Posted on 02/22/2007 4:48:55 AM PST by TexKat
Iraqis inspect the damage at the entrance of their house after it was raided by US and Iraqi troops in Baghdad's Sadr City. As a joint operation by US and Iraqi troops to take control of Baghdad begins to bear fruit, there were signs that their insurgent foes are trying to counter them with deadly new tactics.(AFP/Wissam Al-Okaili)
Does this change our ROE? We HAVE to kill more bad guys over there before they kill more of us over here. War is hell. This is between Good and Evil. I do wonder what side America is on.
RAMADI, Iraq, Feb 22 (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed at least 12 insurgents and wounded three in a six-hour gunbattle in Ramadi involving heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and air strikes, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
Hostile fire brings Black Hawk helicopter down in Iraq
Chlorine gas attacks latest insurgent ploy
UK pullout presages Basra showdown
LA judge OKs $13.5 million settlement in crash of Army helicopter
Chlorine bombs - coming soon to a neighborhood near you!
This message sponsored by the gutless Dems pushing their signature "Let's-all-just-get-along" cut 'n run strategies for America's (limited) future.
U.S. says 12 militants killed in Iraq gunfight
22 Feb 2007 12:45:59 GMT
Source: Reuters
RAMADI, Iraq, Feb 22 (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed at least 12 insurgents and wounded three in a six-hour gunbattle in Ramadi involving heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and air strikes, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
1st Lieutenant Shawn Mercer, a spokesman for U.S. Marines operating in western Iraq, said the battle started on Wednesday evening when gunmen attacked U.S. forces in the east of Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in Anbar province.
"The scale of the fight eventually led to coalition forces using precision guided munitions (air strikes) and causing damage to a number of structures," Mercer said in an email response to questions.
Residents in Ramadi said three buildings were destroyed in the clashes. A civil defence official and an ambulance driver, both of whom declined to be identified, said as many as 26 people were killed, including some women and children.
Mercer denied that. "We have no reports of civilian casualties and there were no coalition casualties," he said.
"The firefight lasted approximately six hours, and resulted in at least 12 AIF (anti-Iraqi forces) killed and three wounded," Mercer said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR243501.htm
Will the media ever call the "insurgents" terrorists? Another example of how being politicallly correct will cause us to lose the WOT.
I like the new term that our guys are pushing; AIFs (Anti-Iraqi Forces). If we can get the media to adopt it, that would be nice.
Iraqi soldiers wait before an operation to search for weapons in the Rasheed neighbourhood, southeast of Baghdad, February 22, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (IRAQ)
Iraqi soldiers search for weapons inside a house during an operation in the Rasheed neighbourhood, southeast of Baghdad, February 22, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (IRAQ)
An Iraqi soldier searches for weapons during an operation in the Rasheed neighbourhood, southeast of Baghdad, February 22, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (IRAQ)
Iraqi soldiers search for weapons in the Rasheed neighbourhood, southeast of Baghdad February 22, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (IRAQ)
The Iranians or Russians are behind the change in tactics, I'd say. The jihadists are not smart enough to figure this out for themselves.
I'd say it's the Iranians. They were as guilty as Saddam at using chemical weapons.
I'm guessing that the anti-helicopter missiles came from Russia, though.
I'm glad you're not in charge of US policy. Underestimating an enemy is a great way to lose a war.
The jihadists were smart enough to find the gaps in our pre-9/11 airline security, and exploit them masterfully to murder 3000 Americans. Credit where credit is due: 9/11 was murderous, evil, a crime against the laws of war, cowardly as an attack on defenseless civilians, but it was also brilliant in its tactical conception and execution.
And it doesn't take a genius, or a state secruity apparatus to figure out how to make chlorine gas and bottle it. Anyone with access to a compressor of the sort used to make pressurized gas cylinders and household chemicals can do it.
All the other FReepers who made chlorine gas using household chemicals when they were kids chime in now.
Toxic gas latest insurgent weapon - CNN
POSTED: 6:09 a.m. EST, February 22, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Deadly and debilitating chlorine gas has been added to the arsenal of weapons fueling the explosive insurgency in Iraq with chemical attacks leaving at least 12 dead and more than 200 hospitalized in the past week.
An Interior Ministry official told CNN Thursday that the toxic yellow-green gas was a main component in Wednesday's bomb attack near a hospital in southwestern Baghdad's Bayaa neighborhood.
The use of gas is a chilling echo of deadly strikes employed by the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein against his enemies both in and outside Iraq.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/22/iraq.main/
It's the strategy that they don't have the smarts to figure out for themselves. And they also don't have the anti-helicopter missiles without help.
As attacks against coalition targets continued, the U.S. military said that one of its helicopters reported to have had a "hard landing" on Wednesday, might have been brought down by enemy fire.
"The indications are now that it was brought down by small-arms fire and RPGs -- rocket-propelled grenades," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.
A message posted online by a group called the The Mujahedeen Army claimed responsibility for downing the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the claim or its source.
A portion of the statement, dated Wednesday, said, "With God's blessing, at 10 o'clock this morning, Sheik Al-Islam bin Taimiya Brigade of the Mujahedeen Army was able to down a Black Hawk helicopter that belongs to the crusader occupying forces in the Taji area, north of Baghdad."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/22/iraq.main/
Anti-helicopter missiles, I'll grant, ultimately have a state source.
Not smart enough to figure out the strategy? Like I said, I'm glad you're not in charge.
There is a whole genre of jihadi strategic studies. You might Google "The Management of Savagery"--one of the major works of that genre has been translated into English.
These guys ultimately respond to leadership. Their leaders might be smart enough to figure it out, but their leaders are dead or in hiding. The only reason it's happening is that the Iranians and/or Russians (and add Syrians) are supplying the materials and the strategy.
Iraqis welcome British withdrawal
The Iraqi government has welcomed Britain's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, saying it is in line with plans for Iraqi forces to assume security for the country.
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, on Thursday said "[The] decision is in harmony with the government's intention to assume security responsibilities in the province." President Jalal Talabani also applauded the decision, saying it would act as a "catalyst for Iraqi forces to assume security responsibilities". "His excellency considers it as a positive step and thanks British forces for their role in liberating Iraq," said Hiwa Othman, Talabani's spokesman. Also on Thursday, the UK defence ministry confirmed that Britain's Prince Harry, who is third in line to the British throne, is to be deployed to southern Iraq. A ministry spokesman confirmed the prince would be sent to Iraq with the Blues and Royals regiment "over the next few months".
Attacks on troops
Two British military bases in Basra were bombarded with missiles in the past 24 hours, an Iraqi security source said Thursday. The two British bases, located in central Basra and in the city's Shat al-Arab hotel, were bombed on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, the source added. No details of causalities were immediately available.
Salam al-Maliki, a senior official in the bloc loyal to radical young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which has long opposed a foreign presence in Iraq, said violence in the city would cease once the foreign troops have left. "The militias and militant groups in these areas only fired their weapons at the occupier and when they go, all of the violence here will end," he said. Britain announced on Wednesday that it will withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq over the coming months and aims to further cut its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer if local forces can secure the southern part of the country. British troops will remain in Iraq until at least 2008 and work to secure the Iran-Iraq border and maintain supply routes to US and coalition troops in central Iraq, Tony Blair, the British prime minister said during his announcement. Romania, however, also announced on Thursday, that it would keep all of its 605 troops in Iraq for at least the next few months. Sorin Frunzaverde, the Defence Minister, said: "Events (in Iraq) are generating missions for our troops there ... so in the next few months we don't plan to reduce our military presence." (Aljazeera)
http://www.egyptguide.net/News/showArticle.aspx?ArticleID=1273
Egyptian blogger sentenced to prison
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press Writer
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - An Egyptian blogger was convicted of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday in Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger.
Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, an Islamic institution, had pleaded innocent to all charges, and human rights groups had called for his release.
Nabil, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, had sharply criticized Al-Azhar on his Web log, calling it "the university of terrorism" and accusing it of suppressing free thought. He also often criticized Mubarak's regime on the blog.
In one post, he said Al-Azhar University "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts ... teaching them that there is not place for differences in this life."
He was a vocal critic of conservative Muslims and in other posts described Mubarak's regime as a "symbol of dictatorship."
The university threw him out last year and pressed prosecutors to put him on trial.
The judge issued the verdict in a brief, five-minute session in a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and another year for insulting Mubarak. Nabil had faced a possible maximum sentence of up to nine years in prison.
Nabil, wearing a gray T-shirt and sitting in the defendants pen, gave no reaction and his face remained still as the verdict was read. He was immediately taken from the pen and put in a prison truck and did not comment to reporters.
Egypt arrested a number of bloggers last year, most of them for connections to Egypt's pro-democracy reform movement. Nabil was arrested in November, and while other bloggers were freed, Nabil was put on trial — a sign of the sensitivity of his writings on religion.
Hafiz Abou Saada, head of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, described the verdict as "very tough"
"This is a strong message to all bloggers who are put under strong surveillance that the punishment will very strong," he told the Associated Press.
Two U.S. congressmen also expressed deep concern about the arrest of Nabil — who also goes by the blogger name of Kareem Amer — and called for the charges to be dropped.
"The Egyptian government's arrest of Mr. Amer simply for displeasure over writings on the personal Web log raises serious concern about the level of respect for freedoms in Egypt," Reps. Trent Franks (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., wrote to U.S. Ambassador Nabil Fahmy.
The Bush administration has not commented on Nabil's trial, despite its past criticism of the arrests of Egyptian rights activists.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_blogger;_ylt=AsdlAqAvzimLZPY_OekIZbYLewgF
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