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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Marine snipers have terrified the Iraqi fighters |
| 2004-04-22 |
| Marines cheered the explosions from their helicopters’ missiles and taunted and cursed at enemy sniper fire. Many seemed glad the shooting had started again. When the second 500-pound bomb exploded and sent slabs of concrete and chunks of walls hundreds of feet in the air in a huge fireball, the troops hollered like teenagers at a showing of the "Terminator." Cease-fire appears moot The fighting also seemed to demolish the pretense of a cease-fire that has kept thousands of Marines out of the heart of the city for more than 10 days while a thousand or more insurgents are thought to remain trapped inside. Marine officials earlier this week gave Iraqi leaders until Friday to get insurgents to turn in their heavy weapons and turn over those who killed and mutilated four American security contractors on March 31. Few seemed to hold out much hope the Americans’ demands would be sufficiently met to dissuade the troops from launching a final assault on the city. And Wednesday’s six-hour battle proved that the Marines are still on the move and the insurgents are far from disarmed. "I wonder what this means to the peace talks?" Capt. Kyle Stoddard, commander of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, wondered aloud Wednesday as both sides volleyed mortars over the no man’s land between them that has provided a buffer for most of the last two weeks. Stoddard and the other troops on the front line never received a definitive answer on the status of the talks. By the end of the day, when gunfire again erupted and a nearby mortar blast shook his compound, Stoddard commented laconically, "No, it looks like we’re still just talking." Battle began at dawn The first shots crackled at about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday as the 2nd Battalion’s Echo Company moved south into the city to clear homes forward of their positions in the northwest corner of the city — the bloodied ground of some of the fiercest fighting that began on April 5. Insurgents raked the advancing Marines with machine-gun fire, then fired rocket-propelled grenades that exploded against walls. Echo’s infantrymen answered with a barrage of small-arms fire and launched volleys of grenades whose explosions sent a thunderous roar reverberating across the city, shrouded beneath a compact ceiling of low clouds. "These boys definitely want to come out and play this morning!" said Sgt. Warren Hardy, 26, of Colorado Springs, as he watched the red glow of a rocket-propelled grenade sail overhead and crash near a Marine position about 200 yards away. As if set to accompany their counterattack, insurgents blared militant chants from a mosque set just behind the line of fighting. A translator with the Marines said the singing called residents to "stand up and fight," "join the uprising," and "drive out the infidels." The Marines broadcast their own message that resistance was futile and that Marine snipers — whom intelligence reports say have terrified the Iraqi fighters — held the insurgents in their sights. Choppers under heavy fire When an attacking Cobra helicopter took intense fire from the area of another mosque nearby, it fired a Hellfire missile, taking a bite out of the towering minaret. The AH-1 Cobra and a UH-1 Huey returned again and again to rake the neighborhood with machine-gun fire, rockets and missiles. When troops reported spotting armed men running back and forth into and out of buildings about 1,000 yards south of their lines, snipers worked methodically to pick off the runners while helicopters circled wide back onto targets marked by white phosphorous mortar rounds. Air controllers guided in F-16 fighter jets from the clouds and pointed out an enemy stronghold with a laser beamed from a rooftop more than 1,000 meters away. "We’re going to have bombs on the deck in two minutes," warned an air controller from a rooftop where Marines were returning fire into the hollow windows of the sea of brick buildings where insurgents moved with ease. At 9:20 a.m., the first 500-pound bomb slammed into a building near a rebel-held mosque where Marines said that for days they’d watched insurgents stockpiling what they thought were weapons. When tremendous clouds of smoke and dust cleared, the skyline was forever changed: the building vanished from sight. "They seem to have an affinity for the area around the mosque," said Marine air controller Capt. Roy "Woody" Moore, of Fairfield, Conn., who helped guide the bombs onto their targets Wednesday. "They returned to the spot a couple of days after we hit it and started running their operations out of there — so we hit it again," he said, adding that hours after the fight, his adrenaline still had him "wound up" tight. "Today they were shooting at us from there so they kinda made it easy." The sound of gunfire and the nearby impact of mortars have become so commonplace at this edge of the embattled city that Marines barely flinched when projectiles hit buildings and crashed into two cemeteries fewer than 200 yards away. While officially they have not received orders to move to take the city, Marines privately said the fighting Wednesday ensured that a final assault would be the only way to stamp out what they describe as the town’s stubborn core of local insurgents and foreign fighters. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #26 Jack Deth, I'm sure the Islamic nations would approve of Napalm if it would preserve such a Holy Mosque. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-04-22 11:53:12 PM |
| #25 The IWPR reporter Wisam al-Jaff, who is a trainee? Wonder if trainee means someone they found on the streets of Iraq and paid to go into Fallujah or say he did. |
| Posted by: TS 2004-04-22 11:19:38 PM |
| #24 If they'll hide weapons and seek safety, in schools, among children...they'll hide weapons, among food for the hungry, inside a mosque. |
| Posted by: Halfass Pete 2004-04-22 11:14:14 PM |
| #23 and ammo? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-04-22 11:09:19 PM |
| #22 An IWPR reporter went inside of Fallujah. His report indicates that the mosques maybe the distribution points for food to the people that stayed. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-22 10:56:21 PM |
| #21 Feel better,TS? Good. That is one of the benifits of using FAE ordinance,what structures are not destroyed,the blast wave will suck the O2 right out of the air. |
| Posted by: raptor 2004-04-22 10:23:26 PM |
| #20 If a bird flew from china carrying a grain of sand and dropped it on the Rocky Mountains, over and over and over again, until the Rocky Mountains were worn away from the abrasiveness of the sand........ That is not a drop in the bucket, compared to the length of time those islamic barbarians will spend in a REAL, PHYSICAL, BURNING, TORTUROUS, HELL. |
| Posted by: Halfass Pete 2004-04-22 9:03:54 PM |
| #19 "And I hope to God that Bush & company finish it this time out, and dont leave my kids to finish the job." Amen to that, the bottom line of this whole situation. |
| Posted by: docob 2004-04-22 8:25:06 PM |
| #18 Zenster, lol I feel like I had a bonafide rant with that one. :-) |
| Posted by: TS 2004-04-22 7:50:46 PM |
| #17 It's decaf for you from now on, TS! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-22 7:14:33 PM |
| #16 Get 'em boys ;) These bastards, who use kids and their property, what we call wives here in the civilised world, to hide behind, deserve every thing they are gonna get from the Marines. You all see what the jihadis do around the world, these Iraqi jihadis are no different. F 'em up. These throat-slitting, hand amputating, women-stoning, church burning, jew-killing, gang raping, train bombing, killers of kindergartners will get what they deserve, I hope they suffer the way their 'brothers' make people suffer around the world. Send 'em to hell, where they belong. |
| Posted by: TS 2004-04-22 7:06:53 PM |
| #15 It was decided by the International Community that Napalm and flame weapons were frowned upon after Vietnam, ruprecht. I personally have no problem with it. Though, I do have a few words of advice for Sadr and his Tater Tots. "Don't fear the night. Fear what hunts the night!" |
| Posted by: Jack Deth 2004-04-22 6:43:18 PM |
| #14 War sucks, so does killing bad guys even when they deserve it. (Especially up close and personal). Its those things I did and was glad to have done, but will be even more glad to not have to do it again. And I hope to God that Bush & company finish it this time out, and dont leave my kids to finish the job. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-04-22 6:42:13 PM |
| #13 Question, would napalm fry the bad guys and suck the air out of the Mosque without doing much damage except blackening the masonary? Or would the pressure wave knock down walls and such? It's why we invented neutron bombs. I'm wondering if there's some way of dropping a large cryogenic tank of nitrogen with a dispersal charge and simply suffocating the idjits. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-22 6:37:32 PM |
| #12 I can't wait for the movie about this battle...We have yet to hear a complete tactical play by play, but I think the role of the marine sniper has to be a serious bummer on the other side of the football. Round the clock attrition of command, control and resupply. |
| Posted by: Capsu78 2004-04-22 6:16:45 PM |
| #11 Question, would napalm fry the bad guys and suck the air out of the Mosque without doing much damage except blackening the masonary? Or would the pressure wave knock down walls and such? Seems a nice way to respect the mosque and wipe out the bad guys it the building doesn't get knocked over in the process. Certainly we could cook up some napalm quick enough if we had the need. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-04-22 6:12:23 PM |
| #10 I was aborn to soon and joined the wrong force. Get 19 for me and Tennessee. |
| Posted by: Sgt York 2004-04-22 6:11:58 PM |
| #9 Insurgents attacked American positions with ill-aimed mortar and rocket fire throughout the morning and, after a five-hour lull, attacked again with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades during the afternoon prayer time. Whoa! Aren't these ultra-pious Muslims supposed to be congregated in their mosque at prayer time? Do you mean to say they're afraid of clustering up like that in one of their inviolable holy places? As if set to accompany their counterattack, insurgents blared militant chants from a mosque set just behind the line of fighting. Geez, a call to arms like any other propaganda center. Guess that's not a mosque after all. [out of sequence] When an attacking Cobra helicopter took intense fire from the area of another mosque nearby, it fired a Hellfire missile, taking a bite out of the towering minaret. There goes the high ground. Marine snipers ---- whom intelligence reports say have terrified the Iraqi fighters ---- held the insurgents in their sights. Why are the insurgents so terrified? After all, our incompetent snipers have been slaughtering "civilians" left and right, not them. Do you mean to say that some of those "civilians" were actually fighters? Well then, maybe it is about time they were more than little terrified. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-22 6:09:28 PM |
| #8 War sucks. I speak from experience. Would to God I could be young again. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-04-22 5:59:55 PM |
| #7 Air controllers guided in F-16 fighter jets... This is what should be done more often. I hope they level the place before going for the final assault. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-04-22 5:51:41 PM |
| #6 Air controllers guided in F-16 fighter jets from the clouds and pointed out an enemy stronghold with a laser beamed from a rooftop more than 1,000 meters away. Damn. These guys are all going to die. I can't believe they don't know this. |
| Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar 2004-04-22 5:11:10 PM |
| #5 When an attacking Cobra helicopter took intense fire from the area of another mosque nearby, it fired a Hellfire missile, taking a bite out of the towering minaret. One can only hope that they finished the job and reduced the mosque to a pile of rubble. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-04-22 5:08:21 PM |
| #4 A translator with the Marines said the singing called residents to "stand up and fight," "join the uprising," and "drive out the infidels." and The Marines broadcast their own message that resistance was futile and that Marine snipers ---- whom intelligence reports say have terrified the Iraqi fighters ---- held the insurgents in their sights. This leads to : A chant that goes "I hear the virgins calling", "I'm ready for peeled grapes", "Those infidels have me in pieces" Negotiations my a** Go marines. |
| Posted by: Anonymous4052 2004-04-22 4:59:42 PM |
| #3 Ceasefires. Negotiations. Pfeh. It's sad to watch the clueless, so desperate to try to rehab or negotiate with insane and vicious barbarians - whether it's a gang-raised crack dealer or a hardened madrassah-trained jihadi. These "people" don't subscribe to the same ruleset, so all the talking is at cross-purposes and the hand-wringing is just wasted motion to salve the conscious mind - freeing you, finally, to take the action your subconscious settled upon the instant the need arose. Poor misguided social engineers - they must eat lots of Rolaids - and never understand why. If it's all grown up - and it's broken, well, you're just gonna have to kill it. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-04-22 4:50:19 PM |
| #2 "They seem to have an affinity for the area around the mosque," said Marine air controller Capt. Roy "Woody" Moore, of Fairfield, Conn., who helped guide the bombs onto their targets Wednesday. What a coincidence: so do our JDAMs. |
| Posted by: exploding diplomacy 2004-04-22 4:38:20 PM |
| #1 That the people involved in the fighting weren't involved in any talks about a cease-fire pretty much made it moot from the get-go. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-04-22 4:36:13 PM |