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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Fallujah Insurgents Captured 36 American Soldiers |
| 2004-11-09 |
| From Jihad Unspun As the Fallujah show down continues, reports coming in the late hours and early this morning clearly indicate that yesterdays opening offensive by US and Iraqi forces, dubbed Allawi's Army, was no cakewalk. Thirty six American soldiers were captured, American supply lines attacked, over a hundred "guardsmen" surrender to Mujahideen, several American aircrafts downed and Mujahideen pushed US forces back in two main entry positions. .... Mujahideen captured 36 Americans in the "Industrial neighborhood" however both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabyia refused to publish images of the captives, saying that they feared they would be prohibited from reporting from inside Iraq. Mujahideen also have targeted American vital supply lines, destroying 34 fuel tankers in Fallujah and Taji. Occupation casualties based on eyewitness accounts, Mujahideen reports and calculations of military personnel lost when vehicles were destroyed tally an estimated 56 American soldiers killed. In addition, four aircraft were shot down, and two Abrams tanks were destroyed and in a bazaar turn of events, over 100 Iraqi national guards turn themselves in to the Mujahideen after seeing the chaos of the American units. The 36 Americans that were captured in Industrial neighborhood yesterday were on board three tanks and three armored jeeps but the Mujahideen successfully encircled them, isolating them from the rest of their column. The Mujahideen told Islam memo correspondent that they were surprised at how quickly the Americans surrendered without a fight. The Mujahideen attributed the quick surrender to the state of fear and disarray that has dominated the American occupiers generally all throughout Iraq in general and particularly in hot spots such as Fallujah, Samaara, and Qaim. Many Marines that are now involved in the Fallujah attack have no combat experience and this is most likely also a contributing factor. Leaders of the Council of Mujahideen of Fallujah have announced that as a part of their information struggle against the US occupation troops, Resistance fighters had filmed occupation prisoners being held by the Resistance inside Fallujah. The prisoners who were filmed numbered 36 and included some US women soldiers. All were captured in Fallujah's industrial zone Monday morning. Abu Asad, President of the Council of Mujahideen of Fallujah, announced to Mafkarat al-Islam's correspondent that after filming the American prisoners, they gave the film to the al-Jazeera and al-'Arabiyah satellite TV stations. The two stations, however, refused to broadcast the tape for "security reasons." In fact they were afraid of American reprisals against the their stations if they were to broadcast the videotapes, as previously happened to al-Jazeera after they showed film of US prisoners at the start of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. At that time, al-Jazeera's internet website was knocked off the internet for several days, an incident of "hacking" that the station in fact blames on "action taken by major countries". Regardless of their reasons, this is a deviation for both networks who claim to be impartial news agencies. It is expected that visuals will be posted to the web in coming days. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #1 I intended to put this on Page 1. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-11-09 11:54:04 PM |