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Iraq-Jordan
Likely Zarqawi offensive kills 83
2004-06-24
Insurgents launched simultaneous attacks in four cities across Iraq on Thursday in a bid to cause chaos before the transfer of sovereignty in less than a week, a senior US-led coalition military official said. "This morning we started seeing simultaneous attacks in different cities," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. From 02:30 to 07:30 rebels started to launch attacks on police stations, Iraqi security offices and government buildings in the northern city of Mosul and central cities of Baquba and Ramadi, he said. "There was even a small attack in Fallujah" the official added, referring to the rebel Sunni bastion 50km west of Baghdad. At least 83 people were killed and 233 wounded in the wave of attacks. Mosul was hit particularly hard, with at least 30 people killed and 170 people wounded. "We have said for a long period of time that we speculate there is a loose co-ordination going on here" the official said. "We suspect that these were co-ordinated attacks, simultaneous attacks, looking at the timeline" he noted.
Brilliant.
Included in the day’s death toll are at least 18 Iraqi police officers and three Iraqi Army personnel. Despite reports of continuing clashes in the hotspot zones, the official said he believed things were calming down and the military, working with Iraqi security forces, were in charge. "It appears they are in control of most of the cities now; the attacks have gone over their peak" the official said, while acknowledging the situation could change very quickly. The attackers appeared to target institutions that represent the so-called new Iraq created under the US-led occupation. "What they are trying to do is not hold up a police station, they are trying to get the symbolic effect of being able to go to a democratic institution ... make a bang, make a show and then run away" the official said. "What does that really affect? It looks good on television and sounds good in print but does it really have a significant effect over time and the answer in no."
Posted by:Dan Darling

#1  The next week will probably see the worst terrorism since the Liberation of Iraq. Already today some seventy people are dead, murdered, by those who do not want to see a free Iraq. It will get worse.

You'd have to be close to insane to defend the terrorists. Iraq is about to become self-governing, in a way that it hasn't in thirty years or more. The terrorists' solution is to murder Iraqis. Why? Just to make a statment that they want to be the ones in power, I guess.

The Michael Moores of the world will fail to see that these terrorists are the same thugs and criminals that enslaved Iraq for so long before the Liberation, or they are religious fanatics determined to drag Iraq into the twelfth century. Nothing about this campaign says "progress" Nothing is intended to make Iraq a better place for all its citizens. The murders that we will witness over the next week are solely intended to prevent Iraq from becoming free and successful as a nation.

It will take a firm resolve on the part of all Iraqis. The terrorists can make life so miserable that Iraqis demand a strong leader. It's what they know, and the security that a dictator brings could become very attractive amidst the coming carnage.

Iraq needs our support more than ever. Not just our money and our military, but our resolve that the Iraqis deserve everything we have, freeedom, economic success, hope. Iraqis need to know that we believe in them and their future. This will be Iraq's "Battle of Britain", the biggest test of their will, and our will as well.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins   2004-06-24 11:26:16 AM  

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