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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Marines Widen Their Net South of Baghdad |
| 2004-11-29 |
| Through the scattered towns and along the dangerous roads of an area that one commander described as "kind of like the worst place in the world," U.S. Marines, British soldiers and Iraqi security forces are waging an offensive they say is vastly different from the urban warfare waged elsewhere in Iraq in recent weeks. Unlike the massive military push into the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, or similar assaults on Samarra or Mosul, the operation here in Babil province has involved few firefights. It consists mostly of gathering intelligence and launching raids on homes and suspected weapons caches. Insurgents here are not clustered in urban neighborhoods but scattered over wide areas of what many Iraqis call the "triangle of death." "We have to go out and hunt them down," said Col. Ron Johnson, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is conducting Operation Plymouth Rock, so called because it started around Thanksgiving. Beginning on Tuesday, a combined force of more than 5,000 U.S., British and Iraqi troops has mounted raids in a region south of Baghdad that resulted in the detention of more than 130 people. Most recently, the troops have targeted the dusty town of Yusufiyah, where 856 projectiles were discovered, the U.S. military said. Officers say those numbers do not reflect the actual scope of the operation. U.S. military officials estimate that they could be fighting as many as 6,000 insurgents in the region, most of them disgruntled and unemployed local residents. Among them are said to be former members of the Republican Guard, a key element of Saddam Hussein's disbanded Iraqi military. Johnson said the strategic importance of northern Babil stems from its geographic location along major transportation arteries that link Baghdad with southern Iraq and also extend west to Fallujah and beyond. "It's a natural line of drift" for insurgents, he said. "The problem is all roads lead to Latifiyah," Johnson said, referring to a town near the center of the region. At least 32 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the region in recent months, executed at illegal checkpoints the insurgents have set up, Johnson said. "These are bad guys," he said. "They don't care who they kill." |
| Posted by:God Save The World |
| #7 The first thing I would do is add more roads from Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey as the current system leaves it too easy for supply convoys to be targeted. Screw Turkey. There's no reason to come into Iraq from there, or to even go through there. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-29 2:00:05 PM |
| #6 Having looked at the CIA and Mil maps the U of Texas has online... The current Iraqi road system is a minimal spanning tree. It needs lots more roads to provide more than one way to go from A to B. There are too many choke points. The first thing I would do is add more roads from Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey as the current system leaves it too easy for supply convoys to be targeted. Next alternate routes so everything going NS or EW doesn't have to go through the Triangle. Seabees and Corp of Engineers should be hard at work making military roads. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2004-11-29 9:26:32 AM |
| #5 Fallujah was a mistake because it is not possible to fight in a city," !!!!!!! All hail the USMC and their advances in combat in urban condititions. This is an amazing statement, and is extremely positive (if the guy who said it is really someone knowledgable) in terms of our military's growing capabilities. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-11-29 9:13:11 AM |
| #4 Well, we have been arranging many out-of-body experiences for these types lately . . . maybe we just have to get around to them. |
| Posted by: Jame Retief 2004-11-29 7:51:25 AM |
| #3 they deserve to be in the slammer or OUT of Iraq! I would propose a more radical approach... how about out of body? Permanently. |
| Posted by: Conanista 2004-11-29 4:57:58 AM |
| #2 I keep seeing this footage on TV, taken by someone who is right there with the headwrapped terrorists. They seem to be pretty handy when an attack against our guys goes down. Who the hell are these people and why are they not informing our military about who they see, where, etc? If they are terrorist sympathizers, they deserve to be in the slammer or OUT of Iraq! |
| Posted by: graduate flyboy 2004-11-29 3:51:00 AM |
| #1 Things I continue not to understand -- fully aware I may be the one not getting it here: * why is there an office of any sort anyplace festooned with enemy knick-knacks and manned by people who badly need to be dead? * why has this area not long ago been choked into submission by check-points, raids, mass preventive detentions of males who test positive for explosive or firearms handling, and active incitement of the Shi'a rural types against the town? Why have we not been way up in their face 24/7 since they decided to follow their idiotic futile project of driving us out? * why have areas seeing more than one incident not been circumvented to the extent practical with alternative road-building, to include bypassing Latifiyah? Local labor, mostly non-Sunni, but some of those too, to recruit sources. * why have the clan leaders of this are not all been detained unless/until they play ball with gusto? (along with any sons, brothers, or brothers-in-law) Having occupied the country, and with all the $$$ and power at our disposal, how is it that anyone of interest on any roster (RG, govt, party, mukhabbarat) is either alive, walking around free, or not working for us under duress/bribery? |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2004-11-29 1:08:47 AM |