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| Iraq-Jordan |
| US pounds Fallujah hold-outs |
| 2004-11-17 |
| American mortars have pummelled parts of Falluja as troops hunted for guerrillas still fighting in the Iraqi city after nine days of bombardment. U.S. officers said Marines were "cleaning up" fragments of an insurgent force of Iraqi and foreign Islamists and Saddam Hussein loyalists that Iraq's interim government says has left some 1,600 rebels dead in the rubble of the urban battlefield. But elsewhere in the northern heartlands of the formerly dominant Sunni Muslim minority, trouble flared again as it has done repeatedly since U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a major offensive more than a week ago in Falluja, west of Baghdad. Five Iraqis were killed when a car bomb went off close to a U.S. patrol in the northern oil refining town of Baiji. But Mosul, Iraq's third biggest city, was relatively quiet after a week of clashes between guerrillas and U.S. and Iraqi allies. Two Turkish truck drivers were killed and their vehicles destroyed in a rocket attack on a civilian convoy near Samarra. It is not clear how widely coordinated insurgent activity is, however, and so hard to assess whether violence in other Sunni towns has been led by figures formerly based in Falluja or simply a reaction to events there by sympathisers. More widely, the bloodshed in Falluja, including the alleged shooting dead of an unarmed and wounded guerrilla in a mosque by a U.S. Marine has provoked dismay among many in Iraq and the Arab world, where U.S. President George W. Bush has hoped the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would foster stability. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #10 left some 1,600 rebels dead in the rubble of the urban battlefield I love victory! It smells like dead jihadi! |
| Posted by: me me Shipman 2004-11-17 5:22:24 PM |
| #9 Suggestion: Remember the Great Chicago Loop Flood? The jihadist are hiding in tunnels all through Fallajuha. A big river flows right by. Time for a short underground flood... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2004-11-17 4:02:44 PM |
| #8 Growler: âI'd argue that the worst abuse was those soldiers who made two guys jump into a river.â I read some of the Iraqi bloggers so I followed the âdenialâ, âdoubtâ, and final âapologyâ stages of that incident. I was impressed that the Iraqi blogger did not turn against the US. I also doubt the US soldiers would have been discovered and punished without blogger pressure. I have sympathy for the soldiers involved in that incident. The young Iraqi men were out late after curfew. I suspect the soldiers believed they were out planting bombs and decided to scare them. I doubt they intended that the boy drown. Bad judgment and bad behavior that led to an innocent death and justified punishment for the soldiers. Would footage have made the incident worse? If there had been an embedded reporter, I donât believe it would have happened. If a witness caught it on tape, it might depend on the events shown. If the soldiers were shown acting like callous thugs who harassed and then deliberately murdered a young Iraqi then it would play badly in Iraq and in the US. But if that is what happened then I believe the truth should be shown and reviled. If US soldiers were behaving badly we should know it since such behavior will make re-building Iraq much harder. (I donât believe that it should be made into a media circus, as the MSM is wont to do. The MSM promoting ânewsâ to garner ratings is a problem in our society.) |
| Posted by: Anonymous5032 2004-11-17 12:50:27 PM |
| #7 Anon5032, I'd argue that the worst abuse was those soldiers who made two guys jump into a river. One (both?) died. At first when this story broke, thanks to an Iraqi blogger, I didn't believe it. Nor did many others. But, it turned out to be true. Thank God there was no footage of that incident. |
| Posted by: growler 2004-11-17 11:18:17 AM |
| #6 When these holdouts are located, grind 'em into dust. These are the worst of the lot, and would present a challenge in the rehabilitation department that isn't likely to be worth the money or effort spent. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-17 10:47:43 AM |
| #5 âMore widely, the bloodshed in Falluja, including the alleged shooting dead of an unarmed and wounded guerrilla in a mosque by a U.S. Marine has provoked dismay among many in Iraq and the Arab worldâ Some have called for the ending of the embedding of reporters because of this incident. I disagree. This incident is being played up as the worst abuse in the battle. What do we have? An Iraqi âinsurgentâ dedicated to the death of US soldiers is killed in a tense battle situation. Without the embedded reporter footage, the Arab ânews reportersâ would be showing films of women and children maimed by US bombs or killed by US snipers. Their Arab audience would not know that the footage did not come from Fallujah or was staged. As it is, some Arabs are going to hate the US no matter what. This footage will only add to what they already believe. Others will see the professional US military in action, US military killing âinsurgentsâ, not women, children, or Iraqiâs living in peace. In the US some anti-war people will see the footage a good propaganda for their cause. However for most Americans I believe it will generate sympathy for the extreme stress under which our soldiers live and more disdain for MSM reporting. |
| Posted by: Anonymous5032 2004-11-17 10:39:41 AM |
| #4 BH...lol! |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-11-17 10:29:46 AM |
| #3 I got ya beat, Abdallah. I'm not even a Christian, but such scenes as I see coming out of the arab world are pushing me to Crusade. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-11-17 10:02:07 AM |
| #2 gosh, let me guess...YEP..written by Rude-errors. So much noise and so little news. |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-11-17 9:55:43 AM |
| #1 Article: "I am not a jihadist, I am just a normal Muslim but such scenes are pushing me to Jihad," said one engineer in the tranquil Gulf emirate of Dubai, who gave his name as Abdallah. Then in the name of Allah, go. Today, not tomorrow. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-11-17 9:54:03 AM |