Posted on 04/25/2004 5:24:11 AM PDT by AntiGuv
NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. troops will likely enter parts of Najaf soon in a move to clamp down on the rebel militia of a radical Shiite cleric but will stay away from sensitive holy sites in the center of the city to avoid rousing the anger of Shiites, a U.S general said Sunday.
Shiite leaders have warned of a possible explosion of anger among the country's Shiite majority if U.S. troops enter Najaf, and until now U.S. commanders have been saying troops would not go in.
With the new move, the military seeks to impose a degree of control in Najaf, while hoping that a foray limited to the modern parts of the ancient holy city would not inflame Shiites. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling did not say when troops would move in, or how many.
American officials were attempting a similar limited step in the war-torn city of Fallujah, the other main front of fighting in Iraq this month.
U.S. troops will begin patrols alongside Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, a top Iraqi negotiator, Hachim al-Hassani, said Sunday — an apparent attempt to restore control over the insurgent stronghold without a full-scale Marine assault, which would spark new bloodshed.
But like a previous agreement aimed at reducing the violence in the city, the new step hinged greatly on the response of Sunni guerrillas, who are called on to turn in their heavy weapons and not carry any weapons in public.
"We hope the U.S. soldiers will not be attacked when they enter the city. If they are attacked, they will respond and this will lead to problems," al-Hassani told The Associated Press.
He said Fallujah residents have promised no attacks will take place. But U.S. officials have questioned whether Fallujah civic leaders who have been negotiating with the Americans have enough influence with the city's guerrillas. Guerrillas have not been abiding by a previous call from the civil leaders to surrender their heavy weapons, U.S. commanders say.
Violence across the country flared Saturday, killing 33 Iraqis in various attacks and four U.S. soldiers whose base was hit by two rockets north of Baghdad.
On Sunday, a rocket hit near a hospital in the northern city of Mosul, killing three people — including two women working at the hospital — doctors said. Elsewhere the city, a mortar hit a residential area, killing one Iraqi.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in an eastern neighborhood, setting a Humvee on fire. Witnesses reported U.S. casualties, but there was no immediate confirmation from the military.
Meanwhile, U.S. military officials in the Gulf were trying to determine the launching point of an unprecedented suicide boat attack on two offshore oil terminals that are the sole outlet of Iraqi crude from the south. The attacks, using explosive-packed dhows, killed two U.S. Navy sailors and forced the shutdown of the two terminals for several hours.
Asked if the attackers came from inside Iraq or neighboring Iran or Kuwait, Navy Commander James Graybeal, of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said, "That's what were trying to determine."
Insurgents often attack oil pipelines in Iraq and have repeatedly shut down exports from northern oil fields to Turkey.
Saturday's bombings were the first such maritime attack on the industry and appeared to be a new tactic in the Iraqi conflict — resembling al-Qaida-linked attacks in 2000 and 2002 against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.
The blasts Saturday caused little damage to the facilities, and Sunday morning tankers resumed loading crude at the two terminals, al-Basra and Khawr al-Amara, about 100 miles in Gulf waters off the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, said Shamkhi Faraj, head of the State Oil Marketing Organization.
The new steps in Najaf and Fallujah came after President Bush held a conference call Saturday with his top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, over the situation in Iraq.
U.S. commanders have been threatening a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah and uproot insurgents unless guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons within days.
But a new assault would revive bloody fighting that killed hundreds of Iraqis this month, helped set off a surge of guerrilla attacks across the country that killed at least 109 U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April — the deadliest period ever in Iraq for the Americans.
The Fallujah siege also fueled anti-U.S. sentiment, rallying the Sunni minority and angering even U.S. allies among the Iraqi leadership.
Al-Hassani told The Associated Press that joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols would begin in the city on Tuesday, when orders will be issued forbidding Fallujah residents from carrying weapons in the streets.
He said 75 families who fled Fallujah during the fighting will be allowed to return on Sunday. "If things go well, all families will be allowed to return," he said. Nearly a third of the city's 200,000 residents fled the city since the siege began on April 5.
The attempt to have guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons will continue, he said. So far, insurgents have only turned in a small number of weapons, most of them rusted, broken or otherwise unusable, U.S. commanders have said.
The new U.S. intention to move into parts of Najaf also carried heavy risks
"We probably will go into the central part of the city. Will we interfere in the religious institutions? Absolutely not," Hertling, a deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters outside Najaf.
He did not say when the move would occur, but it appeared unlikely for several days.
Hertling said the move aimed to tighten the clampdown on radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
"It's not going to be large-scale fighting, the likes of other places, but it's going to be critical," he said. "We're going to drive this guy into the dirt."
"Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns — or he's going to find a lot of them killed," he said.
Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, according to a statement Saturday from the Department of Defense. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.
The latest deaths brought to 109 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. At least 718 servicemembers have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April — depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.
He's caused a lot of heartache, anxiety and misery around these parts.
I'm afraid I let my emotions get into this one. I just want him wasted. Vaporized.
I'm not bloodthirsty at all, but the little "trouble" he stirred up here recently hurt a lot of people and shattered a lot of families. I guess since I'm kind of close to the situation, I'm harboring a bit of a grudge on that loser.
This goes against my Christian beliefs, but I despise the guy.
- - WHY ARE ALL TERRORISTS MUSLIM?
WHY ARE ALL TERRORISTS MUSLIM?
"Unless a man becomes the enemy of evil, he will not even become its slave, but rather its champion. God Himself will not help us to ignore evil but only to defy and to defeat it!" G. K. Chesterton.
In an outrageous attack upon Christian leaders facing the lie of Islam with the Word of God, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) issued a public rebuke, sharply criticizing "derogatory statements" made by some evangelical leaders concerning Islam. The National Association of Evangelicals represents more than 43,000 congregations in the United States of America. Specifically, the NAE named Franklin Graham, Dr. Jerry Vines, and the Revs. Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson as chief culprits who must learn to temper their speech concerning Islam.
This is shocking! The NAE wants to take the one offensive weapon we Christians have in our arsenal, the Word of God, and replace it with - dialogue? That's right! The truth of God's Word is being replaced with tolerance, appeasement, common ground, reaching across the aisle, pragmatism, and negotiation. "Can't we all just get along?" Of course the answer is, "No! Not when God's Word is the standard."
To be sure, God's Word is confrontational, dividing, judgmental, and absolute, yet it is filled with mercy. Islam, on the other hand, is all of the above, yet it is filled with violence and murder. There is no common ground between these two religions. Islam and Christianity are at war! Neither will tolerate the other.
Unfazed by planes crashing into buildings killing thousands, suicide bombings of countless innocent human beings, mass slaughter of millions of Christians in the Sudan, and violence of unprecedented order, the NAE now wants us to dialogue with the Christ hating false religion of Islam. This spiritually emasculated organization, is espousing that we hide in caves so that we won't be killed by Muslims living out their faith in the streets of our cities. Living out their faith?
The NAE's solution to stop the merciless bloodletting of Islam is to draft guidelines and begin an interfaith dialogue with Islamic leaders. What utter nonsense! Somehow the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Ted Haggard, has convinced himself and several others of the good faith of his Islamic counterparts. Haggard is championing the lie of Islam without realizing what it is that he and the NAE are doing.
Ask a simple question, "Why are all terrorists Muslim?" You doubt the premise of the question? Let's just take a look:
What do all of these recorded instances of sheer violence and evil have in common? Islam! Why are all these terrorists Muslim? Their false and murderous religion demands them to be so. There is no escaping the link between terrorism and the Islamic faith. Islam is a lie birthed in the very pit of hell that must be defeated before it destroys everyone who will not bow the knee to Allah and his lying prophet Mohammed.
Islam must be annihilated, completely. It must be exposed for the lie that it is. Allah is not God and Mohammed is not a prophet of God. Jesus is God, and apart from Him there is no other. Jesus is not tolerant of any other God than Himself, for there is no other God but Him! For the NAE to say anything less is to betray the God of the Holy Scriptures and the 43,000 congregations it represents.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), upon hearing the NAE's appeasing statement said, "We can understand theological differences, but what's important is that the dialogue is one of respect, not demonization." Dialogue? Sure, Rev. Haggard, you won the accolades of Islam, but you are suffering under the condemnation of heaven. There is nothing Islam would rather do than to dialogue with you while it continues its murderous onslaught. The Word of God demonizes Islam, not Franklin Graham or any of the others.
For the NAE to take its cues from CAIR, a front organization for Islamic terrorism, is absurd. CAIR is the organization that came up with the politically correct idea that America should no longer be considered a "Judeo-Christian" nation. Why? Because it is offensive to Muslims living in America. Please! CAIR is that "gentle" organization that coined the endearing term "Islamophobia," and is presently suing American Airlines for wrongfully profiling "middle eastern" looking men.
Wrongfully profiling? One doesn't have to look too long at the statistics to realize that 98.7% of all hijackings from 1970 to this day were done by "middle eastern" looking men who were all (100% of them) Muslim terrorists. CAIR says it's just not fair to be demonized by the Word of God. Too bad! Unfortunately the NAE wants to jump on that "politically correct" ship that is going to sink into eternal damnation.
We have three choices in dealing with Islam. We will either be killed by those holding to its murderous tenets, kill them (like we are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), or convert them to Christ. Which one do you choose?
Flip Benham
Oh, I know he is. As I said, my emotions come into play with this one.
Fortunately, I'm not the one calling the shots.
Yes!
Nam Vet
Good evening from lovely Baghdad. I'll try to remember to put you on my ramblings...my brain is a little sun-baked these days. :-)
I don't think his influence is that far-reaching. He's losing steam even in the region...
Yeah, like the explosion of anger from the Arab "street" if we invaded Iraq.
So you're right, all terrorists are not Muslim.
But most are.
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