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2003-10-27 Iraq
"Syrian" bomber caught alive in Baghdad
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Posted by Steve 2003-10-27 12:34:59 PM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 I'm surprised they didn't kill him, as I thought they would have. Those were some admirably restrained police officers.

"...fuelling suspicions that foreign fighters were behind..."

Is anyone counting how many foreign fighters have to be unearthed before each media outlet stops referring to their presence as "suspicion"? Maybe we should call these speculative people Murati-Iraqis in honour of our resident champion of the Iraqi [sic] Resistance?
Posted by Bulldog  2003-10-27 12:46:45 PM||   2003-10-27 12:46:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Call me an optimist, but the impression I'm getting is that it's now us and 90% of the Iraqis versus the "foreign fighters" and 10% of the Iraqis. Why not move a brigade of 4ID in the general direction of Damascus and see what that does to the flow of "foregn fighters"?
Posted by Matt 2003-10-27 12:58:08 PM||   2003-10-27 12:58:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Matt - no need. We're training Iraqis for that job. A new "class" of about 40 graduate every week, and take up border patrol duties. My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups. The attitude among the Iraqi border guards, apparently, is "You're not coming into MY country to screw things up, not after we've gotten rid of Saddam".

A few obviously get through. The current attacks against both Iraqi and NGO targets seems to be a shift from a war against the "American agressors" to one against the "non-militant" Arab population of Iraq.

Expect as Sadr to have a hand in this mess somewhere, and expect him to get whacked, probably by Iraqis tired of foreign troublemakers on their soil. I'm getting the impression that Sadr is now considered more "foreign" than "local".
Posted by Old Patriot  2003-10-27 1:13:34 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm]  2003-10-27 1:13:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 OP, great info. Thanks as usual.
Posted by Matt 2003-10-27 2:19:22 PM||   2003-10-27 2:19:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 OP, are you serious?

"My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups."

Why don't we hear more about it? Politics? Not ready to really tackle that situation yet?

Which border do the majority try and come across?

(Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia)?

Thanks,

Daniel

Posted by Daniel King 2003-10-27 3:23:17 PM||   2003-10-27 3:23:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 My sources tell me they whack about 200 to 300 "foreign fighters" a night, usually in small to moderate sized groups.

I hope they're bumping most of these bastards off, and not capturing them. Housing and feeding terrorist lowlifes in a prison is largely a waste of money.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-27 4:18:16 PM||   2003-10-27 4:18:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I'm surprised they didn't kill him, as I thought they would have. Those were some admirably restrained police officers.

Actually, taking people alive to get information out of them was practised even in Saddam's Iraq. I suspect the next few days are going to be difficult ones for this Syrian prisoner. Good...
Posted by Zhang Fei  2003-10-27 5:13:00 PM||   2003-10-27 5:13:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Daniel King,
I don't think we are seeing much of the border war because there is no media on the border. Slaughtering 100 to 300 people traveling across a landscape without cover is not out of the question.

Although there are jihadis dying in some numbers, don't expect the collation miltary to provide a daily tally. This action will not be won by body count, but by establighing stability and freedom in Iraq.

For the military it is much easier psychologically to concentrate on the good we are doing. Do you remeber the "thunder run" through Baghdad? That convoy by itself killed 2000 enemy fighters at a minumum. How many Iraqis died that day in all of Iraq? Quite a few died, but very few of them would have had much of a place in the new Iraq.

Posted by Super Hose  2003-10-27 7:40:03 PM||   2003-10-27 7:40:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Daniel - why tell your enemy he's losing? Let him continue to send the gun-bunnies into the shredder - sooner or later, you'll end up the same way the Germans did during WWII - hollow "divisions" that had fewer able-bodied men than a platoon, whole armies with less than a thousand effectives.

Let's consider the number high - let's say the real number is more like 100. This has been going on for more than four months now - thats 120 days. It could go on for another year or more. How many people are going to be willing to become worm food? Sooner or later, these dumba$$es will wise up that they've lost, and there's no way to "retake" Iraq. When that happens, the whole house of cards in the Middle East will start falling.

Also understand - every "martyr" whose life's blood drains out onto the sands of Iraq is one less we'll have to face in Syria, Iran, or anywhere else where the slimeballs that encourage and support this kind of stupidity live.
Posted by Old Patriot  2003-10-27 10:40:53 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm]  2003-10-27 10:40:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 I HOPE you're right OP but think if that were the case the administration would be trumpeting those results
Posted by NotMikeMoore 2003-10-27 11:16:04 PM||   2003-10-27 11:16:04 PM|| Front Page Top

05:20 Sock Puppet of Doom
05:12 2b
02:45 Qaraqul
09:42 Laurence of the Rats
07:50 Super Hose
07:24 Raptor
07:14 Shipman
05:02 Bulldog
04:35 Bulldog
04:03 Bulldog
01:39 NotMikeMoore
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