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| Iraq-Jordan |
| 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit & Iraqi Army punch down Hillah |
| 2004-10-06 |
| More than 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a major operation Tuesday against insurgent strongholds just south of Baghdad, their second mission in five days to wrest control from militants whose attacks threaten national elections seen as crucial to stabilizing this turbulent country. The operation in Babil province -- an area notorious for kidnappings and ambushes and home to the fabled, ancient city of Babylon follows last week's U.S.-Iraqi drive to oust insurgent forces from Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. The Marines and Iraqis punched their way across the Euphrates River (search), rounded up 160 suspects, seized a suspected training camp and took control of a major bridge, the U.S. command said. The bridge, spanning the Euphrates, is believed to be a favored corridor linking insurgent areas around Baghdad, Fallujah and towns farther south. This further isolates Fallujah and keeps the Muj off balance - north then south, they don't know where we will hit next. |
| Posted by:OldSpook |
| #4 Some of these guys are insurgents (terrs) and some are criminals who have a history of using kidnapping as a tactic of choice. Round em all up says I. Keeping the Devil Dogs active is a very good thing. Those guys think Whack-A-Mole is very good sport. |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-10-06 3:22:23 PM |
| #3 other reports indicate the sweep was not so much in Hillah, as in some Sunni villages in the province, which have been dominated by the insurgency. Note also, the villages are on the road from Baghdad to Fallujah. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-10-06 9:46:46 AM |
| #2 sh - IIUC, Hillah is basically on the frontier between the Sunni triangle and Shiite south, and has a mixed population. The Shiites were massacred in '91. I assume the Sunnis either looked on, or helped. Imagine someplace in Silesia with a mixed German-Polish population, or a mixed German-Polish-Jewish population. Or somewhere in the Sudetenland with a mixed German-Czech population. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-10-06 9:20:48 AM |
| #1 I am baffled that Hilah would be a hot point for the insurgency. I think it is one of the sites for mass graves from Sadaam's massacre in 1991. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-10-06 1:58:13 AM |