You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Iraq-Jordan
Mosques bombed as fighting rages in Falluja
2004-11-11
Almost half of the mosques in the Iraqi town of Falluja have been destroyed, with US warplanes launching air strikes and fierce fighting on the ground continuing.
Sounds pretty good to me...
An Iraqi journalist told Aljazeera that US forces on Wednesday resumed attacks on the city, targeting Julan in the north-west to al-Jughaivi in the north-east. Fadil al-Badrani said there are an estimated 120 mosques in the city. "Almost half of the city's mosques have been destroyed after being targeted by US air and tank strikes," al-Badrani added.
Could have something to do with the fact that they were arms depots, chock full of Bad Guyz...
Fierce clashes also erupted between armed fighters as the US forces thrust deeper into the city in the early hours, he said. Machinegun, mortar and rocket fire shook the city as planes made several bombing runs over Julan district in the space of 15 minutes, a Reuters reporter said. Smoke was rising from houses just beyond Falluja's captured rail station, where marines and Iraqi forces have a base. Marines said their opponents showed no signs of giving up, even though US forces penetrated to the centre of the city, west of Baghdad, after an offensive launched on Monday night.
Posted by:Fred

#9  TW, fred, et al are correct - a weapons storehouse and sniper nest no longer qualifies as a mosque - it is a target
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-11 2:56:57 PM  

#8  I agree with trailing wife on this. We nailed 70 guys in one mosque outbuilding. By leaving Fallujah alone we encouraged the bad guys to pile into the city and make it symbolic. By leaving mosques alone we encouraged the bad guys to pile into them and use them as mini-forts.

Now that the gloves are off they are much easier targets.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2004-11-11 2:48:09 PM  

#7  Inadvertant, TW, inadvertant. The military intelligence crews are not that on top of things. Planning for the future only goes are far as the next prisoner in line for interrogation.

Long term thinking is a Psyops thing and they are largely ignored by the fighthing-type commanders. The guys pulling the triggers are usually pretty proccupied with making certain about the right nows, not the might be's.
Posted by: Jame Retief   2004-11-11 12:48:33 PM  

#6  But Jack, the "hands off" policy encouraged the bad guys to use the mosques as forts and ammo dumps. So now everything/everybody is nicely in one place, and our guys get to watch all those pretty secondary explosions and bouncing bodies. Do you suppose this was intentional, or simply an enjoyable by-product of a mistaken political decision?
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-11-11 12:39:16 PM  

#5  Our biggest politico-military mistake in all of this has been the "hands-off" policy of not taking on the mosques. Some one has to revist this policy and damn the torpedoes! Once the terrs go into the mosque armed or store ordance there or use it as sniper platforms it should be declared a target and used as such.
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2004-11-11 9:19:22 AM  

#4  I heard that they waved a white flag, then fired on Marines. Sheesh talk about stupid. Six minutes later no more mosque.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono   2004-11-11 7:20:15 AM  

#3  fallujah , city of a 1000 mosques eeeerr *cough* ammo dumps ;)
Posted by: MacNails   2004-11-11 5:39:28 AM  

#2  Looks like that magical anti-weapons field around all Muslim Holy Places(tm) finally conked out.
Posted by: someone   2004-11-11 2:39:54 AM  

#1  Article: An Iraqi journalist told Aljazeera that US forces on Wednesday resumed attacks on the city, targeting Julan in the north-west to al-Jughaivi in the north-east. Fadil al-Badrani said there are an estimated 120 mosques in the city. "Almost half of the city's mosques have been destroyed after being targeted by US air and tank strikes," al-Badrani added.

This guy is Fallujah's Comical Ali or Baghdad Bob. He is providing comic relief fiction for al-BBC, al-Reuters and al-Jazeera all at the same time.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-11-11 12:38:51 AM  

00:00