Posted on 04/01/2004 6:36:06 AM PST by Eurotwit
FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - An eerie calm gripped this town west of Baghdad, a day after four American civilians were burned to death and their bodies dismembered, as US overseer Paul Bremer vowed the deaths and those of five US soldiers in a separate attack would be avenged.
"Their deaths will not go unpunished. They have not died in vain," Bremer said in Baghdad as he attended the graduation of a new batch of 479 Iraqi police at the police academy.
Bremer described Wednesday's attacks by insurgents in and near Fallujah as "inexcusable and despicable".
But he vowed that the US-led coalition that toppled the ironfisted regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) almost a year ago will forge ahead with efforts to restore security in Iraq (news - web sites) and hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis on July 1.
"They will not derail the march towards stability and democracy," Bremer told the new police cadets.
Reaction was also fierce from Washington, where White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "We condemn these attacks on the strongest possible terms".
In Fallujah, schools and shops were open on Thursday and burn marks on the surface of the main street were the only evidence of the gruesome deaths of the four employees of the private US firm Blackwater Security Consulting, AFP correspondents said.
One witness said that what remained of the charred bodies after they were dragged from their cars, mutilated and strung from a bridge had been "cut up into pieces, with parts thrown into the river or to the dogs".
Residents also took away the carcasses of the two four-wheel-drive vehicles that had been ambushed and set on fire by gunmen, burning the occupants to death, the witness said.
US marines, who were seen Wednesday at the eastern entrance of Fallujah, were nowhere in sight while Iraqi police and paramilitary defence units manned a checkpoint to search cars entering the town and control identities.
The previous evening, hours after the killings, crowds were still celebrating in the streets, with people firing in the air and distributing candies.
They shouted, "Down with the occupation, down with America" and "long live Islam."
"The death of each one of these people is worth 10 Iraqi lives. This is our only deterrence to the (US-led) occupation of Iraq," Nayef, a car merchant who declined to give his surname, told AFP on Thursday.
The previous day a man at the scene, his face hidden by a scarf, vowed that "Fallujah will be the cemetery of the Americans".
Meanwhile the US-backed paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defence Corps urged restraint in Fallujah in a statement handed out to residents late Wednesday.
"An agreement has been negotiated with the occupation forces to lift the siege of Fallujah and to withdraw. We are hoping you will cooperate to protect Fallujah and guarantee its security," the message said.
The death of the four civilians coincided with a roadside bomb blast that killed five US soldiers near the military base in Habbaniya, just west of Fallujah.
It is thought to be the worst single incident involving coalition troops since a US military helicopter was downed on January 8 near Fallujah, killing all nine people aboard.
The latest deaths brought to 291 the number of US soldiers killed in action since US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) declared major hostilities over on May 1, according to an AFP toll.
In other violence Thursday one US soldier was wounded when his convoy hit a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad, an Iraqi police officer said. The US military did not immediately confirm the report.
And in the northern city of Kirkuk three soldiers were wounded when five Katyusha rockets struck their base located in a local airport just west of the city early Thursday, a US officer said.
I just checked dictionary.com. The word shampoo is listed as having Hindi origins. Sorry, the Arabs swiped that from the Indians too.
Now I'm curious if the Arabs have invented anything positive at all.
Hey, that's not fair! Since then they've also contributed Hummas and the concept of goat shagging!
Level the city. No quarter.
Few days ago the news agencies had reported that the Defence Secretary of the Crusading Americans had said that "the explosion at Riyadh and Al-Khobar had taught him one lesson: that is not to withdraw when attacked by coward terrorists".We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! and shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983 AD (1403 A.H). You were turned into scattered bits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines solders were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in less than twenty four hours!
But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.
I say to Secretary of Defence: The sons of the land of the two Holy Places had come out to fight against the Russian in Afghanistan, the Serb in Bosnia-Herzegovina and today they are fighting in Chechenia and -by the Permission of Allah- they have been made victorious over your partner, the Russians. By the command of Allah, they are also fighting in Tajakistan.
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Fallujah is founded on tribal (as in Mafia) lines. The rackets and resistance operate through this structure. The likely scenario is that they cordoned Fallujah first thing, although the direct perps may have gotten away. The next step is probably going to be a street by street search and the arrest of all the principal tribal leaders and imams. Maybe 2,000 arrests, thousands of weapons confiscated. The principal businesses of the tribal leaders will be boarded up as crime scenes. Informers will be sown, and people known to be sympathetic will be insinuated into leading posts.
Experience shows that the perps will eventually come back. If not, the huge interrogation will be produce enough leads to find them and much else besides. The process will gut Fallujah's old tribal structure. It will be devastating and horribly effective. But there will be no collective punishment.
We have learned nothing it seems.
I'd raze the city and feed the remains to the hogs.
We like to think that the Bush administration is different than the Clinton administration -- and for the most part it is. But there is no getting around the fact that the United States is a nation of people who quickly lose interest in things like war.
As far as I was concerned, the "war on terror" officially ended when the same U.S. Congress that couldn't agree on funding the war effort voted almost unanimously to protect this nation from the horrific, lethal threat . . . of telemarketers.
Send these primitives a solid message: don't f**k with us.
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