Posted on 03/31/2004 6:13:30 AM PST by epluribus_2
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Newly arrived U.S. Marines are leaving no doubt as to their resolve to defeat militants. Iraqis are awed by the Americans' show of force but remain convinced that they'll fail to stamp out the insurgency in one of the most dangerous cities for American troops.
The fight against the U.S.-led occupation has strong religious undertones in Fallujah, reflecting the Sunni Muslim city's conservative nature, its reputation for piety and deep anti-U.S. sentiments.
Fallujah, some 30 miles west of Baghdad, a city so steeped in Arab and Islamic traditions that its famous kebab restaurants have the unusual feature of prayer rooms and women are rarely seen in public. It also is part of Iraq (news - web sites)'s Sunni heartland, a large swath of land that stretches north and west of the Iraqi capital where armed resistance to the U.S. occupation is fierce.
"We are all suffering from what the Americans are doing to us, but that doesn't take away anything from our pride in the resistance," said Saadi Hamadi, a 24-year-old university graduate and resident of Fallujah.
Five U.S. military personnel were killed Wednesday when a bomb exploded under their vehicle in a village near Fallujah, the U.S. military said. Inside the city, gunmen attacked two civilian cars that residents said were carrying at least four foreign nationals, including an American. The occupants of the cars were killed and their vehicles were set on fire. Their bodies were dragged in the streets.
Some of the slain men were wearing flak jackets, said Safa Mohammedi, a resident. The identities of the slain men were unclear. One resident displayed what appeared to be dog tags taken from one body.
U.S. military commanders, however, say the insurgents and their supporters in the city of 500,000 are a minority and most people are tired of the violence.
The California-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force assumed responsibility for the city from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in a troop rotation on March 24.
Two days later, Marines and insurgents fought a lengthy street battle in the city's working-class al-Askari district that killed one Marine and wounded seven others. Five Iraqis, including a freelance ABC News cameraman, also died.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of U.S. military operations in Iraq, on Tuesday blamed the violence in Fallujah on insurgents trying to test the willingness of the Marines to fight so soon after their arrival. A total of eight Marines have been killed in two weeks.
On Tuesday, the Marines used tanks and armored fighting vehicles to block the main exits and entrances to Fallujah for the fourth day running. They lifted their blockade on Wednesday.
The deployment forced thousands of motorists off the main roads and onto bumpy dirt tracks where traffic moved slowly under the watchful eyes of soldiers crouching in the sand behind their guns or atop military vehicles. Other Marines dug foxholes along the route, while some took partially concealed positions behind bushes and sand berms.
Tanks trained their guns on the al-Askari district. Residents also said Marines rolled through the neighborhood and shouted warnings in Arabic through a bullhorn against harboring insurgents.
Several families heeded the warning and left, according to residents who stayed behind.
The Marines also reportedly staged door-to-door house raids in search of weapons and suspected insurgents on Monday night and again on Tuesday.
The Marines issued a statement Saturday, saying they were "conducting offensive operations ... to foster a secure and stable environment for the people."
"If they find more than one adult male in any house, they arrest one of them," claimed resident Khaled Jamaili, 26. "Those Marines are destroying us. They are leaning very hard on Fallujah."
House raids have been a sore point with Iraqis, and are viewed as a violation of women's privacy. Many believed that the Marines would drop the tactic and apply a "soft touch" to win over Iraqis, showing more cultural sensitivity than their predecessors in Fallujah.
But Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who commands the Marine forces in the area, said his men received cultural training before coming to Iraq and some of them took intensive Arabic language courses.
But he said that only when the insurgency ended would a "soft approach" be used.
"You will see that soft approach when we can walk the streets feeling safe and not risking being attacked," Conway told reporters last week. "Essentially our mission is to create stabilization and security."
The difference today is that the American public has the attention span of an infant. This is why the U.S. is adamant about turning over control of the country to "the Iraqis" three months from today -- even though we have no idea who the hell these "Iraqis" are.
In case you haven't noticed, these are the only enemies who aren't nuclear-armed.
Dear Saadi Hamadi, your name is duly noted.
The difference today is that we have several 24-hour news channels that are in constant need of material to fill the spaces between ads that pay for their broadcast. Add to that mindless idiots like Imus and you end up with (a) the SOS over and over again and (b) blathering handwringing about nothing being done about any of this.
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