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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Bad guys smuggle supplies into Fallujah |
| 2004-04-12 |
| Sunni insurgents are smuggling weapons and fighters into Fallujah in aid convoys and ambulances, making it difficult for U.S. troops to stem the flow of weapons, Marines said Monday. On Monday alone, U.S. troops in Fallujah uncovered anti-aircraft guns buried in a load of humanitarian aid and saw an ambulance pull up to two shot insurgents and take away their weapons — leaving the casualties lying there. "One guy was found hidden in a sack of grain in the back of a truck," apparently intent on joining fighters in the city, Army Military Police Capt. Kurt Barclay, 38, from Ridgeway, Pa., said at a checkpoint on a desert road leading into Fallujah. Humvees blocked the road as troops checked through a line of cars, buses and trucks loaded with sacks and boxes of food, medicine, blood plasma and blankets. Using sniffer dogs, Marines and MPs poked through truck cargo holds and car trunks. But the understaffed troops waved some vehicles through after only a cursory look. They said they don't have enough personnel or the right equipment, such as large x-ray machines, for comprehensive checks of every vehicle. "There was bus with a false bottom filled with assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers," Marine 1st Lt. David Denial said. But the bus — with the weapons undiscovered — made it through the checkpoint. Troops inside the city happened to stop the vehicle and found the stash, Denial said. The anti-aircraft gun stash hidden in a truckload of aid also slipped through the cordon but was discovered in the city later, he said. Up to 100 vehicles have been ferrying aid into Fallujah every day since Friday, when U.S. forces halted major attacks on Sunni Muslim insurgents after five days of fierce fighting, Denial said. U.S. forces have set up checkpoints on all roads leading to the city, 35 miles west of Baghdad. Iraqis, many outraged by the bloody Marine siege of the city, have been sending donations of food, fuel, medical supplies and other aid in convoys organized by relief organizations, religious groups and private individuals. But rebels have been exploiting the relative calm to smuggle in the supplies they will need if fighting resumes, Marines say. Inside the city, insurgents have been using ambulances to transport weapons between neighborhoods, Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said. On Monday, Marines shot and killed two insurgents seen setting up a machine gun near their position, Byrne said. An ambulance wheeled up, and a man got out to collect the machine gun, leaving the men, he said. The ambulance man also was shot and killed. "We have to be careful because ambulances are being used for legitimate purposes, but we are also treating them with suspicion," Byrne said. Troops at the roadblocks barred many military-aged men from entering, fearing they were coming join the battle against Marines as the fight for Fallujah becomes an anti-American rallying cry. Denial said his troops turned back a seven-vehicle convoy claiming to be from an Islamic aid group, Denial said. "Their credentials were shoddy. There were 36 men of military age," he said. "The head guy said he was a doctor with a white coat. We caught him in a lie. He tried to pass off his driver's license as a medical ID." The men were not detained and later left the area, he said. Most people waiting at the roadblocks to get into the city were there to bring much-needed supplies to Fallujah's residents. Jamah Abdullah, 42, an ambulance driver for the Red Crescent Society, said he had been into the city several times in the past few days delivering aid. "There are many people dead. Many wounded. Houses destroyed, damaged. I am doing this to help," he said |
| Posted by:Phil B |
| #5 I don't know if I would go that far. Hopefully, the militants will remain well fed. I don't want to encourage them to surrender. The fewer prisoners taken the better. I would make double sure that the same guy who drives the truck in is the same one that dives the truck out. I once knew a woman that worked at Payless Shoes and told me that there were two fundemental rules to her business: 1. greet the customer when he or she enters the store. 2. visually verify exactly what shoes they wear in to the store against what they wear out of the store. Maybe they can be named Winona's Laws |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-12 10:54:36 PM |
| #4 I am so disappointed in our side. I'm trying to imagine, even now, the early romans allowing food and "humanitarian" aid through at the Masada encirclement, as they slowly advanced the seige on the Zealots...I can't! |
| Posted by: smn 2004-04-12 10:18:37 PM |
| #3 CrazyFool has it right. Even if the media messes with us by omission, we need to document this stuff. We need to thoroughly check the stuff, or if we can't check the stuff we need to not let it in. The women and children can come out if they want. The insurgents want the weapons and materael, and if they can't get it, they want suffering and death in the civilian population, both are useful tools of war with them. One other thing we need to do is to either jam the equipment or kill the Al-Jazz correspondents, or throw their asses out of the war zone. They are combatants just as much as the weapon-carrying jihadis. We have to be hardnosed in this battle or we are going to lose it. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-04-12 9:47:14 PM |
| #2 We need some video of this so that we can show it on the news. This is also a PR war as well as a military war. A video of an ambulance stopping to pick up a machine gun and leaving the dying or one of the anti-aircraft gun would do a lot to show how things really are. (on the other hand the media probably wouldn't show it....). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-12 9:40:57 PM |
| #1 Jamah Abdullah, 42, an ambulance driver for the Red Crescent Society, said he had been into the city several times in the past few days delivering aid. "There are many people dead. Many wounded. Houses destroyed, damaged. I am doing this to help," he said My dream answer: "No problem. Your vehicle will be searched first. THOROUGHLY. And if something is found that you shouldn't have, that'll be all she wrote for you." |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-04-12 9:32:26 PM |