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| Iraq-Jordan |
| US intel led to Fallujah strikes |
| 2004-06-24 |
| When U.S. forces launched two strikes on alleged Fallujah safehouses of Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), they relied on significant human intelligence to identify their targets, senior defense officials told Fox News. Pentagon officials said they haven’t yet been given any data on who was killed in the raids on Saturday and Wednesday, or what might have been found in both locations after exploitation teams were sent in to survey the damage. But Zarqawi is not believed to have been killed, the officials said. Senior defense officials continued to talk up the value of the intelligence that led to the strikes. One official told Fox News that much of the information was of the ’human’ intelligence variety, coming from both U.S. and Iraqi sources. Fallujah is seen as being a haven for Zarqawi and his allies, although senior officials said they don’t know if Zarqawi himself is there now. Officials also believe the city is a safe haven for other foreign fighters, secular Sunnis, former Baathists and Saddam loyalists. Each group, despite their disparate interests, is aiding the other, they say, creating a well-controlled terror network that is coordinating action not only in the Fallujah area but also in other hotspots like Baghdad. In an audio tape released by Zarqawi on Wednesday, the terrorist refutes reports made by the U.S.-led coalition that he operates from Fallujah. "The American strikes at Fallujah are being carried out based on their allegation that I am in Fallujah -- these are lies," Zarqawi said, according to a translation. "They do not know that I am able to move in Iraq freely as a guest." The name Izzat Ibramhim al Douri came up Wednesday as this terror network was discussed. Al Douri, the highest-ranking of the coalition’s most-wanted 55 Iraqis still at large, was the deputy chairman of Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Command Council, and was cited for several months as the most capable and dangerous Baathist for his ability to coordinate, plan and finance attacks, as well as his ability to recruit fresh insurgents. Al Douri had fallen off the radar screen as coalition and media focus has shifted to Zarqawi and his ilk, but now senior officials are telling Fox News that al Douri — whom they describe as an avowed and "fanatic" Islamist whose two sons have sworn ’fealty’ to Usama bin Laden — is in league with Zarqawi and Al Qaeda elements. Fallujah is the center of their universe, officials said. Al-Douri’s is/was a Sufi, though I presume that that much has changed given how little love or use Binny has for them. The only question as far as the sons are concerned is when the swearing took place. Fallujah, being the significant, dangerous, urban area that it is, is still being patrolled by the Fallujah Brigade -- a force of several thousand Iraqis charged with maintaining order there. One senior official told Fox News that the growing frustration with the Fallujah Brigade’s effectiveness is "coming from the Iraqi side, and we’re hearing about it." But another described the long-range Fallujah strategy as a "slow squeeze" on the many dangerous elements in the city, saying politics and public perception are keeping U.S. forces from heading back into the city to clean it out. Citing Arab media reports of the situation inside the city when U.S. Marines were engaged in action there — a time, the official said, when the rate of bomb attacks in the rest of Iraq was significantly decreased — the official said "we blinked." Now, he said, the strategy is to wait all of them out. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #18 Hey no prob. Something pissed me off today. I just wish Fallujah would be taken care of once and for all. But hey, I can be patient if I want to. Lots of people made good points today on this subject, so let's see how this turns out. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-25 12:12:22 AM |
| #17 rafael...I apologize if I misdiagnosed you. I am not new, but do not post especially often. I am in the military and am not nearly as pessimistic as you. I certainly do not have divine insight, but I can assure you that there is a lot more going on than ever reaches CNN. I am sure you know that. How the end game plays out is not certain...but who gets checkmated is. r/anymouse (an old Nasal Radiator term) |
| Posted by: anymouse 2004-06-24 11:57:37 PM |
| #16 Rafael: You are missing some very important strategic factors, here. For example, more and more Iraqis are being trained and deployed, not just as police and military, but border patrol. As they enter the picture, the US can pull further and further back, only going in after the "heavy weapons". Soon the violence will almost entirely against the Iraqi police and military--trying to overthrow an increasingly powerful government. Nothing succeeds like success. And come June 30th, a LOT of money, billions and billions, will be freed up for the Iraqi government to spend on security. Eventually, and I mean after the elections, which I expect to have a run up even worse than this, Iraq will become constructively xenophobic. By this, I mean all foreigners must have visas. This simple thing is a terrible burden for a trouble maker. The Iraqis will by then also have a federal police, call them "secret police" if you like, who unlike uniform police and military are dedicated to stomping out militants. And no revolutionary movement without popular support has ever succeeded without a foreign power sponsoring it with money, leadership, and logistics. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-06-24 10:56:38 PM |
| #15 But he's a lot more pessimistic than I True. Plus, my Calvins are in a knot today, as anymouse pointed out. Too much bad news all around. These kinds of attacks will eventually doom them... Without an offensive by either the Iraqis themselves or the US, the attacks on civilians will continue until kingdom come, and Fallujah will remain a thorn in the side (or a stone in the shoe for you Godfather fans) of the good guys. That's the whole point. Agreed. That is the point. And it's not good, IMO. Chechnya is a different animal. The Russians are in control (if you can call it that) of the flatter northern areas while the rebels are free to reign in the mountains to the south. Plus the Russians are...well, Russians. Who knows what's going on in their heads. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 8:57:30 PM |
| #14 Rafael: Because there haven't been any major engagements. That's the whole point. Rebels in Ingushetia / Chechnya are able to mount large operations in spite of the Russians having fought there for the better part of a decade. In spite of the fact that US forces have only had one year to root them out, which means they should be plenty strong, Iraqi rebels aren't having much success attacking security forces, so they're focusing on civilians, which doesn't win them a lot of goodwill. These kinds of attacks will eventually doom them to defeat, as more Iraqis start ratting them out. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-06-24 8:24:11 PM |
| #13 Rafael's no troll, But he's a lot more pessimistic than I, my Canuck friend. Hold the course, whack the shit out of the lil' heads that poke up to cause trouble, safety's off! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-06-24 8:16:28 PM |
| #12 You're new here, right? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 8:11:31 PM |
| #11 rafael: Here's a clue: if you have to ask.... |
| Posted by: anymouse 2004-06-24 8:09:42 PM |
| #10 Who's the troll? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 8:01:20 PM |
| #9 Don't feed the the trolls. They have a hard time digesting evidence, and they get their panties all in a bunch. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2004-06-24 7:21:56 PM |
| #8 Note that the Iraqi rebels have not been able to kill very many security forces. Because there haven't been any major engagements. Although one Cobra was brought down around Fallujah (according to CNN). The problem is, we've seen this before. We move in, kill lots of militants, then pull out and give them time to regroup. Useless. Utterly useless. compared to the incident in Ingushetia, where almost a hundred Russian security men were killed. That's not saying a lot. There are too many variables in the Russian case to make a good comparison. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 6:45:22 PM |
| #7 Rafael: Oh yeah?? Go to cnn.com, click on "Gallery: wave of attacks in Iraq", and take a look at the last photo showing the militants on the streets of Fallujah. Some advantage. That's a big f*cking advantage we have. Any moron can kill civilians by the hundreds. (Abu Nidal's men killed dozens of civilians in airport raids in Europe, and he wasn't even on home ground). Note that the Iraqi rebels have not been able to kill very many security forces - over a dozen, perhaps - compared to the incident in Ingushetia, where almost a hundred Russian security men were killed. Follow-up raids in Iraq will kill many of the participants in this latest attack. Photos are not a bad thing - they are an aid in ID'ing the people involved. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-06-24 6:29:12 PM |
| #6 First of all, every strategy and tactic employed in Fallujah has played out precisely to out advantage. Oh yeah?? Go to cnn.com, click on "Gallery: wave of attacks in Iraq", and take a look at the last photo showing the militants on the streets of Fallujah. Some advantage. That's a big f*cking advantage we have. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 6:04:58 PM |
| #5 They may well advance into the city again, but so what? This is why this adventure in Iraq is doomed to fail: "Officials also believe the city is a safe haven for other foreign fighters, secular Sunnis, former Baathists and Saddam loyalists. Each group, despite their disparate interests, is aiding the other, they say, creating a well-controlled terror network that is coordinating action not only in the Fallujah area but also in other hotspots like Baghdad." |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-06-24 5:57:46 PM |
| #4 There is some serious disinformation going on, here. First of all, every strategy and tactic employed in Fallujah has played out precisely to out advantage. From setting up kill zones in an industrial park to lure bad boys out of residential areas, to letting the hateful populace experience the joys of Taliban rule. Everything that has been done has been calculated to four decimal places. There haven't *been* any mistakes. Second, unawares to our blind enemy, we gather intelligence in *3* dimensions. Satellite, very high, high, medium and ground level intel *collated*, and frequently. We have been able to do this since the 1980s. We can and do track every single person in the entire city from house to house. Every vehicle, even if moving, its location, direction and speed. When an incident happens, we go back in time--following them back to their hideouts, assembly points, arms storage and headquarters. When we *don't* kill, it's because they surround themselves with women and children. And, last but not least, we do encourage human intelligence, because you can learn the most interesting gossip that way. But pretending we only fight "mano-a-mano" with Marquis de Queensbury rules like you might see in a movie is way outdated. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-06-24 5:54:14 PM |
| #3 we discussed this the other day - that there had to be something happening on the ground to get intell for the strikes. The article references exploitation teams - seems to me that SOMEONE has to also be going in on the ground to do that. And cant beleive the USMC will leave informants hanging out indefinitely, with the hostiles combing the population for "collaborators". It smells to me like the USMC will be advancing into the city again. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-06-24 5:43:29 PM |
| #2 The Sufi tend to be the mystics of Islam - which is why the hard-core allan-botherers don't have much use for them. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-06-24 5:08:48 PM |
| #1 This is the story I was trying to link to in the other thread. |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-06-24 5:07:04 PM |