| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| "Syrian" bomber caught alive in Baghdad |
| 2003-10-27 |
| A U.S. general says the one attacker captured alive in the suicide bombings that have killed 34 has a Syrian passport, fuelling suspicions that foreign fighters were behind a rising tide of violence. Brigadier General Mark Hertling of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armoured Division said on Monday police shot and wounded the man when he got out of a car and tried to hurl a grenade at a Baghdad police station. The car carried three mortar rounds and was packed with TNT, he said. "He’s a foreign fighter. He had a Syrian passport and the policemen claim that as he was shot and fell that he said he was Syrian," Hertling told a news conference. "I’m a Syrian fighter and I’m here to liberate....Ouch!" Iraq’s Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad Ibrahim told the news conference the wounded attacker was now unconscious in hospital. Captured alive by Iraqi cops, excellent. Hertling said suicide attacks were not typical of supporters of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who have been blamed by the U.S. military for most of guerrilla attacks on its troops and other targets in postwar Iraq. Since Sammy’s local boys didn’t want to die during the war, I didn’t think too many would be signing up for a vest now. "There are indicators that certainly these attacks have a mode of operation of foreign fighters," Hertling said, adding that possible foreign links among the attackers would be investigated in the days to come. About time. Thirty-four people were killed, including eight police officers, in the suicide attacks on three other police stations and the Red Cross headquarters, Ibrahim said. Another 224 people were wounded, 65 of them police. One of the bombers, driving an Iraqi police car and wearing a police uniform, was admitted to a police compound before blowing himself and the station up, Hertling said. I’ll wager the Iraqi police are getting a little pissed off. He described the attacks as coordinated but said the coordination was not very sophisticated, extending no further than a decision by the various attackers to set off their bombs between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. "That’s not professional, it’s actually somewhat amateurish," Hertling said. There was no indication that Monday’s bombings were related to a Sunday rocket attack on a fortified Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz was staying, Hertling said. A U.S. soldier was killed and 17 people were wounded in that attack, but Wolfowitz was unhurt. The rocket attack was a bit more sophisticated, but nothing you couldn’t put together in a garage or small welding shop. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #10 I HOPE you're right OP but think if that were the case the administration would be trumpeting those results |
| Posted by: NotMikeMoore 2003-10-27 11:16:04 PM |
| #9 Daniel - why tell your enemy he's losing? Let him continue to send the gun-bunnies into the shredder - sooner or later, you'll end up the same way the Germans did during WWII - hollow "divisions" that had fewer able-bodied men than a platoon, whole armies with less than a thousand effectives. Let's consider the number high - let's say the real number is more like 100. This has been going on for more than four months now - thats 120 days. It could go on for another year or more. How many people are going to be willing to become worm food? Sooner or later, these dumba$$es will wise up that they've lost, and there's no way to "retake" Iraq. When that happens, the whole house of cards in the Middle East will start falling. Also understand - every "martyr" whose life's blood drains out onto the sands of Iraq is one less we'll have to face in Syria, Iran, or anywhere else where the slimeballs that encourage and support this kind of stupidity live. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-27 10:40:53 PM |
| #8 Daniel King, I don't think we are seeing much of the border war because there is no media on the border. Slaughtering 100 to 300 people traveling across a landscape without cover is not out of the question. Although there are jihadis dying in some numbers, don't expect the collation miltary to provide a daily tally. This action will not be won by body count, but by establighing stability and freedom in Iraq. For the military it is much easier psychologically to concentrate on the good we are doing. Do you remeber the "thunder run" through Baghdad? That convoy by itself killed 2000 enemy fighters at a minumum. How many Iraqis died that day in all of Iraq? Quite a few died, but very few of them would have had much of a place in the new Iraq. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-27 7:40:03 PM |
| #7 I'm surprised they didn't kill him, as I thought they would have. Those were some admirably restrained police officers. Actually, taking people alive to get information out of them was practised even in Saddam's Iraq. I suspect the next few days are going to be difficult ones for this Syrian prisoner. Good... |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-27 5:13:00 PM |
| #6 My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups. I hope they're bumping most of these bastards off, and not capturing them. Housing and feeding terrorist lowlifes in a prison is largely a waste of money. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-27 4:18:16 PM |
| #5 OP, are you serious? "My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups." Why don't we hear more about it? Politics? Not ready to really tackle that situation yet? Which border do the majority try and come across? (Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia)? Thanks, Daniel |
| Posted by: Daniel King 2003-10-27 3:23:17 PM |
| #4 OP, great info. Thanks as usual. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-10-27 2:19:22 PM |
| #3 Matt - no need. We're training Iraqis for that job. A new "class" of about 40 graduate every week, and take up border patrol duties. My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups. The attitude among the Iraqi border guards, apparently, is "You're not coming into MY country to screw things up, not after we've gotten rid of Saddam". A few obviously get through. The current attacks against both Iraqi and NGO targets seems to be a shift from a war against the "American agressors" to one against the "non-militant" Arab population of Iraq. Expect as Sadr to have a hand in this mess somewhere, and expect him to get whacked, probably by Iraqis tired of foreign troublemakers on their soil. I'm getting the impression that Sadr is now considered more "foreign" than "local". |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-27 1:13:34 PM |
| #2 Call me an optimist, but the impression I'm getting is that it's now us and 90% of the Iraqis versus the "foreign fighters" and 10% of the Iraqis. Why not move a brigade of 4ID in the general direction of Damascus and see what that does to the flow of "foregn fighters"? |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-10-27 12:58:08 PM |
| #1 I'm surprised they didn't kill him, as I thought they would have. Those were some admirably restrained police officers. "...fuelling suspicions that foreign fighters were behind..." Is anyone counting how many foreign fighters have to be unearthed before each media outlet stops referring to their presence as "suspicion"? Maybe we should call these speculative people Murati-Iraqis in honour of our resident champion of the Iraqi [sic] Resistance? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-10-27 12:46:45 PM |