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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Operation Plymouth Rock underway |
| 2004-11-24 |
| British troops joined their US and Iraqi counterparts in a massive new offensive against insurgent strongholds as efforts intensified to restore government control in time for January elections. The launch of the huge operation Tuesday in the so-called Triangle of Death just south of Baghdad came as the international community threw its weight behind the tight timetable for Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein elections. US and Iraqi forces swept through the village of Jabella just north of the city of Hilla to kick off the fresh offensive to restore control in the northern part of Babil province, the US military said. The operation, dubbed Plymouth Rock, involved more than 5,000 Iraqi, US and British troops. Rebels based in Sunni Arab towns immediately south of the capital that command the main highway to the Shiite south have launched repeated attacks against convoys and travelers. The operation came hot on the heels of a massive assault on Fallujah, west of Baghdad—the largest since last year's invasion. The city had been under insurgent control since April and its recapture was seen as essential to organizing the promised polls. "As the Iraqi people prepare to vote in nationwide elections in January, multinational forces are determined to capture or kill those who desire to destabilize the elections process," the military said. Most of Fallujah's 300,000 inhabitants had fled the city before the assault began November 8, but as a few rebel pockets were still to be brought under control, humanitarian needs inside the city remained unknown. A team from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society entered Fallujah Monday, but no real assessment has been made of the humanitarian situation since US and Iraqi government troops stormed the city, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Iraqi security forces said after receiving a tipoff they were focusing their hunt for Zarqawi in north-central Iraq. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking at an international conference on Iraq, termed the vote critical to quell the violence in Iraq. The chronic insecurity gripping Iraq was "the greatest impediment to a successful transition process," he said in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. His stand was enshrined in a declaration that was endorsed not only by the United States but also by regional foes Iran and Syria, and by critics of the Iraq war, including China, France and Russia. Iraqi officials insist that despite persistent unrest the vote will be held as planned, and election officials said more than 220 different political groups had registered ahead of Tuesday's deadline. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the elections would be held on time "whatever the situation." In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States will add an unspecified number of troops to its forces in Iraq and beef up Iraqi forces ahead of the election. "We will have more troops, because the Iraqi security forces are going up, and we've decided to overlap some troops during the election period," Rumsfeld said. "So you're going to have additional troops during that period from both of those two sources." Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi urged all Iraqi political groups, Muslim or Christian, Sunni or Shiite, to take part in elections for a national assembly, a regional parliament for the Kurdish north and 18 provincial councils. On the ground, a Sunni cleric from the influential Council of Muslim Scholars was gunned down north of Baghdad in the second attack in as many days to target a member of the group, which has called for a boycott of January's polls. In the city of Samarra, which was the scene of a previous US-backed counter-insurgency operation in September, five people, including three children, were killed and eight wounded by mortar rounds that struck near a US base. Further north, the Iraqi national guard took over responsibility from a South African security firm for protecting key oilfields around Kirkuk in a bid to stem mounting sabotage by anti-US insurgents, the force's regional commander said. The state-owned North Oil Company says it has suffered 100 separate attacks since June that have cost 800 million dollars in desperately needed lost earnings. Meanwhile, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan branded the popular Arabic-language satellite television Al-Jazeera a "channel of terrorism", in a newspaper interview published Tuesday. That brought a sharp reaction from the broadcaster, which expressed its "utter outrage" at what it said was an unsubstantiated allegation. "Al-Jazeera is a channel of terrorism. That is clear and we say openly and without hesistation: Al-Jazeera is a channel of terrorism," Shaalan was quoted by the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat as saying. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #8 Thanksgiving Hymn |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-11-24 1:25:25 PM |
| #7 Jan 30 will see the launch of Operation City On A Hill. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-24 11:23:59 AM |
| #6 TGA - The Plymouth Colony was a British colony. Most people seemed to forget that prior to 4 July 1776, we were British subjects. Then came the big messy divorce. |
| Posted by: Don 2004-11-24 11:16:41 AM |
| #5 TGA: the Jihadis didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on them. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2004-11-24 8:30:29 AM |
| #4 Religious freedom? In Plymouth Colony? :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-24 6:32:14 AM |
| #3 Landing place of religious freedom? Thanksgiving week festivities? |
| Posted by: longtime lurker 2004-11-24 5:06:49 AM |
| #2 A bit strange to name this thing after the landing place of the Pilgrims? |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-11-24 1:57:28 AM |
| #1 ...On the ground, a Sunni cleric from the influential Council of Muslim Scholars was gunned down north of Baghdad in the second attack in as many days to target a member of the group, which has called for a boycott of January’s polls.. US Mercenaries, but don't tell the MOSSAD, they don't blush!!. |
| Posted by: smn 2004-11-24 12:33:49 AM |