10 to 1 says they were gone before we even turned our engines over...
Posted on 11/13/2004 6:21:19 PM PST by blam
Iraqi rebels slip away to fight another day
By Aqeel Hussein in al-Nouaimia and Toby Harnden in Fallujah
(Filed: 14/11/2004)
Families fleeing the besieged city of Fallujah say that rebel fighters have slipped through the American and Iraqi military cordon and have been driven away in Mercedes cars to rejoin the battle elsewhere in Iraq.
The fighters, said to include foreign militants using satellite telephones, are believed to be heading for Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, to open a new front.
Abu Haider, 47, a mechanic who escaped with his family on Friday, said: "I saw many fighters with their faces covered, coming out beside us, carrying light weapons and their telephones.
"I asked one how he had managed to arrange a lift to the city. He replied, 'It is the order. We have to choose another field to fight on outside Fallujah.' "
Yesterday, President George W Bush gave warning that guerrilla violence in Iraq could worsen as the January elections draw near. "The desperation of the killers will grow and the violence could escalate," he said.
At least 24 American and five Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the battle so far, and American commanders claim that hundreds of insurgents have died. There has been no independent confirmation of the number of insurgent or civilian fatalities but witnesses speak of the stench from piles of bodies lying in the street.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent are increasingly alarmed by the living conditions of Fallujah's remaining 300,000 civilian residents. The Red Crescent took emergency supplies into the city yesterday despite being refused permission by the Americans because of the danger to aid workers.
Abu Haider was among hundreds of refugees to make his way out of Fallujah in the past few days. He fled with his wife and three children because his teenage daughter, Rana, needs fortnightly treatment for leukaemia at a hospital in Baghdad.
He said that homes in the al-Shuhada district of southern Fallujah had been destroyed by US bombs. "It is like a hell in there," he said. "There are many people dead on the streets. There is a very bad smell."
He said that rebel fighters had made their way from central Fallujah to his neighbourhood using a network of tunnels because it was the best way out of the city. They used a back route through villages to the south of Fallujah, passing through farmland and orchards, until they reached the town of al-Nouaimia.
"When we got there I saw two Mercedes cars waiting for these fighters," he said. The fighters took a back road, too narrow for American tanks, to drive to Baghdad. He and his family managed to rent a car in the town and used the same route, he said.
American commanders admitted that many insurgents fled before the battle began, but insisted that escape routes were blocked.
Capt Raymond Pemberton, an intelligence officer for the US Army's Task Force 2-2, which has been in the thick of the fighting for almost a week, said: "A solid cordon was established about five days prior to the attack."
Other families who escaped to al-Nouaimia by the same route as rebel fighters described the devastation they had left behind.
Hussain Khudiar Al-Dolaimy, 67, ran away with nine family members. "Bodies are everywhere in the streets," he said. "The electricity is switched off and the water has been cut for three days."
Sa'ad Al-Dolaimy, 25, said he had seen "hundreds of bodies" thrown in the streets.
Iraq's national security adviser, Qassem Daoud, said yesterday that more than 1,000 rebels had been killed and 200 fighters detained. He claimed that only "'malignant pockets" remained but confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terror mastermind behind the kidnap of westerners who made Fallujah his base, had escaped.
more bs from MSM .. and the has beens...... soon there will be a lot less of this organization ....... yahooooooooooo
Note the first author's name... BINGO!
Perhaps he is a scholar at "Baghdad Bob U"
Mosul <===== Iranian infiltration
I understand that over 1000 are pushing up daisies instead of "slipping away". By the end of this let's hope it reaches a much larger number.
The Red Crscent is worried about the terrorists living conditions.
With over 1000 terrorists killed, I would say not too many escaped.
The MSM keep re-defining success so that they can declare the operation a failure. I think that things are probably going just as planned: Fallujah is no longer a symbol of defiance but of defeat for the Baathist and jihadis, and the insurgents are popping out of their holes all over the Sunni Triangle so that we can whack 'em.
Furthermore, the wheat is being separated from the chaff in the Iraqi forces; when this is over they will have a reasonably solid core of battle-tested troops to build on.
10 to 1 says they were gone before we even turned our engines over...
And if they have to keep running and running from santuary to ever less comfortable and less supplied and smaller santuaries with no opportunity to rest and regroup and reorganize, that is defeat? This is truly Vietnam media coverage all over again. "After Tet, it seems like all our victories got turned into defeats by the media." -- Tom Moorer.
Why does this sound silly?
Is it a bad translation?
Exactly right.
Keep peeling the terrorist onion, until there isn't one.
Yes, I'm sure that would have escaped the attention of our troops.
there may be some exageration here, but our own military admits that this happened. certainly the leadership was long gone, this was hardly a surprise attack. and clearly many made their way to Mosul. It doesn't do any good to put our heads in the sand about this, it happened. it doesn't discount the effectiveness and the bravery of our forces to wipe out those that remained.
next thing to look for - iraqi forces will be used to try and hold fallujah, and insurgents will now attack those forces. basically, the situation in fallujah is now going to be "inside out". this will be a major test for the iraqi forces.
Whay would traveling down a narrow road be safe for Seditionists to escape the gaze of the US Army?
Road to narrow for tanks. Give me a friggin break!!!
We just killed more than a thousand of these bearded rats and captured 200 more. There are still some holdouts that will be killed or captured soon, so it's hard to imagine that very many of them "lived to fight another day".
And this would be different than before because...?
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