Oil pipeline fire following an attack by saboteurs, Saturday night
(11-13-04) in Taji, Iraq.
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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi rebels slip away to fight another day ( / are rotting in the streets) |
| 2004-11-14 |
| Families fleeing the besieged city of Fallujah say that rebel fighters have slipped through the American and Iraqi military cordon and have been driven away in Mercedes cars to rejoin the battle elsewhere in Iraq. The fighters, said to include foreign militants using satellite telephones, are believed to be heading for Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, to open a new front. Abu Haider, 47, a mechanic who escaped with his family on Friday, said: "I saw many fighters with their faces covered, coming out beside us, carrying light weapons and their telephones. "I asked one how he had managed to arrange a lift to the city. He replied, 'It is the order. We have to choose another field to fight on outside Fallujah.'" He said that homes in the al-Shuhada district of southern Fallujah had been destroyed by US bombs. "It is like a hell in there," he said. "There are many people dead on the streets. There is a very bad smell." He said that rebel fighters had made their way from central Fallujah to his neighbourhood using a network of tunnels because it was the best way out of the city. They used a back route through villages to the south of Fallujah, passing through farmland and orchards, until they reached the town of al-Nouaimia. "When we got there I saw two Mercedes cars waiting for these fighters," he said. The fighters took a back road, too narrow for American tanks, to drive to Baghdad. He and his family managed to rent a car in the town and used the same route, he said. American commanders admitted that many insurgents fled before the battle began, but insisted that escape routes were blocked. Capt Raymond Pemberton, an intelligence officer for the US Army's Task Force 2-2, which has been in the thick of the fighting for almost a week, said: "A solid cordon was established about five days prior to the attack." Other families who escaped to al-Nouaimia by the same route as rebel fighters described the devastation they had left behind. Hussain Khudiar Al-Dolaimy, 67, ran away with nine family members. "Bodies are everywhere in the streets," he said. "The electricity is switched off and the water has been cut for three days." Sa'ad Al-Dolaimy, 25, said he had seen "hundreds of bodies" thrown in the streets. Iraq's national security adviser, Qassem Daoud, said yesterday that more than 1,000 rebels had been killed and 200 fighters detained. He claimed that only "'malignant pockets" remained but confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terror mastermind behind the kidnap of westerners who made Fallujah his base, had escaped. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #2 Ooops! Missed Dan Darling's post. Please delete. [red face] |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-14 6:08:23 AM |
| #1 The terrorist enemy attacks targets which do not fight back. Oil pipeline fire following an attack by saboteurs, Saturday night (11-13-04) in Taji, Iraq. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-11-14 5:48:52 AM |