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| Iraq-Jordan |
| More on the hard boyz trying to flee Fallujah |
| 2004-11-11 |
| INSURGENTS have tried to break through the US cordon surrounding Fallujah as US soldiers and Marines launched an offensive against rebel concentrations in the south of the city. Eighteen US troops and five Iraqi government soldiers have been killed so far in the four-day assault. US military officials estimated that about 600 insurgents had been killed in Fallujah, many of them in massive air and artillery bombardments that paved the way for US ground forces. Another 178 Americans have been wounded in the fighting, along with 34 Iraqi soldiers. But as the noose tightened on Fallujah's defenders, insurgents launched major attacks in Iraq's third-largest city Mosul, 350km to the north, in an apparent bid to relieve pressure on their allies trapped in central Iraq. As night fell, American soldiers and Marines launched attacks south of the main east-west highway that bisects Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold 65km west of Baghdad. An Iraqi journalist still in the city reported seeing burned US vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper. Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A US tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were too frightened to go there, he said. "People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves." Most of the insurgents still fighting in Fallujah are believed to have fallen back to southern districts ahead of the advancing US and Iraqi forces, although fierce clashes were reported in the west of the city around the public market. American officers said the majority of the rebel mortar and machine gun fire was directed at US military units forming a cordon around the city to prevent guerrillas from slipping away. Officers suggested the insurgents were trying to break out of Fallujah rather than stand and defend it. Meanwhile, two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said. The four pilots were rescued, though one suffered slight injuries. At a US camp outside Fallujah, Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the operation was running "ahead of schedule" but he would not predict how many more days of fighting lay ahead. "Today our forces are conducting deliberate clearing operations within the city, going house to house, building to building looking for arms caches," Natonski said. He said militants have been using mosques as military strongpoints. "In almost ever single mosque in Fallujah, we have found an arms cache," he said. "We have found IED-making (bomb-making) factories. We have found fortifications. We've been shot at by snipers from minarets." Natonski also said he had visited a "slaughter house" in the northern Jolan neighborhood where hostages were held and possibly killed by militants. He described a small room with no windows and just one door. He said he saw two thin mattresses, straw mats covered in blood and a wheelchair used to transport captives. "Our air superiority is incredible," said Sgt Michael Carmody, 26, of Thompson, Pennsylvania, with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines in northern Fallujah. "All we can do now is clear through the city and look for survivors. Air power is our best friend." However, a steady stream of wounded flown to the US military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany suggests that fighting in some parts of Fallujah has been intense. Hospital staff were expanding bed capacity as 102 wounded US service members were flown in - up from the usual 30 to 50 a day the military hospital receives, officials said. A day earlier, 69 wounded were brought in. Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in the city was only a rough estimate. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured. Myers called the Fallujah offensive "very, very successful" but would not spell the end of the insurgency. "If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope," Myers told NBC. Commanders said before the offensive that 1200 to 3000 fighters were believed in Fallujah before the offensive. In northern Mosul, guerrillas attacked police stations, overwhelming several, and battled US and Iraqi troops around bridges across the Tigris River running through the city, where a curfew was imposed a day earlier. A US military spokeswoman Capt. Angela Bowman said it could take "some time until we fully secure the city." Smoke was seen rising over the city as US warplanes streaked overhead. City officials warned residents to stay away from the five major bridges. Militants brandishing rocket-propelled grenades were seen in front of the Ibn Al-Atheer hospital. Saadi Ahmed, a senior member of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said nine police stations were attacked and that "Iraqi police turned some stations over to the terrorists." "The internal security forces...are a failure and are ineffective because some of them are cooperating with the terrorists," Ahmed said. Insurgents also launched attacks Thursday against an Iraqi National Guard base along the main highway between Baghdad and Mosul highway near Mashahdah, about 40km north of the Iraqi capital. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 Okay, I'll bite - where's all the Radical Islamists whom professed to prefer death rather than allow US milfors to descrate a holy shrine/city. Armed men whom profess to be so dedicated to Allah and the Prophet should be dying-in-place, NOT running to escape death. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2004-11-11 9:30:51 PM |
| #3 The Americans are shooting anything that moves Um, not exactly: "On another occasion, the snipers tensed when they heard movement in the direction of a smoldering building. A cat sauntered out, unconcerned with anything but making its rounds in the neighborhood. 'Can I shoot it, sir?' a sniper asked an officer. 'Absolutely not,' came the reply. Sorry, got a soft spot for kitties... |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-11-11 8:09:41 PM |
| #2 "The Americans are shooting anything that moves." GOOD! He caught on, didn't he? No excuses, then, is there. Stay down, lock the friggin door, and keep the "Survivor" show volume down low as well.... good tips, follow 'em |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-11-11 7:59:13 PM |
| #1 I know the Iraqi elections aren't far away (end of Jan), but I am still incredulous that the silly notion that Iraq, an invention dating to the Sykes-Picot Martini Hour, is treated as unassailable and continues to hold the Kurds hostage to the progress (er, the lack is more accurate) of the Iraqi Arabs. Sigh. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-11 7:55:54 PM |