Ceasefire collapses, US hostage taken in Iraq

This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio.

TANYA NOLAN: It's the day after the 12-month anniversary of the toppling of Saddam's regime, and things appear bloodier than ever in Iraq.

The ceasefire called by US troops in Fallujah less than 24-hours ago seems to have already collapsed, with mortar rounds ringing out across the Sunni city where 450 Iraqis have died this week.

America has announced the death of six more of it's soldiers, taking the number of US troops killed since Shia unrest erupted on Sunday, to 39.

Meanwhile, insurgents are taking more foreign hostages, an alarming new strategy being used to try and drive coalition forces out of Iraq.

Our own ABC staff on the ground in Iraq have witnessed the taking of the latest hostage.

Hundreds of Sunni Mujahideen or Holy warriors armed with rocket propelled grenades, attacked a convoy of oil tankers taking fuel to US forces besieged in the town of Fallujah, destroying at least a dozen trucks and killing or wounding several drivers.

For hours, the Mujahideen ruled the main east-west highway in Iraq, where they took at least one American hostage.

Our Foreign Affairs Editor Peter Cave reports how he and his cameraman, Michael Cox, were taken by members of the Mujahideen to film the latest hostage, whose fate remains unknown.

PETER CAVE: It was a huge pall of thick black smoke billowing high into the air, west of the capital, that attracted our attention. As we drove closer we passed a burnt out oil tanker, a gaping hole in its side, then another and another.

PETER CAVE: There appears to have been a major attack on oil facilities on the road just up ahead. There are three major fires burning up there with smoke going high into the sky, and just beside us here, an oil tanker is well on fire.

PETER CAVE: But as we continued up the highway, it became clear it wasn't an oil facility, it was more oil tankers blazing furiously.

PETER CAVE: On the road ahead, two oil tankers are burning. We've passed another half a dozen already on this road. There's been a major attack by Mujahideen. Just a short while ago, we spoke to an American who'd been taken prisoner by the Mujahideen.

PETER CAVE: We'd been filming an oil tanker upside down in a ditch beside the road. Local people were braving the fierce heat trying to pull something from the cabin, most probably the driver, who was certainly dead.

And three men, two of them masked, climbed out carrying assault rifles and insisted we look at the prize they had in the car.

PETER CAVE: Their hostage, being held by two more masked men in the car, was wounded in the arm, his blue jeans covered in blood. He had blonde hair and a moustache and appeared more defiant than scared as they roughly yanked his head across so we could see his face.

"I swear in the name of Allah", he says, "we don't care about death or life, we're going to heaven. Death is welcome."

We had to driver some kilometres back towards Baghdad before we found any coalition troops. Several tanks and two APCs guarding an overpass and watching the huge palls of smoke on the road totally under the control of the Mujahideen.

We reported the fate of the American hostage but there was no immediate move to mount a rescue.

Several more kilometres down the road and tens of thousands have gathered chanting "Jihad", or "holy war" in the huge Sunni mosque Saddam built on the western edge of Baghdad.

The speaker says, "we will say no with one voice. You Americans will not pass through here. There is no legitimacy in the new Iraq, except for those who fight."

The 'ceasefire' is likely for domestic (Iraqi) consumption. Many people here are worried that the U.S. is so angry about the recent murder/mutilations that we're going to burn Fallujah to the ground. It's certainly how Saddam would have handled them.

If nothing else we're making a show that we're willing to let the bad guys come out with their hands up. This isn't for their benefit, but for the non-fanatical residents of Fallujah. I know it's easy to say 'Screw em all', but there are a lot of innocent people there that are afraid of the fanatics. If they can be spared, the effort should be made.

That having been said, the fanatics probably won't surrender, and this will result in us having to smash much of the town to get at them. A lot of people who just want to be left alone will wind up dead. That is unfortunate, but if the bad guys won't come quietly, they must be brought in by force. It's a pretty lousy situation, but I think we're handling it pretty well.

Well...beyond the question of whether this is accurate...if it is, we've simply got to wonder why these convoys are not more heavily guarded. These irregulars seem to have the ability to attack the soft targets in our supply train. That is, of course, the point of infiltration, but if you have a convoy that is a nice target it would seem that you'd put some choppers in the air around it and have some other air assets nearby to make life hell for the attackers. Or perhaps use phoney convoys as ambushes...or spend a little more effort sweeping the ground around your line of transit. Given that the enemy isn't trying to win a war in the conventional sense -- just trying to break our will to keep forces that far from home -- perhaps a little more effort to protect our soft targets in the hot zone wouldn't hurt.

I am shocked that this is the second post that hates that this news is printed.

The coverage of the guys in the field are indeed exeptional.

The story writing by the reporters confined to a cubicle or a Bagdad hotel room are misleading and tend to make the reader believe that this situation is out of control and spreading, which is not the case at all.

In three weeks, this will all be forgotten as the media generally has it's few minutes of hyperventalating.

When that happens they will return to the whine and cheese format where they count dead marines and fail to mention why they died or why we are there, they will only say that nothing is getting better, over and over again.

We are in this alone, no mattter what anyone says, this is America's problem. We have always been alone in this regard.

My comments are meant in a general way and I do not mean to nail everyone with a shotgun blast. But the reporting in a macro view is terrible, biased and nothing more than a gloom and doom attempt to force the U.S. to withdraw.

"With all due respect Destro, Iran and Syria are most likely already engaged. I'm not convinced that cleaning them out now is not a good idea. I'll defer to the President here, but this possibility certainly seem worthy of discussion."

Dittos on this. You see occasional news ticker reports that "foreign fighters detained" and found. And of course it is being openly reported that Iran back M. Sadr with lots of $$ and arms... outside Muslim Jihadist forces have been engaged in attempts to derail the coalition from day one ...

Now lookee here, the Jihadists had ONE MONTH AGO DECIDED TO OPEN UP A SECOND "FRONT" - this comes by the way from an anti-US and anti-Iraq war front, so it is an admission that THIS WAS A DECISION MADE A FEW WEEKS BACK TO CREATE A SHIA PROVOCATION:

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/09/article07.shtml

‘Stirring Shiite Resistance’ Decided In London: Report

Sadr faces arrest warrant by occupation forces

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, April 9 (IslamOnline.net) - A decision to “stir the Iraqi Shiite resistance against the U.S.-led occupation” was agreed during a conference secretly held in London in mid-March, IslamOnlin.net could reveal.

The conference was attended by representatives of several major Islamic movements in Europe, along with some figures close to firebrand young Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

A representative of an Islamic movement in Europe told IOL Thursday, April8 , asking not to be named, “the secret debate to move the Shiite front against the American occupation in Iraq marked the most prominent among the recommendations of the Discreet Islamic Conference that was held in London March13 -14”.

The conference, according to the source, comprised some distinguished Islamic movements in Europe, representatives of Iraqi Islamic movement (Sunni and Shiite), especially a representative of Sadr, in addition to a representative of the international organization of Lebanese Hezbollah.

The source, however, stopped short of clarifying whether the recent - still going - confrontation between Sadr supporters and occupation forces was a direct outcome of that conference, or whether the attendees have actually laid down a form or date for activating the Shiite resistance.

“The Conference, entitled Islamic Movement and Iraq, witnessed a complete media blackout and it was held under maximum secrecy in one of London Islamic centers. Its goal was finding the necessary means for activating the Shiite front of Iraqi resistance.

“The attendees asserted that Sunni resistance alone was not enough for turning the balance of power with the occupying forces,” the source added.

So, they agreed to move the Shiite resistance from peaceful protests to a “much more effective role”.

Tripartite Agenda

The source said that representatives of Islamic groups clinched an agreement on a tripartite agenda, including speeding up Shiites’ inclusion in resistance operations against occupation forces.

Also, they agreed to avoid any armed clashes between Sunnis and Shiites after the handover of power scheduled for June30 .

The attendees found a common ground on the need to have a multi-party democratic system getting benefit of earlier experiences in Islamic countries.

The attendees also agreed to grant Sadr a larger margin of maneuverability on the ground - through straining relations and then facing occupation forces.

The U.S. occupation forces said Monday, April5 , it had issued an arrest warrant for Sadr, as the Shiite leader vowed defiance calling for an end to the one-year American occupation.

Shiite scholars have warned that U.S. troops of acting “irrationally” after up to 52 Iraqi protesters were killed Sunday, April4 , in the worst confrontations between Iraq’s Shiite majority and the U.S.-led occupation troops sine the start of the invasion one year ago.

The protesters were denouncing the crushing of two fellowmen by a U.S. tank on Saturday, April3 , the arrest of Sadr’s top assistant Sheikh Mostafa Al-Yaqoubi and a ban on Al-Hawza newspaper, Sadr’s mouthpiece.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had ruled out an Iran-style religious government in Iraq.

“You're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen," Rumsfeld have said.

The temporary national constitution, agreed by the U.S.-appointed Governing Council last month, also recognizes Islam as a source of the legislation rather than the only source.

You are right. This Al Jazeera network is having a field day making everyone killed a 'civilian' and provoking outrage on the unfortunate but understandiable collateral damage that occurs when the terrorists use civilians as human shields and when they take advantage of our tight rules engagement.

The 'fallujah' demands for ceasefire was for the marines to pull out of the town. This is what tried - and failed - before, less troops getting killed, but it became a haven for terrorists, a nest of vipers. Now we are attacking that nest. If the ceasefire" is that we keep the cordon and Iraqi police run the city and hand over baddies, great. if the ceasefire is we withdraw and give the jihadists time to regroup or escape, then all is lost.

Someone correctly on this board said that the fundamental rule needs to be that the coalition and allies (iraqi police and defense force) have the monopoly on force, no other forces allowed. That has to be the non-negotiable fundamental decision.

If the marines are making one mistake, it is going about this so slowly. Probably more force and a quicker operation would obviate this kind of nonsense about saving fallujah from americans, which feeds off the news cycle. The "ideal" operation would start at midnight and be a fait accompli by dawn. Then let the civilians clean up the blood on the streets of the 'insurgents'.

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