mask-Wearin', Booby-Trappin', Kid-Killin', Over-Armed, Under-Educated, Plane-Crashin', A**HOLES, that don't DESERVE a fair fight.....!!!! |
I forgot Koran-Totin'.....!!! |
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JB Stone
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Coalition uses divide-conquer plan in Fallujah
By Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Coalition troops are employing a divide-and-conquer strategy in Fallujah, Iraq, capitalizing on months of pinpointed intelligence to seal off terrorist-held neighborhoods and then attack enemy pockets.
"It's going to be going on for a period ahead," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said of the long-anticipated operation, which began Sunday.
A military source said the Pentagon expects the battle for Fallujah to take about one week and estimated there are about 2,000 to 5,000 enemy fighters, about half of whom are non-Iraqi.
The United States last entered Fallujah in April, when Marines killed hundreds of rebels. The Marines seemed to be on a path to capturing the town, when Iraqi politicians urged Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to stop the battle or risk political upheaval.
"I cannot imagine that it would stop without being completed," Mr. Rumsfeld said of the current operation.
There was no word of whether master terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi was in Fallujah, which has served as a command center for his cells of foreign terrorists who specialize in deadly suicide car bombings.
"From Fallujah, they have exported terror across Iraq against all Iraqis," said Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Since April, American forces have stayed outside the city. But intelligence collection has proceeded at a furious pace. Military sources said the U.S. command has a block-by-block schematic of the large city and knows from day to day where the rebels live and plan. That is how coalition aircraft have been able to direct precision-guided weapons at specific buildings known to harbor rebels.
"They have mapped the city and are taking the city down by sections," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney.
Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday assured reporters that "disciplined" U.S. troops will keep civilian deaths to a minimum.
"There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by U.S. forces," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon. U.S. commanders think that at least half the city's estimated 300,000 residents has left Fallujah.
"The U.S. forces are disciplined," the defense secretary said. "They are well-led. They're well-trained. They are using precision. And they have rules of engagement that are appropriate to an urban environment."
Gen. McInerney, a Vietnam War fighter pilot, said his worry is that troops will be too cautious.
"If they worry too much about collateral damage, then you have to move slower," he said. "I would level any building that offers resistance. If you try to pick guys out of a building rather than just blowing it up, that's going to take longer. You run the risks of booby traps. You run the risk of losing people. ... We know this battle is against terrorists, and we must be ruthless in the way we destroy them."
The exact intelligence has enabled U.S. troops to assault the city at enemy strong points.
There is a hope that the precision strikes will lead to a quick victory against ragtag fighters who, while deadly, are no match for well-trained and equipped U.S. forces, whose night-vision goggles and sights give them a big advantage in the urban terrain.
The coalition's block-by-block data on Fallujah is pieced together by numerous reconnaissance flights, communications intercepts and Iraqi informants inside the city. Two unmanned aircraft, the Predator and Global Hawk, provide constant video and still pictures for planners to analyze.
Terrorists have increased the use of intimidation tactics and violence to prevent citizens from leaving the city or informing against them, military source said.
Gen. Casey told Pentagon reporters via a teleconference call that estimates of a 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. and coalition strike force, including Iraqis, were "in the ballpark."
Gen. Casey said the insurgents are armed with AK-47s, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft machine guns, he said.
However, the most danger to advancing American and friendly Iraqi forces will be homemade car bombs from terrorists.
"The weapons of choice for them are going to be the improvised explosive devices and the car bombs," Gen. Casey said. "And all our intelligence is telling us that they have lined some of the streets with the improvised explosive devices, much like we saw in Najaf and Thawra."
Vehicles packed with explosives also have been placed throughout the city, and "we expect them to come at us with car bombs, you know, as they're driving through the city now," Gen. Casey said.
The Iraqi government, in response, has banned auto traffic inside Fallujah as a way to protect troops.
The insurgents are thought to have an "outer-crust defense" that likely will collapse "toward the center of the city where they will be probably a major confrontation," Gen. Casey said.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said some insurgents likely will try to blend into the civilian population.
"And that may make it harder in certain circumstances," said Gen. Myers, who appeared with Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. "There are also indications that they want to fight in a more conventional way."
Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not think the battle for Fallujah will be a final showdown with enemy forces in Iraq.
"These folks are determined. These are killers. They chop people's heads off. They're getting money from around the world. They're getting recruits," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
"And over time, you'll find that the process of tipping will take place; that more and more of the Iraqis will be angry about the fact that their innocent people are being killed by the extremists, saw a number of them from outside the country, and they won't like it."
Gen. Casey said some of the key insurgent leaders are expected to stay and fight, he said, while others will flee and regroup.
"Yes, they'll go off to other places and try to get set up, but when they're doing that, they have to look over their shoulder, they have to worry about who's at the door, they have to put guards out all the time," he said. |
RECENT REPORTS INDICATE THREE MARINES HAVE DIED IN HOUSE TO HOUSE FIGHTING.
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Fallujah becomes 'like hell'
09/11/2004 07:54 - (SA)
A night scope vision from Fallujah, showing a barrage of fire on the city as US troops launched their offensive to destroy key rebel strongholds. (APTN / Pool, AP)
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Fallujah - The skies over Fallujah lit up from the flashes of air and artillery barrages as United States troops launched an offensive to seize key insurgent strongholds in a city that became the major sanctuary for Islamic extremists who fought marines to a standstill last April.
A US military spokesperson estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across the city in bombardment and skirmishes before the main assault began on Monday. Two marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates near Fallujah.
US troops cut off electricity to the city, and most private generators were not working - either because their owners wanted to conserve fuel or the wires had been damaged by explosions.
Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days.
Cautious estimates
As night fell a civilian living in the centre of Fallujah said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.
"Every minute, hundreds of bombs and shells are exploding," Fadril al-Badrani said in an interview. "The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke ... Fallujah has become like hell." |
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tony54
PO2
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 369
Location: cleveland, ohio
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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Last night on FOX they had a young Marine in the war zone,
He said "TELL THEM HELL IS COMING"
My thoughts exactly, those ragheads are going to see firepower they never knew exhisted, in the next 72 hours or so they will all meet their 72 virgins......... in HELL.
Our brave Marines will see to that!
"Mess with the best, die like the rest"
SEMPER FI! |
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JB Stone
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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US pushes towards central Falluja
BBC News ^ | BBC News
Posted on 11/09/2004 8:46:26 AM PST by anonymoussierra
US and Iraqi soldiers have seized the northern third of Falluja from rebels on the second day of a full-scale assault, the US military says. Troops have been advancing towards the centre, fighting insurgents armed with rifles and mortars street by street.
Early on Tuesday the US-led troops reached a key objective early - a mosque in the north part of Falluja.
The push into Falluja came as rebels took up positions in the heart of neighbouring Ramadi, eyewitnesses said.
They say fighters moved in when US troops withdrew from the town, a former insurgent stronghold.
On Tuesday Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged the Falluja rebels to lay down their arms and allow US and Iraqi forces to take control
But a BBC Arabic service correspondent in the city says he can see heavy street-fighting in the centre, with US soldiers moving from house to house.
Some reports say US units have crossed the central highway in the heart of Falluja.
Strategic objective
Earlier, a US tank commander said guerrillas were putting up a strong fight in the north-western Jolan district.
"These people are hardcore," Capt Robert Bodisch told Reuters news agency.
"A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) at my tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there."
The BBC's Paul Wood, embedded with US soldiers - and whose reporting is subject to military restrictions - says US-led forces reached their first major objective early on Tuesday, when they surrounded al-Hidra mosque in the northern parts of Falluja.
The US military said the building was being used as an arms depot and a meeting point for the leaders of the insurgency.
Our correspondent says Iraqi forces fighting alongside US marines will storm it.
In other developments:
An indefinite night curfew is introduced in Baghdad
Iraq's largest Sunni-led political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, pulls out of the interim government in protest at the Falluja assault
The operation also prompts the main association of Sunni clerics to call for a boycott of elections due in January
A suspected car bomb hits an Iraqi National Guard base near the northern city of Kirkuk
Rebels attack police stations in Baquba, north of Baghdad, wounding a number of officers There is no indication of casualty numbers from the main assault.
No way out
Most of the 250,000 civilians who live in Falluja have fled the city ahead of the offensive.
In pictures: Falluja offensive But 30,000 to 50,000 are estimated to remain there, and their escape routes are closed.
Our correspondent says that despite efforts by US forces to select targets carefully, their use of heavy artillery and tanks is bound to lead to civilian casualties.
Residents say water and electricity have been cut off.
One man who managed to flee Falluja told BBC News that the streets where he had come from were littered with bodies.
The top US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, said US and Iraqi troops were facing an estimated 3,000 insurgents inside the city.
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi gave the go-ahead for the assault.
US and Iraqi officials hope the assault on Falluja - deeply unpopular with some Iraqis - will help prepare for January's poll.
The Sunni Muslim city has been a hotbed of resistance to the US-led occupation of Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein last year.
Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said to be behind the kidnapping and killing of foreigners in Iraq, has urged resistance and said victory will come "in a matter of days".
Residents say water and electricity have been cut off.
One man who managed to flee Falluja told BBC News that the streets where he had come from were littered with bodies.
I bet the ATM Machines are down, too....!!!!!
| Quote: | Rumsfeld says civilians were given plenty of warning
Associated Press
Nov. 9, 2004 08:50 AM
WASHINGTON - Eleven U.S. troops were killed in Iraq Monday, the highest single day death toll in the country in more than six months, officials said.
Two Marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates River as coalition forces launched an operation to take back the rebel-controlled city of Fallujah.
But it was a tough day throughout Iraq, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday, noting that nine other U.S. troops were killed in other parts of Iraq as well.
They were three Marines and six soldiers - most victims of homemade bombs and killed in locations southwest of Fallujah, southwest of Baghdad and in and around the capital, the official said on condition of anonymity.
He said it was too early to tell whether insurgents had planned the attacks to divert attention from the fight under way in Fallujah.
The death toll of 11 is the highest since May 2, when nine U.S. troops were killed in separate mortar attacks and roadside bombings in three scattered areas of the country.
In Fallujah, officials said Tuesday that they didn't yet know why there was lighter-than-expected resistance. They offered possible explanations including that many of the insurgents left the city before the operation started or that the troops have not yet reached the center location to which the resistance has retreated.
It is not necessarily bad news if the fighters have scattered, since the main objective is to give control of the city back to the Iraqi government, one official said. Though it means coalition forces will have to fight them another day in another location, pushing them out of Fallujah at least means they have been denied that city as a safe haven, he said.
Civilians in the city of Fallujah got plenty of warning to steer clear of the fighting between U.S. and insurgent forces, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday in predicting "there aren't going to be large numbers" of civilians killed there.
"Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. He referred to a round-the-clock curfew and other emergency measures announced by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
"There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces," Rumsfeld said.
One risk of using overwhelming force to regain control of rebel-held Fallujah is that civilian casualties - nearly inevitable under the circumstances - could trigger a backlash elsewhere in Iraq and in the Arab world against the U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared with Rumsfeld and said it's likely the insurgents will try to use civilians as shields against attacking U.S. troops.
"There are also indications that they want to fight in a more conventional way," Myers added without elaborating.
Rumsfeld said no one knows for sure how many civilians remain in Fallujah. Tens of thousands are reported to have left in recent weeks, and Gen. George W. Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, told reporters Monday that as many as 100,000 civilians may have remained.
U.S. officials also are unsure how many insurgents are there. Myers said some undoubtedly slipped away before the fighting began in earnest, and Casey said some left while others arrived. Casey those who are fighting are armed with AK-47 guns, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, improvised explosive devices and car bombs.
"We expect them to come at us with car bombs," Casey said.
Rumsfeld made no prediction about the outcome at Fallujah but said defeating the insurgents there is a critical step in the battle for a free Iraq because "one part of the country cannot remain under the rule of assassins."
"These are killers," he said. "They chop people's heads off."
Rumsfeld and Myers both said victory in Fallujah would not end the insurgency or eliminate the need for more fierce combat in coming weeks.
"These folks are determined," Rumsfeld said, referring to the estimated several thousand Saddam Hussein loyalists and Islamic extremists who are believed to be mainstays of the insurgency. He said they were still getting money and recruits from outside Iraq.
"It's going to take time," Rumsfeld said, for enough ordinary Iraqis to reach a "tipping point" and turn on the insurgents. He described the insurgents as criminals, assassins, terrorists and remnants of Saddam's government, and said they cannot be allowed to "run roughshod" over the city.
Rumsfeld said he was confident Allawi would not pull the plug on the U.S.-led offensive before it was finished, saying, "The decision to go (into Fallujah) included the decision to finish and to finish together."
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"You move. You coil. You move"
By Matthew McAllester
Newsday
BILAL HUSSEIN / AP
Two GIs, Briton and six Iraqis killed
Newsday reporter Matthew McAllester is embedded with U.S. forces attacking Fallujah. Here is his first-person report of today's attack.
FALLUJAH, Iraq — By 2 a.m., a column of heavily armored Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles entered Fallujah along the perimeter roads and down some of the main arteries toward the heart of the city.
The vehicles crawled past palm trees swaying in the wind and apparently deserted two-story homes, many of them behind walls and metal gates. Viewed on an infrared screen inside one of the Bradleys, an Abrams tank swiveled its main gun to the east and fired repeatedly at suspected insurgents who were firing Kalashnikov rifles at the Americans.
A bit later, a man was spotted in a doorway looking at the Bradley through binoculars. As the Bradley, carrying a Newsday reporter, approached the doorway, the man stood before the vehicle on the street, pointing a shoulder-held missile launcher directly at the Bradley.
The gunner opened fire with his .25-mm cannon twice, blasting the area where the man stood. It was unclear whether he was hit. The Bradley continued on.
Missiles from an AC-130 gunship patrolling the route of the advancing Abrams and Bradley vehicles shattered cars suspected of being driven by suicide bombers.
The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment pushed through clouds of desert dust toward the front row of houses in the northwestern corner of the insurgent-held city. Drawing fire from rebel positions, they let loose with their guns in what was intended as an overwhelming attack.
"The finest fighting force on the face of the earth is right here," Marine Maj. Gen. Rich Natonski, commander of the ground forces in the attack, told the 2nd Battalion in a visit shortly before the assault began.
APTN / AP
This nightscope image made from TV shows U.S. and Iraqi soldiers outside a Fallujah hospital yesterday. U.S. forces stormed into western districts of the city early yesterday, seizing the main city hospital and securing two key bridges over the Euphrates River.
"This is a hell of a team. Iraqi forces are fired up. We're going to kick some butt."
The vehicles proceeded in groups of one or two toward the train station. Lt. Col. Jim Rainey, commander of the 2nd Battalion, said they were moving slowly because of concern about booby traps in the station. "You fight like a Slinky," he said, his jaw puffed with chewing tobacco. "You move. You coil. You move. You coil."
The plan was to destroy at least the first two rows of houses that border the Jolan district. The 2nd Battalion's initial role, commanders said, was to punch the hole into Jolan that will allow the Marines and Iraqi forces to flow into the northwest of the city.
Commanders consider Jolan to be the part of Fallujah most densely populated by insurgents. The goal of the battle, said Marine Lt. Col. Joe L'etoile, 40, operations officer for Natonski, was to turn control of the city of Fallujah from the insurgents to the Iraqi people and government.
"It'll be fast, I'll tell you that much," he said before the battle began, gazing toward the front line of houses.
In the command tent of 2nd Battalion, Rainey and intelligence officers watched a computer screen that displayed a live feed from an unmanned drone aircraft flying over the city with powerful cameras and positioning systems.
From the tent, the officers could see four insurgents firing mortars — the white flash showing up in the backyard of a house — and then moving quickly through the streets.
Two of the men appeared to be carrying weapons, probably Kalashnikov rifles.
From a few dozen yards away, the 2nd Battalion's mortar team fired into the sky , a bang followed by the whiz of the projectile heading toward the city in an arc. Several seconds later, booms echoed back across the desert to this forward base.
Earlier, Rainey led a reconnaissance mission of eight Bradleys and five tanks up toward the train station to the north of Jolan, some of them pushing toward the front line.
Inside a Bradley, a passenger's teeth rattle and his body is shaken and battered with each maneuver the tracked vehicle makes. Five envelope-shaped periscopes allow a limited view outside, but the main view for the five or six infantrymen in the rear of the vehicle comes from the green video screen in one corner.
By pressing buttons, the passengers can see the different views of the gunner, the driver or the commander. There is also a map; a blue dot represents the vehicle, which is located with a GPS tracking system known as Blue Force.
Blue Force also allows Rainey and his officers orchestrating attacks to tell where all his vehicles are at any given time. One described it as a video game overlaid on a map.
Before the battle began, commanders explained there would be two main prongs to the offensive, one directly into Jolan and another arcing through the city from the northeast to the south of Jolan. They hope the entire warren-like neighborhood will be cut off. Once inside, the 2nd Battalion will establish forward operating bases and target specific areas that its intelligence says are likely to be holdouts of the insurgents.
On this front, Maj. Tim Karcher, the battalion's operations officer, said the battalion would use a mine-clearing explosive device before advancing through the front line. The Army thinks the area is likely to be heavily mined and booby-trapped.
The primary aim of the full-scale pounding of the front line of homes is to kill the triggermen of the remote-control bombs that are likely to prove the biggest threat to American and Iraqi army forces pushing into the city.
"We're going to rain holy terror down on this front row of buildings," Karcher said. "You should see a burning part of the city. They're all sandbagged and all fortified buildings."
While American and Iraqi forces began the attack on the city Sunday night, quickly seizing a peninsula on the western edge of the city and securing two bridges across the Euphrates River, this was the start of the main assault.
Early in the morning, the 2nd Battalion moved en masse to its forward position in an old plaster factory on the outskirts of town. It set up a new command post and scattered its 60 vehicles around the desert.
A short distance to the west across the desert stood the tanks and vehicles of the Marine battalion due to push into Jolan. Another battalion stood ready to the west. Sometimes they maneuvered, but most of the day they lurked menacingly, pointed in the direction of the city.
Most civilians are believed to have left Fallujah.
"I feel for anybody who's bought real estate here in the past year," said Company Sgt. Maj. Timothy Mace, 44, as he sat in the back of Rainey's Bradley on the reconnaissance mission.
On that probing movement, before the battle, only one Iraqi opened up from the front line at the American vehicles. A Bradley gunner shot three times at him.
"Some little guy poppin' caps, huh?" said Mace, talking over the rattling roar of the vehicle. "You gotta admire his determination."
A bit later, a man was spotted in a doorway looking at the Bradley through binoculars. As the Bradley, carrying a Newsday reporter, approached the doorway, the man stood before the vehicle on the street, pointing a shoulder-held missile launcher directly at the Bradley.
The gunner opened fire with his .25-mm cannon twice, blasting the area where the man stood. It was unclear whether he was hit. The Bradley continued on.
He wasn't 'hit'....he was VAPORIZED.
~~~~~~~~
U.S. Enters Fallujah Vowing a ‘Fight to the Finish’
By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent
November 9, 2004
CBN.com – WASHINGTON - American troops are moving ahead with the long-awaited offensive on the terrorist stronghold of Fallujah. They are fighting it out with an estimated 3,000 terrorist insurgents.
As U.S. and Iraqi troops battle their way into Fallujah, one American officer said a lot of the insurgents are dying.
One Marine said, "After some tough fighting at the start, resistance is fading fast."
Marines and Army troops are finding many empty buildings, since about half of the city's population of between 200,000 and 300,000 has fled. Nearly a tenth of the buildings were flattened in the bombing that proceeded the ground invasion. That bombing, and some early skirmishing, killed 42 insurgents before the main assault even began.
How does it feel to be involved in such a battle?
One Marine responded, "Just a huge adrenaline rush, that's it. I don't know how to -- it's fun. It's fun."
An Army commander says a main goal now is capturing or killing enemy fighters who may try to sneak out of Fallujah disguised as civilians. He says he does not want any of them to get away to fight another day.
Some 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops now surround the city. But military experts say quarantining Fallujah is not enough, the resistance there must be crushed.
Retired Lt. General Gregory Newbold, a former operations director with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commented, "Right now, Fallujah is considered a victory for insurgents, and for the terrorists and for the people who hope to oppose the United States."
Back in April, these terrorists fought U.S. forces to a standstill, and American troops left the city under a deal worked out by Iraqi authorities. This time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says it will be a fight to the finish, and the U.S. has the full agreement of Iraq's prime minister.
Rumsfeld said, "A country, to be successful, simply cannot allow there to be safe havens for people who are determined to kill innocent Iraqis and to bring down the government."
Before the fighting began, the Iraqi resistance received support from 26 prominent Muslim scholars and preachers in Saudi Arabia, urging the Iraqis to back the terrorists in their country who are fighting U.S. forces.
In an open letter, these Saudi religious leaders insist the Iraq insurgency is "legitimate," and they say they encourage it. Saudi officials had no comment on this call to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.
| Quote: | U.S. forces push into center of Fallujah, Sunni clerics protest offensive
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Army and Marine units pushed into the center of Fallujah on Tuesday, fighting with bands of guerrillas in the streets and searching house to house in a powerful advance on the second day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold.
A total of 16 Americans have been killed in the past two days across Iraq - including three killed in Fallujah combat on Tuesday, two killed by mortars near the northern city of Mosul and 11 others who died Monday, most of them as guerrillas launched a wave of
attacks in Baghdad and southwest of Fallujah.
The 11 deaths were the highest one-day U.S. toll in more than six months.
As fighting raged in Fallujah, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared a nighttime curfew in Baghdad and its surroundings – the first curfew in the capital for a year - a day after a string of insurgent attacks in the city killed nine Iraqis and wounded more than 80.
Several heavy explosions hit central Baghdad Tuesday after nightfall, followed by the rattle of small arms fire.
Anger over the assault on the mainly Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah grew among Iraq's Sunni minority, and voices abroad - including the United Nations' refugee agency and the Red Cross - expressed fears over civilians' safety.
An influential group of Iraqi Sunni clerics called for a boycott of the election. The vote is being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah," said Harith al-Dhari, director of the Association of Muslim Clerics.
If Sunnis refuse to vote on a large scale, it could wreck the legitimacy of the election, seen as vital in Iraq's move to democracy.
An estimated 6,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 allied Iraqi soldiers invaded the city from the north Monday night in a quick, powerful start to an offensive aimed at re-establishing government control ahead of the elections. The guerrillas fought off a bloody Marine offensive against the city in April.
On Tuesday, heavy street clashes were raging in Fallujah's northern neighborhoods. By midday, U.S. armored units had made their way to the highway running east-west through the city's center and crossed over into the southern part of Fallujah, a major milestone.
The military reported lighter-than-expected resistance in Jolan, a warren of alleyways in northwestern Fallujah where guerillas were believed to be at their strongest.
That could be a sign that insurgents left the city before the operation started or that the troops have not yet reached the center location to which the resistance has fallen back, Pentagon officials said in Washington.
U.S. officers said few civilians were trying to flee the city Tuesday. They said the bulk of the population of 200,000-300,000 left before the fighting and the rest were hunkered down because of a 24-hour curfew. U.S. troops were preventing most people from leaving, except in emergency cases. One funeral procession was allowed out of the city, U.S. officers said.
Before the Monday night attack, the U.S. military reported 42 insurgents killed, while Fallujah doctors reported 12 people dead. But since then, there has not been word of the Iraqi death toll.
U.S. forces cut off electricity to the city. Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days.
"The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke ... Fallujah has become like hell," Fadril al-Badrani, a resident in the center of Fallujah, said Monday night amid a heavy air and artillery barrage. He said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.
Allawi called on Fallujah's fighters to lay down their weapons to spare the city and allow government forces to take control, "The political solution is possible even if military operations are ongoing," his spokesman said.
The Fallujah campaign has seen five deaths reported by the U.S. military: three troops killed and 14 wounded on Tuesday, and two Marines who died in a bulldozer accident Monday.
In Fallujah's urban battles Tuesday, small bands of guerrillas - fewer than 20 - were engaging U.S. troops, then falling back in the face of overwhelming fire from American tanks, 20mm cannons and heavy machine guns, said Time magazine reporter Michael Ware, embedded with troops. Ware reported that there appeared to be no civilians in the area he was in.
On one thoroughfare in the city, U.S. troops traded fire with gunmen holed up in a row of houses about 100 yards away. An American gunner on an armored vehicle let loose with his machine gun, grinding the upper part of a small building to rubble.
Elsewhere, witnesses reported seeing at least two American tanks engulfed in flames. A Kiowa helicopter flying over southeast Fallujah took groundfire, injuring the pilot, but he managed to return to the U.S. base.
The once constant artillery barrages were halted, since so many troops were inside the city. U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded a mosque inside the city that was used as arms depot and insurgent meeting point, the BBC reported.
Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, said Tuesday that a security cordon around the city will be tightened to ensure insurgents dressed in civilian clothing don't slip out.
"As we tighten the noose around (the enemy), he will move to escape to fight another day. I do not want these guys to get out of here. I want them killed or captured as they flee," he said.
Guerrilla violence continued elsewhere. Hundreds of militants swarmed the streets of Ramadi, another insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. Gunfire rang out in the city center, and a destroyed car smeared with blood was seen.
Some 10,000-15,000 U.S. troops have surrounded Fallujah, along with allies Iraqi forces, according to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey. Commanders estimate around 3,000 Sunni fighters are in Fallujah, perhaps around 20 percent of them foreign Islamic militants.
The question of casualties is a major factor in the offensive. Reports of hundreds of people killed during the Marine offensive in April outraged Iraqis and forced the Marines to pull back - allowing guerrillas to only strengthen their hold on the city.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted Monday, "There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces."
Allawi's government has also taken a prominent role in defending the assault - for which the prime minister gave the green light.
Still, it risks alienating Iraqis - particularly among the Sunni Arab minority. Industry Minister Hajim Al-Hassani, of the mainly Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, quit the government Tuesday in protest.
Russia's Foreign Ministry warned that the attack could hurt the January election, saying the government is "concerned that the actions in this region not worsen the conditions in Iraq as a whole"
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said he hoped the violence "ends fast," adding that he was in touch with Iraqi officials. "No one can ever accept the way civilians are struck in Fallujah," he told reporters.
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that it was "extremely concerned" about tens of thousands of people who fled ahead of the Fallujah fighting - many of them now living in tents.
And the International Committee of the Red cross said it was "very worried" that some wounded Iraqis have been unable to receive medical care because of the fighting.
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