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| Iraq |
| US and Iraqi forces kill 250 militants in Najaf |
| 2007-01-29 |
| US and Iraqi forces killed 250 gunmen in a fierce battle involving US tanks and helicopters on the outskirts of the Shia holy city of Najaf on Sunday, a senior Iraqi police officer said. The day-long battle was continuing after nightfall, Colonel Ali Nomas told Reuters, as tens of thousands of pilgrims converged on the nearby city of Kerbala for the climax of the Ashura commemorations. A US helicopter was shot down in the fighting, Iraq security sources said. The US military declined comment. Officers in Iraq’s 8th Army Division and policemen said the helicopter had crashed and that the two crew members were dead. At least 61 people were killed and scores wounded in Iraq Sunday, while police found 54 more corpses of people in Baghdad. Two car bombings killed 16 people and wounded 30 in Kirkuk, police said. Eight more people were killed and 18 wounded as a car bomb ripped through the Sadr City in Baghdad. Casualties were also reported from south of Baghdad in the Babil province where several mortar rounds killed another 10 people, a police officer said. Five Iraqi soldiers were killed and 19 people, including policemen, were wounded in a dawn battle in the area that pitted Iraqi and US forces against the militiamen, defence and security sources said. Bodies of 54 people were recovered from the streets of Baghdad on Sunday. In another Baghdad attack, an adviser to Industry Minister Fawzi Hariri was killed along with his daughter, driver and bodyguard in an ambush, a security source said. Gunmen raked the convoy of Adel Abdel Mohsen with automatic weapons fire in Yarmuk, western Baghdad. At least 18 more Iraqis died in other violence. Iraqi forces, meanwhile, beefed up security south of the Iraqi capital, along the 110 kilometres of highway from Baghdad to Karbala. Three foreign suspects, including an Afghan and a Saudi, were arrested near Baghdad as they wired a car bomb to be used against Shias in Karbala, security sources said. In Washington, meanwhile, tens of thousands of protestors told lawmakers to cut off funds for US President George Bush’s new Iraq strategy. In another development, “Chemical Ali”, a cousin of Saddam Hussein and lead defendant in the genocide trial of six former regime officials, on Sunday defended having ordered a military campaign against Iraqi Kurdish villagers in the late 1980s. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #26 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:10 |
| #25 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:10 |
| #24 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:10 |
| #23 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:10 |
| #22 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:10 |
| #21 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:09 |
| #20 Many of us have heard bodycounts by the natives before. Al-Haig introduced it into the then popular lexicon. Estimates usually factored into an order of magnitude higher than discoverable bodies. Just kill'em all. No counting required. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-29 23:09 |
| #19 18 - definitely not yet. Weve only just started bringing new units in, and the gleanings in the parts of the MSM that actually know something about whats happening on the ground are that the op will start with the mixed areas first. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-01-29 23:04 |
| #18 So, taking my eye off of Najaf, I'ma lookin' at Sadr City. What's goin' on there? A car bomb kills 8, but I thought we and/or the IA were headin' in there. Did we not cordon, clear and hold there (at least not yet)? |
| Posted by: BA 2007-01-29 20:21 |
| #17 And orchards take several decades to establish from the bare ground, so... Send in the D8s and sow the ground with salt! |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2007-01-29 20:17 |
| #16 For which I, at least, am profoundly grateful. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 13:53 |
| #15 TW- *bows deeply* Thank you, Ma'am. I only use my powers and skills for good. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2007-01-29 13:51 |
| #14 Mike, you have an astounding breadth and depth of knowledge on such matters, whereas I recently learned that missiles always explode because of the rocket fuel, so if I see something on the ground, even with fins, it will be a bomb. ;-) Not just *Iran* must be looked at askance -- the owner of the date palm orchard didn't send a lad to inform the police or the Iraqi army or the Americans about what he'd been forced to allow on his property. And orchards take several decades to establish from the bare ground, so... |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 12:54 |
| #13 Let's face it, the gap between Arab talk and Arab reality has been DEMONSTRATED to require that it be expressed in units of light years. Yeah, still I'm hoping against hope. Sounds like something happened tho, maybe they broke up a dinner-on-the-grounds. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-29 12:23 |
| #12 It could be that the terrorists were using Russian made morters and that Iraqi army slang (maybe even Arab slang) for all Russian made launchers (whether they lauch rockets or shells) is "Katyuskas". |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-01-29 11:14 |
| #11 TW, May I point something out in your post: Katyusha rockets Katyushas - if this is indeed what they are, one must allow for the MSM's inability to distinguish one weapon from another - are not something one just hides until you need it. The smallest Katya launchers are about the size of four average office desks stacked two end to end then two more on top of that. It would take, at the very least, a 1/4 ton pickup to haul one, and even that's iffy. If these guys are pulling Katyas and launchers out of their hats, they're doing it because someone is LETTING them store them quite safely somewhere - or they're being brought in as needed. *looks at Iranian border* Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2007-01-29 09:21 |
| #10 Ok, lunch is over, back to work. We have more body sponges coming up from Supply, so no slacking off. Good job. |
| Posted by: steven 2007-01-29 09:19 |
| #9 Good points Ptah. This must have killed the AP to report this one. Let's see if our traitors in the TV MSM report this one on the 6pm news. Not holding my breath. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-01-29 09:05 |
| #8 Okay, time for me to voice some reservations. Until I actually see a photo of 250 Jihadi corpses in neat LONG rows, I am loath to believe reports coming from arabs. Even arabs that are putatively on our side. Now, I am very much aware that these bastards drag away, where possible, the bodies of their fallen comrades, not out of a sense of duty or reverence to their own, but to ensure that the body counts are lower than they actually are. In view of that, I'd believe one of our soldiers, raised in a culture (both civilian AND military) where honesty is encouraged, to be telling the truth when he says, "I tagged a couple of them, and I think I dropped another three." Let's face it, the gap between Arab talk and Arab reality has been DEMONSTRATED to require that it be expressed in units of light years. I've been here long enough for all of you to know that, if these guys really sent 250 militants to meet their 72 white grapes, I'd be utterly delighted. However, I've decided to live my life in accordance to the below sign I saw in a Christian oriented business a while back: In God We Trust. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2007-01-29 08:11 |
| #7 And from the Washington Post: The fighting began overnight when a police checkpoint near Najaf came under fire, leading the Iraqi police to the farms in the Zargaa area where the fighters had dug trenches and stockpiled weapons, said Lt. Rahim al-Fetlawi, a police officer in Najaf. The officers who responded found themselves outgunned by the estimated 350 to 400 insurgents entrenched there, said Col. Majid Rashid of the Iraqi army in Najaf. Reinforcements from the Iraqi army's 8th Division arrived along with U.S. helicopters and ground troops. Iraqi security forces maintain primary control of Najaf province, and U.S. forces do not have an established, full-time presence there. U.S. military units based in Baghdad responded to Najaf when the fighting escalated. "They saw that they needed some help and called in air support," a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity. "That's exactly what they're supposed to do." Iraqi officials said the insurgents were using shoulder-fired rockets, antiaircraft guns and Katyusha rockets. Iraqi officials said the insurgent leader on Sunday was Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, a Shiite from Diwaniyah province in southern Iraq. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 07:46 |
| #6 It's up to 300 "insurgents" killed now. Jan 29, 3:45 AM (ET) Ahmed Deaibil, a spokesman for Najaf province, said the fighting had stopped but U.S. and Iraqi forces still had the area surrounded and had seized heavy machine guns, ammunition and other weapons. He said 300 militants had been killed and 13 arrested, while the casualty toll for Iraqi forces was three soldiers and two policemen killed and 30 wounded. Iraqi security officials said earlier that one Sudanese was among the fighters captured. Officials were unclear about the religious affiliation of the militants. Iraqi soldiers attacked at dawn and militants hiding in orchards fought back with automatic weapons, sniper rifles and rockets, Provincial Gov. Assad Sultan Abu Kilel said. He said the insurgents were members of a previously unknown group called the Army of Heaven. "They are well-equipped and they even have anti-aircraft missiles," the governor said. "They are backed by some locals" loyal to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. [Separately,] The U.S. command announced the arrest of 21 suspected terrorists, including an al-Qaida courier, in a series of raids in Baghdad and Sunni areas north and west of the capital. Three are believed to have close ties to the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq, the military said. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 07:16 |
| #5 Three foreign suspects, including an Afghan and a Saudi, were arrested near Baghdad as they wired a car bomb to be used against Shias in Karbala, security sources said. Well done! It sounds like it's working. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-29 06:56 |
| #4 Sounds almost like a Georgetown deal, hellishly amateur tactics, gotta be the cult. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-29 06:11 |
| #3 while police found 54 more corpses of people in Baghdad Is this the same 54 as five sentences later? Bodies of 54 people were recovered from the streets of Baghdad on Sunday. Poor editing? Doubling up to magnify the carnage? I report; you decide. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-01-29 06:07 |
| #2 Keep 'em coming in herds. A target rich environment. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-01-29 03:07 |
| #1 Two amazing things in this story: the number of terrorist casualties in Sunday's fighting & the fact that Iraqi Shiites persist in assembling in huge numbers for Ashura during a time of murderous chaos, making a most tempting target for the Sunnis & al Qaeda to hit. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-29 02:11 |