Anyone who can defend this barbarism is equal to these barbarians.
Posted on 11/19/2004 12:41:53 PM PST by LibWhacker
FALLUJAH, Iraq — Until U.S. forces overran and pummeled it into submission over the past two weeks, Fallujah was a death zone of clandestine prisons and human slaughterhouses operated by shadowy militiamen whose reign of terror now grips other parts of Iraq.
Searches conducted by the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines in the Sunni city of Fallujah revealed a grisly trail of carnage carried out by insurgent groups, who go by such names as Tawid and Jihad, The Islamic Secret Army and the First Army of Mohammed. EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR
Mutilated and bloated corpses of Iraqi civilians were hidden in courtyards, piled in back bedrooms or stuffed down public wells. In two makeshift prisons and several "execution rooms" discovered by U.S. troops, there was evidence of how dozens of people had been shot and left to rot or bleed to death from wounds.
In the living room of one home, soldiers from the 3/5 Marine's Lima Company discovered an improvised TV studio, including high-tech editing equipment, said Capt. Ed Bitanga, the company commander.
The off-white wall behind a wooden table was spattered in blood and draped with the black-and-gold flag of the Tawid and Jihad group, which is led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida who is viewed by U.S. officials as the mastermind behind the insurgency.
Spread around the room were video cameras, banks of computers and editing equipment, Bitanga said — suggesting that fighters had recorded kidnapping videos there, such as those in which slain aid worker Margaret Hassan and U.S. citizen Nicholas Berg were seen pleading for their lives.
The aims of the militias, some led by local strongmen and others by foreign "holy warriors," are mixed. Many want to expel U.S. and other foreign military forces. Others simply want to profit from the lucrative hostage-taking business that has flourished with the anarchy since Saddam Hussein's regime fell.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said the invasion of Fallujah was necessary to crush what had become the headquarters for the suicide bombings, kidnappings and other acts of terror.
In one two-story home, which was decorated with satiny yellow curtains in the kitchen and bright violets in the front yard, the Marine's Kilo Company turned up more grisly evidence of hostage-taking.
After hearing screams and moaning from the back of the house, Marines kicked in the front door to find demolished rooms and trails of blood leading to an improvised, three-cell jail where they found two mutilated corpses and two emaciated Iraqis.
The owner of the home, a former Iraqi army commander killed by Marines in a firefight two days earlier, had snatched the four men, all relatives, because he suspected their families had cooperated with the Americans, according to one of the two starving survivors, who identified himself only as Khalid.
The kidnappers had shot Khalid's brother through the head and hacked off his cousin's feet. The stench and gore turned even the battle-hardened stomachs of the Marines.
"It's like 'Silence of the Lambs,'" said Sgt. Elbar Navarro, a platoon commander for Kilo Company. "These people were real sickos."
The savagery in Fallujah apparently grew partly out of a code of vigilante justice authorized by the Mujahadeen Shura, an unofficial town council established months ago as the insurgents tightened their hold on this city of 250,000. Punishment for alleged breaches of strict religious laws was meted out by the leaders of roving packs of masked men who controlled the streets.
Masked gunmen burned family-owned stores that sold music and movies, chanting as they marched down the street that listening to anything but the Quran was "un-Islamic," according to Fallujah residents interviewed last week. The militiamen drove the store owners around the city in trucks and then flogged them in public, witnesses said.
Iyad Assam, who remained in the city during the U.S. invasion to protect his home from looters, said he knew of six music stores burned by the militia
"The men who drank wine or liquor, they would whip their backs. I saw them put these men on trucks and make a tour of the streets," said Assam, 24.
Threats from the town council escalated as militias consolidated their control.
A mimeographed poster on the wall of a one-story shopping center depicted a woman wearing a covering resembling a burkha, the head-to-toe attire common under the Taliban in Afghanistan. The poster warned that women would be beheaded if they did not cover themselves in public.
Two bodies found last week showed the threats to women were not idle.
The mangled, decomposing corpse of one was dumped on a dirt road close to Fallujah's main street. Her feet had been cut off and she had been disemboweled. Her only clearly identifiable characteristic was her light wavy hair.
Fifty yards away from the woman's remains lay the body of a woman with a pink blouse and violet skirt matted with blood. Beneath her was the dead body of a middle-aged man who had been shot through the forehead. Surrounding their bodies was a torn bag filled with body parts.
Marines who discovered the corpses said the bodies had been dead less than 48 hours, which indicates they were killed after the U.S. siege of the city began on Nov. 8.
Most of Fallujah's residents fled the city before the American assault. Some civilians who had decided to stay were killed by insurgents as they fled south, away from the invading U.S. armed forces. Kilo Company's three platoons discovered the bodies of at least 27 people who had been shot execution-style, in the back of the head.
The bodies were face-down in rows or piled atop one another in bedrooms and living rooms of the houses where fighters had once holed up. Six of the bodies were without feet — evidence of attempts to prevent their prisoners from fleeing while they were still alive.
In some cases, Iraqi victims of the militias were discovered as gunmen searched homes in search of food and water. In other cases, witnesses said, they were killed when they refused to fight alongside the outnumbered and retreating fighters.
Mohammed al Rasal, a middle-aged businessman, said insurgents broke into his home two nights after the invasion began. They had heard him calling his family in Baghdad and accused him of relaying information to the Americans. They ushered him to a nearby home where other Iraqis had been detained.
"I convinced them to try my phone and confirm that it was my brother on the line with me. They called him back and only then believed what I had told them," Rasal said.
"I don't know why they didn't kill me. Maybe they thought I was too old."
These terrorists are excrement.
What? I thought it was a reign of terror by the Americans! /sarcasm
It would be great if the news medias would start calling these people what they are, terrorists, not insurgents, or militias...
Otherwise this may leak out to the general public. ;)
"It would be great if the news medias would start calling these people what they are, terrorists, not insurgents, or militias..."
They aren't "people" either. The terrorists have long since given up their membership in the humnan race.
Agreed. We should hunt them down like dogs and take no prisoners.
our sons are going to need some real tender loving care when they get home. i pray they heal from the horror they have witnessed from these savages.
Anyone who can defend this barbarism is equal to these barbarians.
This reminds me of some of the stuff the VC pulled in Nam when the young men would hide rather than serve with them. The MSM wopuldn't report on that either.
That sums it up.
bump for weekend
Well I wouldn't exactly call it MSM, not till I see it in Time or Usnews or one of the alphabet-clowns. It will be interesting to see if this ever makes it to the NYTimes.
Masked gunmen burned family-owned stores that sold music and movies, chanting as they marched down the street that listening to anything but the Quran was "un-Islamic," according to Fallujah residents interviewed last week. The militiamen drove the store owners around the city in trucks and then flogged them in public, witnesses said.
It should be pointed out that this has NEVER been a part of Iraqi culture, so clearly this is imported. It sounds more like Afghanistan than Iraq, which leads me to believe there are a lot more foreign elements in the "resistance" than we are being told about.
But they're not bad people, they just disagree with us, according to Chris Matthews. And they have slightly different methods of communicating disagreement. We shake our heads. They remove them.
Every Freeper, please e-mail this article to all of your liberal friends and co-workers. Let's do our damnest to get this article in front of the american people. If the f***ing networks would show these shops of horrors, than maybe so many liberals would finally get some perspective and appreciate what our fighting men are doing over there.
Come now, let's not forget, this was all done in the name of Allah and the religion if peace, so it makes it ok, these guys are really freedom fighters, Bush is Hitler, we are occupiers, etc. etc...
I would argue that even most Sunnis, who have a soft spot for america-hatred, are aghast by the barbarians in their midst.
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