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Kimmymac
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 816
Location: Texas
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 Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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The Ministry is worried about alienating the Sunnis, there is concern for those forced to flee...blahblahblahyadayadablahblah.
Yeah, well. War is hell. It offends people. It inconveniences people.
I am sooooo sorry to hear that people are forced to live in tents while our service men and women risk their very ives liberating their country. Maybe instead of fleeing they should have taken up arms for the cause of freedom.
Someone gives these people a big, hot, steaming cup of SHUT THE &^%$ UP, indeed!
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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 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) US troops and crack Iraqi soldiers surged into rubble-strewn districts in the heart of Fallujah, seizing one third of the city after hours of street fighting with rebels in the largest military onslaught since the war.
The US military it was closing in on the centre of Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold long off-limits to foreigners, less than 24 hours after launching a massive operation to retake the city from insurgents.
But in a possible new setback to hopes of stabilising the country ahead of January elections, insurgents took control of the centre of the flashpoint city of Ramadi after a day of clashes with US forces, an AFP correspondent said.
US forces withdrew Tuesday around 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) from Ramadi's main streets to their bases east and west of the city, the correspondent said. The US military could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Underlining the chronic instability prevailing in Iraq's heartland, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office also announced that a nighttime curfew would be taking effect in the capital Baghdad.
In Fallujah, black and white smoke plumed skyward as US artillery, warplanes and tanks pounded the rebel stronghold west of Baghdad, meeting minimal resistance, AFP correspondents embedded with the American military said.
The battle to reclaim the rebel enclave spread out through neighbourhoods and alleyways from the north towards the centre as marines knocked down walls, barged into houses or crouched outside.
"The military controls one third of the city," a high-ranking marine officer told AFP.
Casualty figures were unavailable from the city, where estimates for the number of its 300,000-strong population who fled ahead of the long-threatened assault vary widely from 20 to 90 percent.
"As for casualties on the insurgents' side I can tell you that they are dying. A lot of them are dying and this is a good thing," marine spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said.
"We are downing them," said Major Todd Desgrosseilliers, an executive officer with the marines. "We are using good old American firepower."
But several countries urged the United States to exercise caution to avoid civilian casualties, with Russia saying that the action must not lead to the "suffering of the Iraqi people".
The extremist Islamic Army in Iraq also ordered militants to attack some 20 targets in Iraq in reprisal for the Fallujah offensive, a statement published on its website said.
In a two-pronged assault on Fallujah that began late Monday, thousands of US troops, followed by crack Iraqi soldiers, poured into the northwestern Jolan neighbourhood and the Askari district in the northeast.
Fearful of roadside bombs -- a favoured weapon of the insurgents -- as they entered Jolan, the marines smashed through a railway line and ploughed through fields to avoid using the main roads.
They moved house-to-house through the neighbourhood, seen as the heart of rebel activity in Fallujah, spraying rounds of machine-gun fire at buildings from where militants fought back with small arms fire.
Despite being a residential district, Jolan was a wasteland of shattered glass and rubble, with smoke filling the horizon. Not a civilian was in sight. Chickens and roosters ran around amid a constant clatter of Kalashnikov fire and mortar rounds.
A smattering of specially trained Iraqi forces accompanied the marines, while many more were poised on the outskirts of the city, preparing to enter.
Sunni and Shiite figures have condemned the assault, initially dubbed Phantom Fury but renamed Operation Dawn in deference to the Iraqi government, with one Sunni political party threatening to quit the government unless it was halted.
In Washington, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the forces would fight to the end to retake the city, after a siege there in April left hundreds dead and ended in stalemate.
Some 20,000 US and Iraqi troops have been massing around Fallujah since mid-October and the offensive finally erupted a day after the government declared a state of emergency across most of Iraq.
US commanders estimate that 2,000 to 2,500 fighters, some loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are inside the city and its surrounding areas, ready to fight.
The military believes that another 10,000 men could join in the battle.
Outgunned but still fighting, four attackers were killed and 14 people wounded in an ambush on two Iraqi police stations Tuesday, a day after at least 13 people died when a Baghdad hospital was car bombed, officials said. |
Battle for Fallujah continues
From correspondents in near Fallujah, Iraq
November 10, 2004
US and Iraqi troops today seized control of the northern third of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, a high-ranking marine officer said.
The reported success came less than 24 hours after the launch of an all-out assault on the rebel Iraqi city.
The US military said three troops had been killed and another 14 wounded in and around Fallujah in the past 12 hours. A total of five US troops have died since the offensive began.
The military reported lighter-than-expected resistance in Jolan, a Sunni militant held warren of alleyways in northeastern Fallujah where the assault began.
However, residents said heavy street clashes were raging in other northern sectors amid fierce bursts of gunfire, with at least two American tanks in flames.
A Kiowa helicopter flying over southeast Fallujah took groundfire, injuring the pilot, but he returned to the US base.
By noon, US armoured units had reached the central highway in the heart of the city, crossing over into the southern part, despite a call by the militant Islamic Army in Iraq on its website for attacks on key targets.
"The once constant thunder of artillery barrages has been halted with so many troops moving inside the city's narrow alleys. The US and Iraqi forces have surrounded a mosque inside the city that was used as an arms depot and insurgent meeting point," the BBC reported.
Colonel Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, said a security cordon around the city would be tightened to ensure insurgents dressed in civilian clothing didn't slip out.
"My concern now is only one - not to allow any enemy to escape. As we tighten the noose around him, 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.
Overnight the skies over Fallujah lit up with flashes of air and artillery barrages as American forces laid siege to the city that had become the major sanctuary for Islamic extremists who fought Marines to a standstill last April.
A US military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed in bombardment and skirmishes before the main assault began yesterday. Two Marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates river near Fallujah.
The initial ground assault into Fallujah's Askari and Jolan neighbourhoods was by US Army tanks and Humvees. US Marines went up to the edge of the city, secured the area and then armoured vehicles crushed barriers and pushed into the city, with the Marines following.
The media reported orange explosions lighting up the district's palm trees, minarets and dusty roofs, and a fire burning on the city's edge.
"A US jet fired an air-to-ground missile at a building late yesterday from which US and Iraqi forces had taken fire," the US command said.
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 as most shops in the city had been closed for the past two days.
By nightfall, a civilian living in the centre of Fallujah said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.
The top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, told reporters in Washington that 10,000 to 15,000 US troops along with a smaller number of Iraqi forces were encircling the city. The offensive was considered the most important military effort to re-establish government control over Sunni strongholds west of Baghdad before elections in January.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said large numbers of civilians would not be killed.
Yesterday, a doctor at a clinic in Fallujah, Mohammed Amer, reported 12 people were killed.
US commanders estimated that 3000 insurgents were barricaded in Fallujah.
Gen. Casey said some insurgents slipped away but others "have moved in."
US military officials believe 20 per cent of Fallujah's fighters are foreigners, who are believed to be followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Gen. Casey said 50 to 70 per cent of the city's 200,000 residents had fled. The numbers were in dispute, however, with some putting the population at 300,000.
Yesterday, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who gave the green light for the offensive, also announced a round-the-clock curfew in Fallujah and the nearby insurgent stronghold of Ramadi.
Mr Allawi has also imposed a night curfew on Baghdad for an indefinite period, from 10.30pm to 4am (6.30am to noon AEDT).
In Britain, Iraq's deputy prime minister defended the operation.
"The terrorists are mindless, they are killing our children and trying to destroy our lives and take us back to tyranny," Barham Saleh told the BBC.
The prominent Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, announced it was pulling out its single Cabinet member, Industry Minister Hajim Al-Hassani, from the Iraqi government.
"We are protesting the attack on Fallujah and the injustice that is inflicted on the innocent people of the city," said party chief Mohsen Abdel-Hamid.
US commanders have avoided any public estimate on how long it may take to capture Fallujah.
Today, more violence was reported across the country, with attacks on two police stations in the central town of Baqouba in which one attacker was killed, while two construction workers killed by a car bomb in the north.
The extremist Islamic Army in Iraq ordered its militants to attack key targets, including the US headquarters, the oil and finance ministries, military bases, embassies and major hotels.
The group is thought to be based mainly in Fallujah and follows the strict Wahabi school of Islam.
Another statement by the group denounced "the slaughter by the infidels in Iraq".
"Your enemy is arrogant. Strike him with all firmness. Make him taste humiliation and a bitter death," said the group.
The group has demanded Paris lift a controversial ban on headscarves in state schools to secure the release of French journalists, Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, abducted in late August.
Since its first statements in March, the shadowy Sunni Muslim militant group has never failed to deliver on its ultimatums and has not hesitated to execute an Italian journalist and two Pakistanis it was holding.
- with Agence-France Presse
The Associated Press
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The bad guys are boxed in.
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noc
PO1
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 492
Location: Dublin, CA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Man, I love that last picture. Our soldiers rock! |
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, I don't want to face the USMC in an alley anywhere in the world - those people holed up there truly are insane...it's as if they want to die...oh yeah.... 
_________________
"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 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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RECENT SCENES:
STEEL RAIN, GUNSHIPS AT WORK
NOW YOU SEE 'EM,
NOW, YOU ....DON'T
50CAL. TRACER FIRE
CAPTURED FOR QUESTIONING
AC-130, ANTI-MISSILE FLARES
SEE ABOVE
A-10 WARTHOG, ANTI-TANK RUN
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REMEMBER THE TANK MAN WITH THE CIGAR, ON THE FIRST DAY INTO BAGHDAD...???
Navy Corpsman Jerrod Corhey looks at the shrapnel wound of Marine Cpl. Ryan Chambers, after a rocket propelled grenade hit his tank in Fallujah.
Just after 11 a.m., a tank hit by a rocket-propelled grenade some 500 yards into the city hobbled back to the train trestle that Marines have used as a fallback position since they arrived here Monday morning.
Climbing out of the tank turret to extinguish packs that were still on fire from the blast, Cpl. Ryan Chambers, 26, of San Luis Obispo, yelled for a medic.
"Corpsman! Corpsman!" he shouted as other Marines climbed atop the tank to help.
Together they pulled a Marine off the tank and placed him on the back of a humvee.
He was wounded with shrapnel to the head and eye, and another Marine from the tank was badly wounded in the hand.
After seeing his wounded tank crew off, Chambers realized he was wounded, too ---- hit in the upper left arm with shrapnel.
"I saw a couple of guys run, so we went after them," he said as the medic cut off his sleeve. "Then POW! The first one missed us, but the second one got us. They're just going to patch me up and I'm going back in."
Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch
DefendAmerica.mil ^ | 17 May 2004 | By U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jennie Haskamp
Posted on 05/18/2004 2:24:49 PM PDT by wingnutx
U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch
'Cigar Marine' Returns Home Less One Eye, But With Spirit Intact
By U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jennie Haskamp Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif., May 17, 2004 — As Marine Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch sat and watched his 10-year-old son play third base on May 8 at Luckie Park in Twentynine Palms, Calif., he couldn't hide his enthusiasm.
Popaditch, a Hammond, Ind., native, hadn't planned on making it to these games.
"One month ago, I was in Iraq, and I assumed I'd watch his first baseball season on video tape after I got home," he said from his red, white and blue canvas chair next to the dugout. "This is a real treat, being here for these games."
A real treat. Those three simple words provide a small preview of Popaditch's endlessly positive all-Marine attitude.
The event that brought him home in time for little league was life changing, but when he speaks of it, he is humble and quick to change the tide of the conversation to the Marines he met recently, or to the support he has received from friends and strangers alike, rather than be hailed as a hero himself.
"These young Marines I met in the hospitals on my way home -- they are the heroes," he said, telling story after story of the Marines he met in various stages of recovery while in hospitals in Landstuhl, Germany, Bethesda, Md., and San Diego on his way home to Twentynine Palms. "Marines like Corporal Ortiz."
Popaditch, still watching the game in front of him, retold Ortiz's story, a grin spreading across his chiseled, suntanned face.
"This kid was waiting for his buddy to be medevaced when a frag grenade came in. Ortiz could move, he could get out of the area, but his friend couldn't — so Ortiz covered his buddy with his own body, hoping their body armor would take up most of the blast. He used his arms to shield his friend's face, and at the last second, this other Marine, shot and bleeding, wrenched his arm free to cover Ortiz's face, too."
Popaditch stopped, an amazed look on his face, and shook his head.
"Man, they sure took a beating from the shrapnel, but they are both alive — they kept each other alive," he said. "They are heroes to me."
To fully understand why strangers across the country are sending well wishes to "Nick Popaditch, a true American hero" they've never met, one must rewind to Operation Iraqi Freedom and the liberation of Baghdad. In a famous event that truly symbolized the liberation, 1st Tank Battalion Marines pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein. An Associated Press photographer captured then-Staff Sgt. Nick Popaditch grinning, smoking a stogie with the statue falling in the background.
This photo, which ended up on the front page of nearly every major paper in the United States, earned him the title of "the Cigar Marine."
Now fast forward to April 7 this year. Popaditch, still a tank commander with 1st Tank Battalion, volunteered to redeploy to Iraq with another company when he found out his own company wasn't slated to go back yet.
For the 36-year-old father of two, that fateful day in Fallujah was just another day at the office — or in the tank, if you ask him.
"We'd been in constant contact with the enemy for 36 hours," he started, absentmindedly tracing a scar above his right eyebrow. "We were on a street so narrow there wasn't even room to turn my turret."
With the enemy somewhere in front of them, Popaditch and his crew, which included a second tank, his wingman-slowly traversed the narrow streets.
"We passed an alley no wider than those two poles, and I looked down the alley and saw anti-coalition forces fire (a rocket-propelled grenade) straight at us," he continued.
The poles he referred to were in the frame of the backstop, and as he made the analogy, he paused to watch the game being played in front of him, pointing out a kid in a pickle between first and second base.
"That RPG hit the side of my turret and it didn't penetrate, but I ordered my driver to stop and as I turned to engage them with my .50 caliber, another RPG was launched from a rooftop in front of us, and I guess that sucker had better aim," he laughed. "I'm not sure if he was aiming at my head, or at the hatch. The best I can figure is he split the difference."
Splitting the difference from a rooftop cost Popaditch his right eye — a fact he refuses to dwell on. Rather he speaks of the heroic actions of his 26-year-old gunner, Cpl. Ryan Chambers, a San Luis Obispo, Calif., native.
"When I got hit, I saw a flash of light and then everything went black. All I could hear was fuzz and static," he recalled, pausing to clap as his son's team brought in another runner, putting them ahead by five runs. "The force of the blast knocked me down into the tank, and I sat up and reached for my radio to start telling the driver we needed to get out of there. But my helmet was gone, so I had no radio."
Blinded, momentarily deaf and not yet feeling pain, Popaditch groped his way around the inside of his tank until he located Chambers.
"That guy, man, he was injured too, and he'd already climbed right up into the cupola — the same cupola I'd just been blown out of — and was assessing the situation," said Popaditch, stopping to laugh. "This is the funny part of the story. I grabbed him and screamed, 'Chambers, we have to get the tanks out of here,' and 'Chambers, you're going to have to call for a medevac.' He didn't answer me, so I shook him and screamed it three or four more times, until I realized he'd probably answered me but I couldn't hear him."
As the tank started moving he could faintly hear Chambers on the radio, he said.
"I heard him hollering at both drivers, just doing what tank commanders do naturally," he said, admiration in his voice. "We were blocks and blocks deep into the city, and Chambers simply took control. That was comforting to me, to know that he had taken charge of the situation."
With Chambers in charge, Popaditch focused on himself for a moment and said he suddenly felt very tired.
"I wanted to lie down right there and go to sleep for a while, but I knew from first aid training that I had to stay awake," he laughed, shaking his head sheepishly. "I stood up, held on, and forced myself to stay awake. I don't remember anything about the trip back to the center of command, but there is a berm near the trestle we were based near, and when I felt the tank cross that berm, I knew we were home."
Popaditch said when his Marines and the medical crew pulled him out of the tank; he knew everything was going to be OK. He said he's still not sure if they were Army medics or Navy corpsmen, and laughingly apologizes for not knowing, saying, "Hey, I'd just been hit in the face with a grenade."
"When they started treating me, I knew I was safe, and I knew my family would never see a picture of me hanging from a train trestle somewhere," he said. "It was such an emotionally charged feeling, such a sense of relief."
He remembers very little about being treated in Fallujah, or being medevaced to Germany, but what he does remember amazes him.
"I was on a cot, and they were working on me. I was very heavily medicated," he recalled, taking off the patch covering his right eye and rubbing his hand across his shaved head.
"All of a sudden, they said, 'Gunny, we're being mortared, so we're going to pile these flak jackets on you,' like it was no big deal."
Popaditch said they spread a flak vest on his legs, one on his torso and one over his head. He then lost consciousness until he was on the flight to Germany.
In Germany, he spoke to his wife and parents on the telephone, and after surgery, the doctors told him his right eye had been unsalvageable.
"I'm sure I left this guy on the floor of that tank," he smiled, gesturing to his swollen and closed right eyelid, surrounded with fresh pink scars and some small scabs peppered across his cheeks, mouth and forehead, "But it was nice of them to tell me I'd lost it. This other one is getting better every day though, and I expect to regain 100 percent of my vision in this eye."
Now back at home in the Mojave Desert, Popaditch, who is still on convalescent leave, spends a few hours every day at the headquarters element of his battalion. The battalion surgeon asks him from time to time why he isn't convalescing at home.
"I told him, 'I want to wait until I feel good enough to enjoy the leave, Sir,' and I just like being around the battalion, seeing the guys, seeing what I can get into," laughs Popaditch, who, with the help of his wife of 13 years, April, regularly drives three hours one-way to see a variety of doctors at Balboa Naval Medical Center, in San Diego.
"I can't believe these doctors. I really feel like I've got the greatest doctors in the world. There are so many of them, all specialists of some sort, and all interested in helping me make a full recovery."
When asked how he would sum up the whole experience, Popaditch thought for a minute and smiled.
"This has been the most motivating experience of my life, and it has restored my faith in the youth of America," he said enthusiastically. "The people I've met along the way are amazing. Corporal Chambers saved my life that day, the doctors are working to give me the best quality of life possible, and people across America are coming forward to support not only me, but all of the guys fighting over there right now."
Along with his eye, Popaditch lost his sense of smell, suffered permanent hearing loss in his right ear, broke his nose and has undergone several surgeries to remove shrapnel from his head, eye and face.
His sense of humor escaped unscathed, as did his love of God, Corps and country.
"My friends and my Marines are still there, still fighting," he said softly. "Any Marine in their right mind would want to be right there with them. All I've really lost is about 10 degrees of peripheral vision, and I'll be OK without that. I'm ready to be with my Marines again."
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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"Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us. Our nation -- this generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. 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
September 2001
_________________
"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 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 'Body parts everywhere' in Fallujah
AFP ^ | 11/8/04 | staff
"Body parts everywhere!" cries a US soldier as a shell crashes onto a group of suspected rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where a punishing torrent of firepower thundered down on Tuesday.
More than 500 rounds of 155-millimetre Howitzer cannon shells have been fired on the besieged Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad since a US-Iraqi offensive to take control of the city started on Monday evening, said Sergeant Michael Hamby.
Using a global positioning system, each shell is precision aimed and fired at insurgent spots, while unmanned reconnaisance aircraft check whether the target was hit and feed back the information, Hamby told AFP.
Unconfirmed estimates suggest that as many as 100 000 residents of Fallujah could still be inside the city.
In the northwestern Jolan neighbourhood alone - branded the hotbed of insurgent activity in Fallujah - US forces unleashed more than 20 air strikes and some 60 artillery rounds on Monday, said Major Todd Desgrosseilliers.
"We probably had 20-to-30 air strikes in the Jolan and probably two-to-three times that in artillery missions," he said.
Attack helicopters swooped overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the muzzle of insurgent rocket heads jutted out.
"Nothing is being indiscriminately fired at. These are spots where they (militants) are either getting ready to fight or already are," the major said.
Further demonstrating its superior firepower, the military said it fired an air-to-surface missile on a suspected insurgent building in Fallujah on Monday.
"The building was destroyed and enemy fire ceased," it said in a statement.
Casualty figures were unavailable from Fallujah, where estimates for the number of its 300 000-strong population who fled ahead of the long-threatened assault vary widely from 20 to 90 percent.
US warplanes pounded suspected rebel targets in the city over the past few weeks with air strikes on a daily basis in the build-up to the assault.
An AFP reporter in the Jolan district said one building in every 10 had been flattened. As US-led troops closed in on the neighbourhood overnight, at least four 900-kilogram bombs were dropped in the city's northwest. |
"Body parts everywhere!" cries a US soldier as a shell crashes onto a group of suspected rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where a punishing torrent of firepower thundered down on Tuesday.
| Quote: | Marines in centre of Fallujah
09/11/2004 21:45 - (SA)
Iraqi army troops arrive at the railway station in Fallujah on Tuesday as US army and marines pounded the city with air strikes and artillery. (Anja Niedringhaus, AP)
Fallujah - A number of US marine and army units reached the main road that cuts through the centre of the Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, a top marine officer told AFP.
"Tanks are patrolling parts of Michigan", the military road cutting through the centre of Fallujah, said Michael Schupp, the commander leading the marines into battle.
Fighting in the city, considered the main stronghold of the insurgency in Iraq, had died down by 18:00 GMT, an AFP correspondent in Fallujah said.
Only occasional tracer fire and the sound of crying babies and hysterical laughter played eerily by US psychological operations forces could be heard.
Asked whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, and other rebel leaders had left the city 60km west of Baghdad, Schupp said: "I don't know if they left, but they're cowards."
Another senior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Malay, said that assault, dubbed Operation Dawn, was running well.
"We're moving ahead of schedule," he said.
He confirmed that about 20 insurgents had been killed in their area during the day, about half of them killed by marine snipers, as they moved into the city from the north.
Malay said that two Egyptians had been captured. |
Enraged Sunnis withdraw from Iraqi government, demand boycott of elections
BY HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - The American-led offensive in Fallujah touched off political turmoil Tuesday as prominent Sunni Muslim clerics and politicians condemned the operation.
They lambasted the interim Iraqi government and urged a boycott of national elections scheduled for January, which could jeopardize the elections' success.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's most influential Sunni political group, announced its withdrawal from the government. To date, it has supported the political process by sending members to join the U.S.-appointed Governing Council and its successor, the interim administration of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
"From today, we have nothing to do with this government," said Iyad al-Samurraie, deputy secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party. "We don't want to take the responsibility of shedding Iraqi blood without any legal excuse."
Top Sunni clerics demanded a boycott of the elections over the Fallujah operation, which involves thousands of American troops blasting their way through Iraq's rebel-held Sunni heartland.
U.S. and Iraqi officials are concerned that a Sunni boycott of the elections could undermine their legitimacy. Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein's regime, make up about 35 percent of the country.
Allawi, a secular Shiite Muslim, sought to counter the upheaval by courting key Sunni tribesmen and urging Fallujah rebels to lay down their arms to "spare the rest of the city from the military confrontation."
Major Shiite political parties remain solidly behind elections, which they expect to sweep with a slate of candidates who appeal to Iraq's Shiite majority.
Walid al-Hilli of the Dawa Party said a Sunni boycott wouldn't spell the end of elections.
"For anyone who says he wants to boycott elections, what is the alternative?" al-Hilli asked. "Resisting the multinational forces is not good because then they will ask for more forces to come to Iraq and this will be a conflict, a never-ending struggle."
Iraqi Islamic Party members criticized Allawi's government as "foolish." They said they planned to stay in politics, though not in concert with American-led efforts or Allawi's leadership. Several other Sunni organizations already have registered to be on the ballot in late January, said Farid Ayar of the independent Iraqi Electoral Commission.
"This is one of the faces of democracy. We can't force any party or group to participate in the process," Ayar said.
Iraqi Islamic Party officials also announced that the party had severed ties with Hajim al-Hassani, a well-known party member who refused to resign from his post as Allawi's minister of minerals and industry. In a phone interview, Hassani said his former allies' decision was misguided and served only to divide the embattled nation further.
"I believe the withdrawal is wrong," he said. "Iraq needs all its people to impose security and stability. The withdrawal will accomplish nothing. How can a sovereign government assert its authority if it allows no-go zones? No government in the world can accept regions within its borders to go out of control."
Later Tuesday, the Association of Muslim Scholars called for Iraqis to boycott elections described as being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah, and the blood of the wounded."
"The scholars of Iraq place full legal responsibility on Iyad Allawi for the genocide Fallujah is exposed to at the hands of occupation forces and a bunch of Iraqi National Guardsmen who cooperate with them," association director Sheik Hareth al-Dhari said in a statement aired throughout the Islamic world on satellite television. His organization claims to represent more than 3,000 of Iraq's Sunni mosques.
Allawi played down the criticism, saying in a statement that "with the exception of a few extremists, the Iraqi people are fully behind the government's efforts to restore law and order, and to build the necessary security to hold elections in Iraq."
He added that letters of support from Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, home to the besieged towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, would be made public soon.
However, a Sunni leader from Anbar's most powerful tribe confronted Allawi on Tuesday during a meeting with clerics over iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daylight fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Adnan Mohammed al-Dulaimi, the Sunni department chief of the Religious Affairs Ministry, implored Allawi to cease fighting for a few hours in order to evacuate the wounded.
"There are civilians getting killed in Fallujah. You are responsible for their lives in front of God," al-Dulaimi said.
Allawi replied that alternatives to military force had been exhausted before the operation began and the government had nothing against civilians in Fallujah.
"This is not the time to discuss this issue," Allawi said, taking al-Dulaimi's hand. "Let's go have our iftar."
WHAT'S YOUR POINT...???
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FALLUJAH, Iraq -- A crescent moon appeared between the gray clouds that hung over Fallujah early Tuesday and from across the fields came the sound of music.
It was the "Ride of the Valkyries," by Richard Wagner, booming from the loudspeakers of a Humvee. The music from a famous scene in the 1979 movie "Apocalypse Now" echoed over the rooftops of the northern edge of this now war-torn city.
Apache helicopters circled, firing Hellfire missiles through the fresh light of morning. A black flag fluttered in the breeze, the flag of the militant group now calling itself Al Qaida in Iraq. Its leader is the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the American military is hoping he's holed up inside the Jolan neighborhood in northwest Fallujah, the area of the city now under concentrated attack.
Troop-laden vehicles from the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines streamed across the desert into the city along a route made safe only hours earlier by the Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles of the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, which a Newsday reporter is accompanying.
Lt. Col. Jim Rainey, commander of the 2nd Battalion, had been lying down in the back of his Bradley, living by one of his maxims: "Sleep is a weapon." He described the progress of the battle.
"It's going well. Initially it was light. Kind of like I expected. They stay down at night. They know we can see them well," he said.
The insurgents are moving around the city in groups of two or three, he said, using rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Kalashnikov automatic rifles. His vehicles had been hit during the nighttime advance by several roadside bombs and RPGs, but none suffered any meaningful damage. One soldier was injured with -- a slight shrapnel wound to the left leg. Three Americans were killed in combat in Fallujah Tuesday overall.
"I don't think his strategy is doctrinal defense, urban defense," Rainey said, smiling at the thought of his enemy. "I think they're committed fighters who want to die fighting. ... There's a lot of fighting to do still."
So far, his battle group had made good progress toward the heart of the city. "We're ahead of our day schedule," he said. At about 10 a.m., Rainey and his operations officer, Maj. Tim Karcher, set off in their Bradleys through the newly secured north-south thoroughfare that the American military here has named Henry. They moved past apparently deserted houses, some damaged by explosions and gunfire, and windswept eucalyptus trees.
Turning on the spot, the Bradleys took a right onto another main road dubbed Pennsylvania, which leads into the heart of Jolan. Rainey's infantrymen of his first and second platoons have set up a base there at a pink, bombed-out building that until recently was a school, its inner walls newly painted pale green. Most of its windows are shattered and school desks are piled up in the courtyard.
First Lt. Daniel Kilgore, 24, of Dallas, had parked his Bradleys in an open square almost underneath an enormous, dust-colored water tower. There were sounds of fighting all around, but few of the soldiers seemed concerned, confident that most of the area was under the control of the 2nd Battalion and the Marines who were flooding the adjoining area.
As Kilgore was speaking about the fight he and his men had just gone through, an incoming mortar or RPG exploded about 20 yards away. James Hider, a reporter for the Times of London who was also accompanying the 2nd Battalion, cried out in pain. A fragment of metal from the explosion had torn into a part of his upper left arm, causing profuse bleeding.
A medic quickly applied a makeshift bandage to Hider's arm as he sat down on the back ramp of a Bradley. The medic said the injury was probably not serious. Rainey ordered Hider evacuated in Karcher's Bradley.
After Hider had gone, the soldiers settled down and lay on the floors of the schoolhouse and other nearby buildings, their mission accomplished for now.
Some didn't seem happy that their job seemed done.
"Hey, what other follow-up mission we got after this?" Sgt. Sean Nicholson, 33, asked a fellow soldier. Like many in the 2nd Battalion, Nicholson is a veteran of the battle in August against Shia insurgents in Najaf. He didn't like the idea that the Marines would be the ones to pursue the enemy through the warren-like streets of Jolan.
"This is it," said Sgt. Douglas Queen, 26, of Chicago.
"We came all the way from Taji for this?" Nicholson asked rhethorically, referring to the 2nd Battalion's base.
All around, all the time, explosions -- large and small -- broke the silence. There was the insistent pounding of the Bradley 25-millimeter cannons, the whizz of the insurgent RPGs, the crack of incoming sniper fire and the wall-shaking boom of the Abrams tank cannons.
Kilgore walked to an industrial building just south of the school where the second platoon earlier had discovered mortars piled up by the dozen. A few meters away was a blue BMW that soldiers had discovered to be packed full of explosives. They were waiting for a bomb disposal unit to come and defuse it.
The men of the second platoon lay prone on the floor of the cinderblock building, sleeping for the few moments they could grab, oblivious to the explosions outside. Alongside one wall lay a dead Iraqi man, a piece of cloth draped over his face, shot dead by the platoon as they approached the building early in the morning, soldiers said.
Strewn on the ground were leaflets advertising the $25-million price on Zarqawi's head, airdropped over the past months in Fallujah.
In a nearby building, four sniper teams of two men sat in positions on the second floor overlooking an amusement park and abandoned marketplace, searching for their insurgent counterparts, whose bullets intermittently cracked through the afternoon sky.
At about 3:30 p.m., an enormous explosion shook the building and sent clouds of dust through the unfinished windows. Everyone threw themselves to the ground.
"What the hell was it, over," asked Kilgore on his radio.
As night fell, a squad of soldiers went to reconnoiter another taller building in the hope that it could be used as a better sniping position.
The explosions continued. |
A crescent moon appeared between the gray clouds that hung over Fallujah early Tuesday and from across the fields came the sound of music.
It was the "Ride of the Valkyries," by Richard Wagner, booming from the loudspeakers of a Humvee. The music from a famous scene in the 1979 movie "Apocalypse Now" echoed over the rooftops of the northern edge of this now war-torn city.
[EMBEDS GET A TASTE....]
At 5:10 p.m., as this reporter and a correspondent from the Chicago Tribune sat writing stories on laptop computers, a massive blast hit the building we were working in. Fire erupted outside the room's window and we were thrown to the ground.
Dust filled the entire building, so thick that it was impossible to see.
Soldiers shouted out for each other by name through the whiteness.
"Anyone hit?" called out Staff Sgt. Carlos Santilliano, who was in the next room.
As the dust cleared a little, a two-foot wide hole in the roof became visible and a rocket emerged from the gloom, embedded in the floor 10 feet from our work area.
Outside two soldiers were injured, one seriously. His groin was covered in blood as he was carried away into a Bradley on a stretcher. Another soldier, a sniper, had slight wounds to an arm.
Soldiers watched quietly, looking at each other, looking away, looking at the wounded.
-- Matthew McAllester
A member of Charlie Company of the Marines First Division, Eighth regiment, takes a cigarette break in the heat of battle in Fallujah, Iraq.
Members of Charlie Company of the First Marine Division, Eighth Regiment, walk past a dead insurgent as they conduct an assault on the city of Fallujah, Iraq.
Members of Charlie Company of the Marines First Batallion, Eighth Regiment, secure a narrow street during the assault of Fallujah, Iraq.
Marines return fire down a street at an insurgent hideout in the city of Fallujah, Iraq.
Marines wait for a tank to open fire Marines plug their ears as they wait for a tank to fire on an insurgent hideout in the city of Fallujah, Iraq.
Marines tend to a wounded insurgent U.S. Marines tend to a wounded insurgent in the city of Fallujah, Iraq.
Marines clear a house in Fallujah Marines clear a house in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq. |
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JB Stone
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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Iraq
November 10, 2004
US troops in Fallujah sweep through an abandoned home last night during the fiercest urban battle since the fall of Baghdad
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| Quote: | A savage dance of death in the alleys of Fallujah
By James Hider
THE green video screen in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle is the ultimate in reality television, and that is how we watched the battle of Fallujah unfold as our 30-tonne steel beast advanced into the district of Jolan, the rebels' bastion, in the small hours of yesterday morning.
Outside, in the bomb-blasted streets, up to 5,000 die-hard insurgents were out to kill. Inside, on a screen accurate enough to show rats scavenging on the rubbish piles, the battle between luminous green tanks and luminous green gunmen seemed almost abstract.
Only the shock of the explosions and the occasional back blast of dust when a gunner opened fire reminded us we were in the midst of the most desperate urban battle since the fall of Baghdad. That, and the shrapnel which went right through my arm later in the morning.
The assault had begun with a day of intense bombardment of the rebels' positions on Monday - a vast display of artillery, tanks and war planes hitting the buildings where guerrillas were believed to be lurking, ready to detonate huge buried mines as the US Army advanced.
Airbursts of shrapnel sent a vast jellyfish of smoke drifting into the city, raining fire on guerrillas perched on the rooftops. As night fell over the darkened city, the explosions lit up the sky and American troops preparing to fight pulled up deckchairs to watch the show.
Two US Marine battalions then stormed Fallujah's disused train station and a block of apartments on the edge of town. Sappers blasted a hole through the railway embankment, dropping trails of explosives to clear a path through a guerrilla minefield.
At 2am our column of about 20 tanks and Bradleys of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, rolled in, not knowing whether the guerrillas had died, fled or were waiting further back with more booby traps or even the cyanide gas they had boasted of possessing.
Progress was a mere crawl as the drivers spotted huge IEDs - improvised explosive devices - that can blow a Bradley in half. The gunners fired into them, triggering a series of massive explosions.
'There were too many IEDs to count,' said LieutenantColonel Jim Rainey, the cavalry battalion commander who rode into battle with his men.
Watching the green screen was nerve-racking. With buildings wrecked and streets churned up, there were potential booby traps everywhere. Then, as the column lumbered down a main road, the guerrillas appeared.
They emerged from gates, alleyways and rooftops, alone or in small groups. Wherever they faced an armoured vehicle, they died where they stood.
'I think there are committed fighters out there who want to die in Fallujah. We are in the process of allowing them to self-actualise,' said Lieutenant-Colonel Rainey, a bluffed veteran. The resistance was determined, but hardly the apocalyptic showdown the guerrillas had pledged. They had threatened to throw hundreds of suicide bombers at the Americans, but in the darkness they were stumbling while the American gunners could see clearly.
As the column advanced, our Bradley fell back. Ahead of us an Iraqi man appeared at his garden gate with binoculars. He peered at the column. Three times he ducked in and out, before our vehicle lurched forward for a closer look. He reappeared with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) that he pointed straight at us. The turret commander yelled to the gunner: 'Get him, get him, get him.'
Facing the barrel of the RPG, our journalistic objectivity evaporated. The man ducked back as the gunner fired, killing him on the spot.
As dawn broke, firing subsided. Columns of Marines, fresh from skirmishes on the edge of town, headed into Jolan's streets to the accompaniment of heavy fire. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers walked through the breach in the berm, looking more like a Second World War army than a 21st-century force.
Then, in a surreal turn, the US Army's psychological warfare team drove in from the desert, Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blaring from loudspeakers: war imitating the movies, imitating war.
As the pitch of the battle rose again, we reached the cavalry's provisional base, a former school seized from the guerrillas. Ducking through classrooms and over bulldozed walls to avoid snipers, I felt an intense burning in my left arm after an RPG hit the ground close by. I only realised I had been hit by shrapnel when I reached up with my right hand and felt gushing blood.
With a soldier holding an IV bag next to me, we ran back to the Bradley, which evacuated me to a rear base hospital rapidly filling up with wounded US and Iraqi troops, as well as injured Iraqi fighters handcuffed on bloody stretchers.
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Outside, in the bomb-blasted streets, up to 5,000 die-hard insurgents were out to kill. Inside, on a screen accurate enough to show rats scavenging on the rubbish piles, the battle between luminous green tanks and luminous green gunmen seemed almost abstract.
HOW DO YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE...???
| Quote: | The Fight for Falluja
Weekly Standard ^ | 11/08/2004 | Christian Lowe
Posted on 11/09/2004 3:12:13 PM PST by swilhelm73
AS JUDGMENT DAY for the terrorist hotbed of Falluja approaches, anxiety is building over what could be one of the bloodiest battles of America's war on terrorism. Insurgents holed up in the city speak of widespread violence across Iraq should U.S. forces assault and Sunni religious leaders warn that an assault will only result in further alienation of the Sunni minority and an eventual boycott of the upcoming elections in January.
Likewise, American political and military leaders realize that as it stands, the situation in Falluja is untenable. After four private security contractors were ambushed and lynched in Falluja last spring, Marines surrounding the city moved in to clear out the terrorist presence. At the time, Marine commanders knew that taking Falluja would be a tough, bloody slog. Urban fighting is a dirty business. Civilians would be killed, Marines would be killed, the city would be badly damaged. But the troops of the I Marine Expeditionary Force were prepared to do whatever was required to take Falluja back from the insurgents and foreign terrorists.
But before the final assault, the Marines were withdrawn--replaced by a hastily assembled security force of former Iraqi army officers, local gunmen, and even some of the very same insurgents who'd been firing at Marines just days before. Only recently have senior Marine officers, including the commander of I MEF at the time, Lt. Gen. James Conway, admitted they were pulled back from the brink of victory for political considerations. And, they admit, the so-called "Falluja Brigade," was a
failure--having been quickly usurped by the insurgents and foreign terrorists, even to the point of handing over weapons to the enemy they were sent into Falluja to interdict.
Now, six months later, the landscape--both political and military--is quite different. It has become clear to many that the city is the nexus of terrorist activity and organization throughout Iraq. While interim prime minister Ayad Allawi gave negotiations and diplomacy a chance--some of it quite Machiavellian in its attempt to pit one clan against another--the iron grip of foreign jihadists keeps the city in a state of siege, its residents and ethnic leaders powerless to maneuver. But buoyed by the successes in Najaf and Sadr City and the still tenuous hold the Iraqi government has in Samarra, both U.S. and Iraqi officials are poised to make their move.
When Falluja II goes down, it will be bloody and violent, military leaders admit. According to interviews with two former staff officers who helped develop the strategy for April's assault, the Marines today will have to move block-to-block, flushing the enemy out using tanks and dismounted infantry. It will be critical to involve the nascent Iraqi army in the battle as well. Once U.S. forces flush insurgents from their positions, Iraqi troops will need to "occupy" those positions so that the residents of Falluja see an Iraqi face standing in their street corner, not an American one.
The battle must be preceded by a potent psychological operations campaign to get residents to leave, or if they stay, to remain in their homes. The prospect of civilian casualties weighs heavily on military leaders and reducing them is foremost in their minds. The psy-ops must also show a U.S. victory to be inevitable. Notice the latest coverage on the news networks: footage of Marines rehearsing their urban warfare tactics, daily artillery and air strikes on insurgent positions in the city, and calls for the residents of Falluja to leave the city as soon as possible. Clearly the psy-ops have already begun.
The forces will also have a few technological advantages up their sleeve. The city now has near constant coverage by unmanned aerial vehicles, including those carrying the Hellfire missile. These drones can provide visual coverage of insurgent positions and ammunition dumps, giving leaders up-to-the-minute intelligence. They will also be able to warn units--down to the company and platoon level--of enemy forces around a corner or on the rooftops.
The use of air power will be significant as well. More effective than artillery, precision air strikes can take out enemy positions in one building without significantly damaging others nearby. Over the past month, the Air Force has been dropping, for the first time ever, 500-pound satellite-guided bombs. This ordnance, the Air Force claims, is just big enough to take down a building, but not big enough to take down a whole block. (The Falluja vets also suggest using bunker-buster bombs that can burrow deeply into a building before detonating and essentially bring the building down on itself.)
Snipers should be used for deep reconnaissance and direct fire support and special operations forces used to intercept high-level terrorists and insurgent leaders trying to flee the onslaught. Iraqi forces--particularly the well-trained commando troops--can be used to flush insurgents from the holy sites they once considered an easy refuge.
Yet with all those advantages of technology, superior force, and some well-trained Iraqi allies, the insurgents still have the edge. Defending a city is easier than taking one--just ask the Russians. The enemy has had six months to prepare
defenses, to booby trap buildings, to build fall-back positions, to train and horde weapons. Veterans of the first battle for Falluja admit that while the majority of the enemy consists of "fair weather insurgents," there is a solid group of highly motivated and well-trained terrorists who are in control of the city. The enemy there will not be easy to defeat, the Falluja I vets contend, and those of us watching the fight unfold should be ready for a potentially long, violent, and messy slog. |
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Paul R.
PO3
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 273
Location: Illinois
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Found over at Free Republic ("Fallujah Again")
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1275215/posts
| Quote: | Fallujah Again
Belmont Club | November 9, 2004 | Wretchard
Posted on 11/09/2004 5:05:28 AM PST by billorites
Although the US military has refused to give a timeline for the capture of Fallujah developments suggest they are moving at very rapid operational pace.
Hours after starting the offensive, U.S. tanks and Humvees from the 1st Infantry Division entered the northeastern Askari neighborhood, the first ground assault into an insurgent bastion. In the northwestern area of the city, U.S. troops advanced slowly after dusk on the Jolan neighborhood, a warren of alleyways where Sunni militants have dug in. Artillery, tanks and warplanes pounded the district's northern edge, softening the defenses and trying to set off any bombs or boobytraps planted by the militants.
Marines were visible on rooftops in Jolan. This reporter, located at a U.S. camp near the city, saw orange explosions lighting up the district's palm trees, minarets and dusty roofs, and a fire burning on the city's edge. Just outside the Jolan and Askari neighborhoods, Iraqi troops deployed with U.S. forces took over a train station after the Americans fired on it to drive off fighters.
The Fallujah can be conceived as a rough rectangle two miles on a side bounded by the Euphrates to the west, the railroad track to the north, a highway to the east and an "industrial park" and suburbs to the south. The recognized enemy stronghold is the upper northwest corner called the Jolan but their forces are likely to be more widespread than that. But in two successive nights, US forces have compressed the enemy from three sides (probably a fourth, as it is likely the US has also seized the 'industrial area' to the southeast) and have actually penetrated the enemy stronghold of Jolan in parts, without any published casualties apart from the two Marines who died when their bulldozer flipped into the Euphrates.
Readers will recall the same pattern of operations in Najaf where US infantry secured the buildings and rooftops while vehicles advanced on the streets below. In Najaf as in Fallujah too, apparently, US forces did not advance on a single broad front but snaked in to seize key areas, breaking up enemy defenses into pockets which can no longer support each other. The pockets may be further isolated by bulldozing fire lanes. The low number of casualties so far indicates that US forces have successfully sidestepped enemy forces the way a broken field runner dodges tackles. The Strategic Studies Institute warns that heavy casualties may result from assaulting "mini fortresses", but many of those redoubts may be entirely bypassed and fields of fire cleared around them.
"The big fights, where you're going to see lots of casualties, are when defenders create miniature fortresses," Millen said. "Your infantry gets sucked into those things, and that's when you see casualties building up." U.S. forces have managed to keep casualties relatively low in previous urban battles in Iraq. In three weeks of fighting a Shiite Muslim insurgency in the streets and massive cemetery of Najaf this summer, seven Marines and two soldiers were killed out of a force of about 3,000. "If you go in there well and you go in there methodically - if you have a good plan - you're not going to have as many casualties," Millen said.
I believe (speculation alert!) that the enemy mobile defense is nearly at an end; that his active response has probably fallen to pieces much quicker than he anticipated and they are probably going to concentrate their resistance into mutually supportive strongpoints or explosive barriers fairly soon. The enemy's remaining hope is to hit the "jackpot" by demolishing a building or blowing up a street just as US forces occupy or overrun it. As they become squeezed into a smaller and smaller area, the risk that US forces will run into an exploding house or building will increase. But the rapid progress of the last two nights may be tempting US commanders to accept the risks and snap at the enemy's heels. Going fast may prevent the enemy from setting up their defense. One almost certain thing is that a fearful execution is being inflicted on the enemy, and probably worst among their officers and NCOs. Tonight's events will probably indicate whether the US goes for broke or takes a more deliberate approach.
Update
The Daily Telegraph has an atmospheric article which describes the terrible effect of networked forces on the enemy inside Fallujah.
"I got myself a real juicy target," shouted Sgt James Anyett, peering through the thermal sight of a Long Range Acquisition System (LRAS) mounted on one of Phantom's Humvees. "Prepare to copy that 89089226. Direction 202 degrees. Range 950 metres. I got five motherf****** in a building with weapons." A dozen loud booms rattle the sky and smoke rose as mortars rained down on the co-ordinates the sergeant had given. "Yeah," he yelled. "Battle Damage Assessment - nothing. Building's gone. I got my kills, I'm coming down. I just love my job."
... The insurgents, not understanding the capabilities of the LRAS, crept along rooftops and poked their heads out of windows. Even when they were more than a mile away, the soldiers of Phantom Troop had their eyes on them. Lt Jack Farley, a US Marines officer, sauntered over to compare notes with the Phantoms. "You guys get to do all the fun stuff," he said. "It's like a video game. We've taken small arms fire here all day. It just sounds like popcorn going off."
This engagement is all the more chilling because it probably happened at night. Five enemy soldiers died simply because they could not comprehend how destruction could flow from an observer a mile away networked to mortars that could fire for effect without ranging. All over Fallujah virtual teams of snipers and fire-control observers are jockeying for lines of sight to deal death to the enemy. For many jihadis that one peek over a sill could be their last.
"Everybody's curious," grinned Sgt Anyett as he waited for a sniper with a Russian-made Dragonov to show his face one last, fatal time. A bullet zinged by. ...
His officers said that the plan to invade Fallujah involved months of detailed planning and elaborate "feints" designed to draw the insurgents out into the open and fool them into thinking the offensive would come from another side of the city. "They're probably thinking that we'll come in from the east," said Capt Natalie Friel, an intelligence officer with task force, before the battle. But the actual plan involves penetrating the city from the north and sweeping south. "I don't think they know what's coming. They have no idea of the magnitude," she said. "But their defences are pretty circular. They're prepared for any kind of direction. They've got strong points on all four corners of the city." The aim was to push the insurgents south, killing as many as possible, before swinging west. They would then be driven into the Euphrates.
From UAVs wheeling overhead to Marines going through alleys linked by their intra-squad radios (a kind of headset and boom-mike operated comm device), the US force is generating lethal, real-time information which is almost immediately transformed into strike action. Against this, the jihadis have no chance. This doesn't mean (as I pointed out above) that there will be no American losses. The battlefield is too lethal to hope for that. But it does mean that terrorism has unleashed a terrible engine upon itself. Capabilities which didn't exist on September 11 have now been deployed in combat. It isn't that American forces have become inconceivably lethal that is scary; it is that the process has just started.
Update 2
An NYT article with an accompanying photo essay illustrates the high level of skill which some of the enemy display. It's not that the enemy is dumb, just that the US is that much better. A sequence of photos shows US troops observing targets from a rooftop to call in fires. Right after the Americans scoot off, enemy mortars land on the roof, too late to hurt their tormentors. It is a perfect illustration of the lethality of information and essentially futile enemy attempts to negate it. As the battle progresses, enemy snipers, mortarmen and machinegunners -- who are desperately trying to deny Americans their lethal targeting information -- will be picked off or run low on ammunition. The combat, already lopsided to start with, will grow more unequal. If it sounds unfair, it meant to be.
The Strategy Page points out that the enemy has dug tunnels under streets, utilized overhead cover and knocked holes in walls in an attempt to negate the US information warfare advantage. But the price for living like moles is relative immobility in trading concealment for stasis. The battle for Fallujah illustrates the relative strengths and weaknesses of both sides. The enemy, whatever his faults, is not obviously short on courage or resourcefulness and America can expect to encounter the same tenacity anywhere he is met. But against these strengths, enemy inherited not only the weakness of a poor technological base but a fundamentally flawed concept of American determination. They wrongly assumed, as Osama often claimed, that Americans were too morally weak to fight. They believed they could use physical remoteness and terrorist tactics to wage "asymmetrical warfare" on an American force geared to fight conventional battles -- the army of Desert Storm. Both these assumptions have proved poor bets. There are now tens of thousands of Americans with a good understanding of the Middle East; there are many systems now coming online which are designed to fight the terrorist enemy. They are going to get snowed under by the same tidal wave that buried the Imperial Japanese Army and the Wehrmacht in World War 2.
Thinking Muslim and Arab leaders probably recognize the handwriting on the wall, but like the peace factions in wartime Germany and Japan, are still reluctant to step forward. This is tragic, because like the unequal struggle in Fallujah, once the US gains the strategic upper hand its advantages will progressively mount and a hideous, irresistible annihilation of enemy forces will unfold, until despair brings an enemy statesman forward; not too late for his society, but too tardy to save the wasted lives of their young men. |
Praying for our soldiers, and that the above is not too optimistic...
_________________
Paul R. |
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:28 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "Unconfirmed estimates suggest that as many as 100 000 residents of Fallujah could still be inside the city." |
Why would that many idiots still be in the city? What are they thinking?
| Quote: |
'...prominent Sunni Muslim clerics and politicians condemned the operation...They lambasted the interim Iraqi government and urged a boycott of national elections scheduled for January, which could jeopardize the elections' success..."We don't want to take the responsibility of shedding Iraqi blood without any legal excuse."...Iraqi Islamic Party officials also announced that the party had severed ties with Hajim al-Hassani, a well-known party member who refused to resign from his post as Allawi's minister of minerals and industry. In a phone interview, Hassani said his former allies' decision was misguided and served only to divide the embattled nation further.' |
Uh, huh, they wanted Fallujah to remain a hotbed of anti-Iraqi and anti-Coalition and anti-American activity....sounds like the kind of "prominent" clerics that should be behind bars or pushing up daisies?  The legal "excuse" we need is that those cretins are killing police officers and sawing off people's heads...next case! Looks like it's becoming VERY clear who's harboring and abetting terrorist and the killing of the multi-national peacekeeping liberating forces...
| Quote: | | "Later Tuesday, the Association of Muslim Scholars called for Iraqis to boycott elections described as being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah, and the blood of the wounded." The scholars of Iraq place full legal responsibility on Iyad Allawi for the genocide Fallujah is exposed to at the hands of occupation forces and a bunch of Iraqi National Guardsmen who cooperate with them." |
Yup, these were the same wonderful scholars that didn't say one word about Saddam's slaugthers of hundreds of thousands - think they have any moral authority?
_________________
"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: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:28 am Post subject: |
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Baghdad - Ten US service members and two Iraqi government troopers have been killed in the operation to capture Fallujah, the US military has said.
A brief statement said that as of 6:30pm on Tuesday at local time, the 10 Americans and two Iraqis had been killed "in Operation Al Fajr."
"Due to operational security in order to prevent the anti-Iraqi forces and other terrorist elements from gaining useful battlefield intelligence, there could be delays in announcements of battlefield casualties," the statement said.
The statement gave no details of where and how the troops had been killed and whether some of them may have been among the 11 US deaths reported by the Pentagon earlier in the day.
| Quote: | US troops penetrate to the centre of Fallujah
PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
AM - Wednesday, 10 November , 2004 08:00:00
Reporter: Alison Caldwell
TONY EASTLEY: The battle for the city of Fallujah is largely going according to the Pentagon's plan, but with US and Iraqi troops experiencing lighter resistance than they had expected. About a dozen US troops have been killed in the offensive so far and the Pentagon says civilian casualties have been "light".
US-led forces say they've reached the centre of the rebel-held Iraqi city on the second day of their assault. They've been fighting insurgents street by street, particularly in the eastern and north-western districts. One man who fled the city told the BBC the streets were littered with bodies.
Alison Caldwell prepared this report.
(Sound of tanks)
ALISON CALDWELL: American tanks rolled into the heart of Fallujah a short time ago reaching one of the main roads that cuts through the centre of the city.
After a second day of fierce fighting, US and Iraqi troops are now preparing to embark on the final phase of their operation by consolidating their positions in the centre of the city.
(Sound of gunfire)
Earlier marines and Iraqi troops captured the Al Hydra mosque in Fallujah. Military intelligence indicated it was being used as gathering place for resistance fighters and as a storing house for weapons.
Plagued by booby traps, mortar fire and rocket propelled grenades, troops met stiff resistance from the insurgents in gun battles from street to street and house to house.
Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert is a spokesman for the Marines Expeditionary Forces in Fallujah.
LYLE GILBERT: The fight continues within the city and the multinational and Iraqi security forces one by one are achieving the objectives that they had set for themselves. Right now they've pushed into probably about a third of the city they have secured at this time.
ALISON CALDWELL: How would you describe the resistance that you've faced in that process?
LYLE GILBERT: The resistance to this point including the initial thrust into the city has been very light. I don't know that I could characterise our expectations of, you know, being that the resistance would be extremely heavy, but what I can confirm is that the resistance has been light, very light. And accordingly casualties, which I won't get into in specific numbers have been while regrettable at all, very, very light as well.
ALISON CALDWELL: Do you believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is still in Fallujah?
LYLE GILBERT: I really don't want to speculate as to whether or not he's in there. What I can tell you is if he's in there he'll obviously come out in the wash of this thing, just like a piece of dirty laundry. And if he's not, then we're exhausting all of our intelligence means up to the absolute highest levels to track him, hunt him and kill him.
ALISON CALDWELL: Hamid Flewa is a resident of Fallujah. He says he's seen several bodies on the streets.
HAMID FLEWA (translated): The situation in Fallujah is very critical. Street fighting is raging and there are casualties everywhere. I'm not scared for my life or my family's, but I'm scared for my city. It's like an inferno. If I could go out, I would go and join the militants.
(Sound of call to prayer from mosque)
ALISON CALDWELL: The Fallujah offensive has angered the country's Sunni Muslim minority. Today the Islamic Party quit the interim government in protest at the US-led offensive.
Muslim clerics condemned the assault, Sheik Harith Al Dhari called on all clerics to boycott the national elections. Holding the election, he said, is to fulfil the aims of occupation forces. He urged people to buy food and medical supplies for the people of Fallujah. |
British Muslims Condemn Fallujah 'Massacre'
By Neville Dean, PA
The US assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah was condemned by British Islamic groups tonight, with one describing the operation as “brutal genocide“.
The Muslim Council of Britain accused US forces of “terrorising” Iraqi citizens, while the independent Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir denounced the effort to capture the city as the “brutal slaughter of civilians”.
The criticism came as thousands of Muslims gathered at Regent’s Park Mosque in London to hear speeches condemning the attack on Fallujah.
They had gathered for one of the most important dates in the holy month of Ramadan, Laylatul Qadr, or The Night of Power.
The major ground assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah began on Monday.
By tonight, US troops had powered their way into the centre of the city, overwhelming small bands of guerrillas with massive force. However the fighting claimed the lives of 10 American soldiers and two Iraqi government troops.
There has been no specific information on Iraqi death tolls since the attack began.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir group, which organised tonight’s gathering at the Regent’s Park Mosque, said that if the Fallujah assault had been directed against a European city, the world would have immediately acted to stop the “massacre”.
Group spokesman Dr Imran Waheed said: “At this time, Muslims in Britain must be the voice of the Muslims of Fallujah against this brutal genocide and the silence of the spineless rulers of the Muslim world.”
He continued: “By labelling resistance to occupation as terrorism and insurgency, western governments are selling their people a lie.
“Muslims in Britain call upon the people of the West to question the militancy of western foreign policy across the globe and the continued interference of their government in the Muslim world.”
The Muslim Council of Britain claimed there were reports that US forces had damaged equipment in the main hospital in Fallujah and arrested members of its staff.
The council also claimed US troops had denied Iraqi doctors permission to travel to tend to the Iraqi wounded.
Secretary general Iqbal Sacranie said: “We have long stated that the only solution in Iraq is for all foreign armies to leave and allow the Iraqis to determine their own affairs and regain control of their own territory and resources.
“The war against Iraq and the continuing military occupation of Iraq by the US and British governments is illegal as was recently confirmed by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
“It is highly improbable that the US Army is going to help usher in an era of liberation and democracy in Iraq by terrorising and killing its citizens in this ghastly manner.”
An 850-strong battlegroup of soldiers from the Black Watch has been controversially deployed to Camp Dogwood, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, to relieve US forces engaged in the Fallujah assault.
The Muslim Council of Britain accused US forces of “terrorising” Iraqi citizens, while the independent Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir denounced the effort to capture the city as the “brutal slaughter of civilians”.
Is it my IMAGINATION....
or are these the same "civilians" that have been ASKING FOR IT....
for Six Months or MORE....???
| Quote: | nsurgents warn Iraqis: stay home
From correspondents in Baghdad, Iraq
November 10, 2004
A POSTING on an Islamist website has warned Iraqis to stay at home today in Baghdad and other cities or they would be "putting their lives in danger".
The statement, in the name of eight known militant groups, said the unified "Islamic resistance" would step up operations against the "American enemy" in retaliation for the US-led attack on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
The statement urged Iraqis to stay at home today "to avoid putting their lives in danger".
In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, insurgents distributed leaflets warning shopkeepers to close their stores indefinitely starting today to protest about the attack on Fallujah.
Some families said they would keep their children away from school because of the insurgent threat. |
The statement urged Iraqis to stay at home today "to avoid putting their lives in danger".
SEEMS LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT LAST WEEK...???
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:52 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 
Soldiers with 14th Cavalry of the 1st Brigade (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), 25th Infantry Division (Light), stand guard over a civil affairs project in a remote town in western Iraq.
Soldiers from 1-25’s 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment stand in the hatch of their Stryker after an operation in Mosul, Iraq. The vehicle’s agility and security make it effective in urban environments, soldiers say.
Stryker: Bulky fighting vehicle is winning over once-skeptical soldiers
By Juliana Gittler, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Juliana Gittler / S&S
Soldiers with 14th Cavalry of the 1st Brigade (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), 25th Infantry Division (Light), stand guard over a civil affairs project in a remote town in western Iraq.
Juliana Gittler / S&S
Soldiers from 1-25’s 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment stand in the hatch of their Stryker after an operation in Mosul, Iraq. The vehicle’s agility and security make it effective in urban environments, soldiers say.
Editor’s note: They rolled in on eight untracked wheels a year ago, one year after being introduced to the Army. Here’s a look at how the Army’s Stryker vehicle has fared.
MOSUL, Iraq — Ask nearly anyone in a Stryker unit and they’ll say they weren’t too crazy about the eight-wheeled vehicles at first.
Something about rubber tires seemed unlikely to withstand the same beating as a tracked vehicle. The Strykers looked slow and lumbering.
But the naysayers have been converted.
After the Strykers’ introduction to the Army two years ago, and after a year of combat experience in Iraq, the vehicles are almost too good to be true, say those who ride them, fix them or command them.
“I was kind of skeptical,” said Sgt. David Finney, noncommissioned officer in charge of the ground support equipment shop for the 73rd Engineer Company, part of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
“I was used to working on tanks. I saw the tires and thought, ‘what are you going to do with broken tires?’ But it’s surpassed everything I’ve expected,” he said. “It’s definitely saved lives. The Strykers can take a pretty big hit and get back on the road quickly.”
In October, a car bomb packed with 500 pounds of explosives hit a Stryker in Mosul. It killed a soldier and pummeled the vehicle.
The Stryker was back on the road in six days.
“Strykers are extremely durable vehicles,” said 1st Lt. Eric James Joyce, battalion maintenance officer for the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, with the 1-25th.
The vehicle’s heavy armor shelters occupants from blasts and ballistics. Its eight individual wheels have a “run flat” technology that allows them to drive on after being blown out.
“I’ve seen Strykers be hit by an [improvised explosive device] and drive home on eight flats,” said Staff Sgt. Lee Hodges, assistant vehicle commander and gunner for the Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron of the 14th Cavalry with the 1-25th, who rode a Bradley in the Persian Gulf War.
“I look at it as the ultimate SWAT vehicle — for urban assault.”
Strykers are quick, quiet and surprisingly nimble, particularly in urban areas. They can drive nearly 70 miles per hour and hold about a dozen fully loaded troops.
“You can hear a tank from two miles away. You can’t hear a Stryker until it’s right next to you, and by then you’ve got 11 guys on the ground,” Joyce said. “It’s like our land helicopter. You get there, [do what you have to do,] get back in and go.”
Stryker units bridge the gap between heavy armor and light infantry, filling a particular niche in Iraq.
“It’s like a light infantry battalion on steroids,” said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, 1-24 battalion commander.
They can move many troops quickly and safely and carry significant firepower. In cities, they roll in to create instant roadblocks and fit on roads for urban patrols. In the country, they can travel long distances to patrol vast stretches of western Iraq.
The vehicles are also integrated into a computerized battle tracking system.
“It’s a whole concept — [and raises] the situational awareness of both blue (friendly) and red (enemy) forces,” Kurilla said.
Commanders in the vehicles and back in the operations center can immediately see friendly and enemy forces as well as specific attacks or any other specified detail plotted on a map.
“Now [we’re] able to look on a screen and say ‘these guys are friendly,’ ” Hodges said. “Touch an icon and know who they are — not just friendly, but what unit.”
When the 1-25th arrived in Iraq weeks ago, they inherited the Strykers left behind by their predecessors, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
The vehicles had endured a year of heavy action, thousands of miles on the roads and the unforgiving extremes of the desert. But they were good to go.
“The vehicles were never an issue for those guys,” Joyce said.
Civilian mechanics who deploy with the units helped to maintain a 95 percent operational readiness, Kurilla said.
Soldiers say they’re impressed by the Stryker’s road worthiness. But many appreciate the security of the vehicle’s almost-impenetrable skin.
“They’re not worried that ‘I’m sitting in a death trap,’ ” Joyce said. “They can focus on the mission, not whether or not a bullet is going to come through.”
Soldiers rest more easily knowing no one has died inside a Stryker, and none of the vehicles have been ripped open by bullets or bombs.
“We are definitely earning our imminent-danger pay. But I feel a lot better leaving [camp] in this,” Hodges said. “It gives soldiers the peace of mind that when they go out of the FOB (forward operating base), they have something to rely on.”
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sleeplessinseattle
LCDR
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "In Najaf as in Fallujah too, apparently, US forces did not advance on a single broad front but snaked in to seize key areas, breaking up enemy defenses into pockets which can no longer support each other. The pockets may be further isolated by bulldozing fire lanes. The low number of casualties so far indicates that US forces have successfully sidestepped enemy forces the way a broken field runner dodges tackles... |
I love this metaphor - I like our chances...I love that the good guys seem to be having few casualties...may those who've fallen rest in peace and may their families always have our eternal gratitude...I live inspired by their courage and sacrifice...
| Quote: | | "The big fights, where you're going to see lots of casualties, are when defenders create miniature fortresses," Millen said. "Your infantry gets sucked into those things, and that's when you see casualties building up." U.S. forces have managed to keep casualties relatively low in previous urban battles in Iraq. In three weeks of fighting a Shiite Muslim insurgency in the streets and massive cemetery of Najaf this summer, seven Marines and two soldiers were killed out of a force of about 3,000. "If you go in there well and you go in there methodically - if you have a good plan - you're not going to have as many casualties," Millen said...One almost certain thing is that a fearful execution is being inflicted on the enemy, and probably worst among their officers and NCOs. Tonight's events will probably indicate whether the US goes for broke or takes a more deliberate approach." |
GO USMC!! Go Iraqi Elites...Go good guys...go, go, go, go...
| Quote: | | "Thinking Muslim and Arab leaders probably recognize the handwriting on the wall, but like the peace factions in wartime Germany and Japan, are still reluctant to step forward. This is tragic, because like the unequal struggle in Fallujah, once the US gains the strategic upper hand its advantages will progressively mount and a hideous, irresistible annihilation of enemy forces will unfold, until despair brings an enemy statesman forward; not too late for his society, but too tardy to save the wasted lives of their young men." |
Let us pray that this will happen sooner rather than later...thanks for the great posts Paul...
_________________
"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: Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:52 am Post subject: |
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IRAQI FORCES A BIT EDGY:
| Quote: | U.S. forces encounter insurgents at every turn in battle for Fallujah
BY JAMES JANEGA
Chicago Tribune
FALLUJAH, Iraq - (KRT) - The enemy first appeared as an eerie green image on a display screen.
The crew of the Bradley armored vehicle designated Ghost Three spotted a man popping out from a hole in the wall to the left and pointing what appeared to be a camera at other vehicles in the armored column ahead.
Watching through their cross hairs, Ghost Three's gunner, Sgt. Michael Shaffer, and commander, Maj. Tim Karcher, debated what the man was holding.
The man popped out and ducked back once, twice, three times.
The fourth time he held a different device, a rocket launcher, and pointed it straight at them.
"Get him! Get him!" Karcher shouted. Shaffer fired three bursts from his 20 mm cannon, killing the man. Bullet holes in the wall glowed through the heat-sensitive scope.
Ghost Three is part of the armored column that spearheaded the thrust into Fallujah overnight Monday, blasting through dirt mounds hiding huge roadside bombs and doing battle with insurgents who fired rocket-propelled grenades at the American vehicles at every turn.
On Tuesday morning, the Bradley's crew stopped on the outskirts of town as other elements of the 2-7 - the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division - pressed into the heart of the city. Those troops seized nine blocks of ramshackle buildings adjacent to Jolan Park, where rusted merry-go-rounds and a Ferris wheel cast a strange backdrop to the steadily growing sounds of mortar fire, rockets and machine guns.
Spec. William Armstrong, one of Ghost Three's crew members, had remained asleep in back of the vehicle during its first fight, but at dawn Tuesday he swigged Gatorade and peered at a cemetery on the edge of the city through the sight of an M-16. He was looking for a sniper who might be the source of the persistent popping sound amid bombed-out mausoleums.
A psychological operations Humvee blaring Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" drove by, followed by creaking military construction equipment.
Nearby, jittery columns of Iraqi army troops crossed the sand berm on the edge of the city and turned down the route where Ghost Three had fought the night before.
Mistaking American gunfire in the distance for hostile fire nearby, one Iraqi soldier fired a burst into the cemetery; it became a nervous volley as his comrades joined him and was quelled only when an American sergeant major ran over to stop them.
"Now, that don't make you nervous, does it?" Karcher asked from his perch in Ghost Three's turret.
At Jolan Park, fighting grew more intense. Deep concussions shook armored vehicles and puffed out matches from soldiers eager for a cigarette. The sounds of gunfire were continuous, but for a time grew somewhat distant as Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment marched into the area through a hole punched by the 7th Cavalry.
They walked past the 7th Cavalry's motley collection of captured buildings for hours, adding the sounds of American rifle fire to that of Iraqi rocket-propelled grenades and exploding mortars. Traveling in open-backed and lightly armored Humvees, the Marines pushed most of the insurgents back, away from the Army soldiers ordered to hold their ground.
"They brought us all the way from Taji for this?" said Sgt. Sean Nicholson, who with others in the 2-7 had fought rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi militia in Najaf and was eager to fight here.
But as the Army hunkered down, mortar fire increased. James Hider, an embedded reporter from The Times of London, was slashed by mortar shrapnel as he interviewed the battalion's commanding officer, Lt. Col. James Rainey.
Hours later, a Marine sniper and a 2nd Battalion soldier were wounded when a 120 mm rocket crashed through the roof of a building the battalion was ordered to hold.
"You'll be OK in this as long as you keep moving," said Staff Sgt. Carlos Santinilla, who was slightly injured by shrapnel earlier in the day when one of his squad members shot the lock off a door, but was miraculously unhurt when the 120 mm rocket exploded a few feet from where he slept Tuesday afternoon.
By Tuesday night, the battalion was hunkering down wherever it could.
The accommodations for the battalion's 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company were the worst: They shared the space with a dead insurgent whom they couldn't figure out how to remove and with an arms cache that included a BMW wired as a bomb with hundreds of pounds of high explosives.
"Yeah, it's dangerous," said 1st Sgt. Steven Vigil. "But it's dangerous anywhere in Fallujah right now." |
A psychological operations Humvee blaring Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" drove by, followed by creaking military construction equipment.
Leave it to the GI's to rig up BACKGROUND MUSIC.....!!!!
They walked past the 7th Cavalry's motley collection of captured buildings for hours, adding the sounds of American rifle fire to that of Iraqi rocket-propelled grenades and exploding mortars. Traveling in open-backed and lightly armored Humvees, the Marines pushed most of the insurgents back, away from the Army soldiers ordered to hold their ground.
"They brought us all the way from Taji for this?" said Sgt. Sean Nicholson, who with others in the 2-7 had fought rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi militia in Najaf and was eager to fight here.
CONFIDENCE....urban warfare battle-hardened COMPETENCY....!!!
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JB Stone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:28 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 'This is where the foreign fighters hang out'
London Telegraph ^ | 11/10/2004 | Toby Harnden in Fallujah
Posted on 11/09/2004 6:21:19 PM PST by pissant
The flimsy metal door was ripped off its hinges as a hefty boot from a Legion platoon soldier made decisive contact. Inside the small room lay an AK-47 rifle, alarm clock parts and a handwritten notebook in Farsi. Moments earlier, the gunman, thought to be Iranian, had fled as Legion, Hunter and Outlaw platoons of the US army's Task Force 2-2 undertook one of the more dangerous tasks of the battle for Fallujah.
Clearing buildings door to door in a guerrilla stronghold is risky at any time. Into the bargain this time, the platoons from Phantom troop had been ordered to sweep Fallujah's industrial zone, a haven for foreign fighters.
Also in the room was a red-and-white keffiyeh, a bag of bandages, an optical sight typical of those used by a sniper and a pile of photographs of Arab men, including one in a similar keffiyeh, of military age, and boxes of ammunition.
Moving deliberately through the area, the Phantoms came under sniper, mortar and small arms fire and had to negotiate mines and other explosives.
Remarkably, they had completed a third of their task by nightfall yesterday without suffering a single casualty.
But although the Persian notebook, which contained at least one e-mail address, could be of intelligence value, the soldiers did not find any insurgents, either alive or dead.
"It's weird how we killed so many people last night but haven't seen any bodies today," said Specialist Nick Price of Legion platoon. "Where are they?"
The bodies of Arab fighters tend to be recovered quickly so they can be buried by sunrise the next day, in accordance with Muslim custom. But the paucity of insurgents could indicate that many had fled Fallujah to fight another day.
Having fought through the night, the Phantoms were battling against fatigue. Sleep was grabbed in morsels while sitting in the back of their Bradley fighting vehicle.
Fear was another enemy. The industrial zone, in the south-east corner of Fallujah, was thought to be the site of two car-bomb factories and had been the target of bombardment for months.
"This is all bad guys," said Capt Kirk Mayfield, commander of the Phantoms, pointing at an aerial photograph of the area. "Every sigint [electronic intercept], every humint [informant report] tells us this is where all the foreign fighters hang out."
Briefing his squad, Sgt Jamal Alexander could sense the apprehension. "You all know what you're getting into," he said. "Stay alert and stay alive. There aren't any friendlies in there. Anybody walks up, you kill them."
The sniper fire began almost immediately. So too did the mortars, sending earth showering the tin roofs of the warehouses and workshops as they landed up to 50 yards away.
"There's a man in black with a weapon on that roof," shouted Sgt Ndifreke Aanam-ndu, a Nigerian who hopes to gain American citizenship by serving in the army.
He fired three shots with his M-16 as one of the Bradleys providing support blew holes in the building.
The insurgents, however, melted away. There were no bloodstains found at another firing point identified in an upstairs room, where a sniper had left 7.62mm rounds and an empty can of Red Bull energy drink.
There was an eerie silence in the industrial area, punctuated by loud explosions and the crack of gunfire. There were no signs of life and most buildings appeared to have been locked up and abandoned weeks earlier.
When a boot didn't work, Sgt Alexander pulled out a shotgun to blast the locks. In every room the soldiers entered there was the possibility of death from a cornered fighter or a building rigged with explosives.
Clambering across a pile of rubble as they came under sniper fire, Legion platoon came across a copper wire leading from a building to a plastic tube that looked likely to be filled with explosives.
In one house, the soldiers were startled by barking as they burst in. "If that ***** goes for you, shoot it," ordered one nervous NCO.
This prompted a mini-revolt from the others. "No, don't," shouted another, as three labrador puppies ran across the room while their mother cowered. The soldier stroked the dogs and apologised because he had no food.
Back in the Bradley after more than four hours of clearing the industrial area, the men turned to talking about what they would like to do when they left Iraq.
"I just want to go to Amsterdam and party," said Pte Mike Rothemeyer. "If I go to Brazil and Egypt I'll die a happy man," mused Sgt Alexander. "I want a picture of me on a camel in front of a pyramid. That would be enough." |
"It's weird how we killed so many people last night but haven't seen any bodies today," said Specialist Nick Price of Legion platoon. "Where are they?"
The bodies of Arab fighters tend to be recovered quickly so they can be buried by sunrise the next day, in accordance with Muslim custom.
| Quote: | US expects Fallujah fight to intensify
United States military commanders say the battle to capture Fallujah from insurgents will intensify even though US troops have already fought their way to the city centre.
Ten US soldiers are known to have been killed in the assault on Fallujah, along with two Iraqi troops.
The officer in charge of the offensive, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, says more enemy fighters have been killed than he expected.
"We have seen very few civilian casualties," he said. "Friendly casualties are light. I am pleased with that.
"Enemy casualties I think are significantly higher than I expected and let me just keep it there, as we do not have so far in Operation Iraqi Freedom, nor will we start, body counting."
He says the 2,000-3,000 rebels in Fallujah are putting up a scattered resistance with "little coherence".
But Lieutenant General Metz warns the military is still "looking at several more days of tough urban fighting".
The assault on Fallujah has angered Sunni clerics who have urged Iraqis to boycott January elections seen as vital to peace.
Residents in the city say wounded children are dying from lack of medical help, food shops are closed and power is cut.
But residents say scores of civilians have died in the US advance and for those struggling to live in the city, life is grim.
Most of the city's 300,000 people fled to escape air strikes and artillery bombardments preceding the assault. The US military said about 150,000 residents had left.
Those left behind say they have no power and use kerosene lamps. They keep to ground floors for safety, some living in shattered homes because it is too dangerous to move.
Defence experts believe that while US forces have the muscle to win the battle in Fallujah, victory may not deal a lasting blow to the insurgency.
"It may not take long to capture the city but nothing will have been resolved," French military strategist Jean-Louis Dufour said. "It will be a symbolic victory." |
"It may not take long to capture the city but nothing will have been resolved," French military strategist Jean-Louis Dufour said. "It will be a symbolic victory."
Like the FRENCH are our "leaders"....or was that "Global Test Graders"...???
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