Article

2006-05-27 Iraq

Haditha: Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel

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Posted by KBK 2006-05-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Al Guardian's spring offensive.

Posted by RD 2006-05-27 00:35|| 2006-05-27 00:35|| Front Page Top

#2 I thought this story was familiar. It's from August '05, and it wasn't true then, either.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-05-27 00:38|| 2006-05-27 00:38|| Front Page Top

#3 if they keep repeating it, it has to right some day...

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-05-27 00:39|| 2006-05-27 00:39|| Front Page Top

#4 I wonder if there is a relationship between this story and the current Marine atrocity story - beyond both being in Haditha? We like to say women and kids are 'innocent', but it's not always that way; maybe especially so in places like Haditha, which could lead to the kind of mental outlook that lets Marines kill women & children, either recklessly or criminally.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2006-05-27 08:06|| 2006-05-27 08:06|| Front Page Top

#5 You can bet there's a relationship. A quick search on the 'burg for Haditha pulls up a two year pattern of iniquity: Haditha was an insurgent stronghold and a Zarqawi base. Multiple operations were directed against it: Quick Strike, Rivergate, etc. as part of the attempt to beat down the insurgents in Anbar.

There's always a lot of chatter about going "full Roman", but we know that is not what the US military does. Our ROE don't permit killing "innocent" civilians, though there often are unavoidable deaths and injuries because of the enemy's tactics of living and fighting among civilians.

It must be extremely difficult for our military to keep their response measured when dealing with a city like Haditha filled with thieves, brigands, insurgents, and terrorists while your buddies are being killed by invisible assailants.

The situation last fall was pretty grim. We could suppress Haditha, but the insurgents would melt away and return after Coalition forces pulled out:

Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people in Anbar province, undeniably is an insurgent bastion. Around the time of the attack, several storefronts were lined with posters and pictures supporting al-Qaida, although residents said they posted them to appease extremists.

Insurgents blend in with the residents, setting up their cells in homes next to those belonging to everyday citizens, some of them supportive.

There is no functioning police station and the government offices are largely vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents.

The military wouldn't release statistics, but attacks on U.S. troops are frequent.

Indeed, Haditha has been the site of some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. forces. On Aug. 1, six Marine reservists were killed in an ambush; two days later, a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines traveling in an amphibious assault vehicle just outside the town, the deadliest single attack ever on U.S. forces.

On Nov. 19, according to military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, the Marines were hit four separate times by roadside bombs and were fired on multiple times by gunmen they couldn't see.

Three years after the war began, the U.S. military concedes it hasn't figured out how to tell a terrorist from an ordinary citizen in places like Haditha.

Things have changed in Haditha since Nov 19, however. The Sunnis, fed up with the violence, have increasing turned against the insurgents and especially against the foreign terrorists. Here's an April 23 post:

After the attacks, however, Khalid and the other fighters were confined to safe houses in Mosul and Haditha - dark, dank places with no hot water or electricity. The biggest problem was the Iraqis, the very people he was there to help. Sometimes it seemed as though there were double agents everywhere, checking him out on the street, trying to overhear him speaking the Yemeni dialect that would betray him as a foreigner, all so they could pick up their cell phones and call in the Americans, maybe even collect a reward. That made this jihad more dangerous and unpredictable than the other wars Khalid had fought in - Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, places where they were often treated like heroes. When they weren't out on missions in Iraq, he and the Saudis were forced to stay in the safe house, the shades pulled down, with only a well-thumbed copy of the Koran and five prayer sessions a day to break the monotony.

Posted by KBK 2006-05-27 13:42|| 2006-05-27 13:42|| Front Page Top

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