Threats lurk in Fallujah slum

AP ^ | Thu, Apr. 29, 2004 | Jason Keyser

[Anti-Bubba182]

FALLUJAH, Iraq - In the ancient slum at Fallujah's heart, Marines rely on high-tech equipment, night vision and the fearsome AC-130 gunship. But their Sunni foes have their own advantages - the labyrinth of alleyways that offer deadly ambush sites shielded by a civilian population.

The Golan slum, home to some 40,000 people, has seen three days of intense combat, with Marines fighting mainly from the air with precision weapons. If they enter in force, it will mean deadly urban warfare. U.S. forces are so concerned that when Marines begin moving through Fallujah on patrols with U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces on Friday, they will skip Golan.

Golan - named after the strategic Golan Heights that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war - is the oldest part of Fallujah, its tight alleyways and old, ramshackle houses pressed between railroad tracks and the muddy Euphrates River.

An estimated one-third of Fallujah's 200,000 people have fled the siege this month, but not many from Golan. Most are too poor to afford alternative housing.

Marines say Sunni Muslim guerrillas are also concentrated in that part of the city, and a key concern is to avoid harming civilians wedged in the middle.

Troops on the northern fringe of the neighborhood stare down fighters just a street away.

A satellite photo of Fallujah shows a city with wide roads, neatly-organized blocks of houses and open spaces, and in the northeast corner Golan, a knot of streets too narrow for tanks and heavy armor.

To fight the insurgents but keep casualties down, U.S. forces have turned to the air, using laser-guided bombs and other munitions to hammer at insurgents holed up in buildings.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Looks like a carefully chosen hornets nest. The streets are to narrow for Tanks or other Armor and I am sure they have ambushes planned in case there is a Marine assault.

Of course the Marines could snipe, bomb, and grind them down, until they decide they need to flatten the place.

[GeronL]

NAPALM

[Recovering_Democrat]

Level it.

[clee1]

Stop....MOAB time!

[antaresequity]

Build a wall around it and call it Fallujah Penitentiary.

Starve them out.

[Freesofar]

Looks as though the SMGurillas use civilians as body armor.
If a Racky had half a brain wouldn't they just leave that place? Unless they were stupid or harboring the bad guys.
Sure would be nice to just drop some heavies and say oops, but Al Jazeera and CNN would be all over it.

[GeronL]

When they were showing the US Marines "playing patty-cake with the insurgents" (as a Marine said to the media) they had a vid-phone shot showing a Marine sniper, I saw him use the scope as binoculars for 10 minutes and then he took 6 shots.... how many baddies do you think he got?

[Burkeman1]

What would Napalm do in a heavily concentrated slum area of shacks and tenements? Take out one building and kill a few goats?

If this is indeed the heart of the Falujah resistance it has to be taken house to house by infantry.

Any other option (like use of C-130 gunships or air strikes) is just utterly useless and will just kill civilians more than bad guys.

My non military opinion.

[Freesofar]

ROFLMAO

Send in Kerry and some UN negotiators to talk em out !

[GeronL]

I meant flood the area with Napalm. =o)

[jaykay]

Don't send the Marines into that hornet's nest, especially after giving the terrorists almost a month to prep it. Do it from the air, never mind the arab street or the hearts and minds. The arabs hated us before and will continue to hate us.

[Burkeman1]

I know your kidding. The US Military doesn't do that.

[The KG9 Kid]

Chlorpicrin 'Vomit' Gas.

[antaresequity]

A satellite photo of Fallujah shows a city with wide roads, neatly-organized blocks of houses and open spaces, and in the northeast corner Golan, a knot of streets too narrow for tanks and heavy armor.

Sat Photo Hi Res

[Polybius]

Looks like a carefully chosen hornets nest. The streets are too narrow for Tanks or other Armor and I am sure they have ambushes planned in case there is a Marine assault.

Who needs a tank in the narrow streets when you have a flying tank right over their heads?

AC-130H/U GUNSHIP VIDEO

It is a very carefully chosen hornets nest......for another war in a past century.

[GeronL]

But I did hear a Marine tell a reporter that what happened today was not a big deal, it was "playing patty-cake with the insurgents".... of course the media acts like its the big one.

[antaresequity]

The area in question is the upper left cluster or woren of shantys...

Drop the leaflets, process the refuges, sound the warning horn...then level it.

[Freesofar]

The area in question is the upper left cluster or woren of shantys...

Drop the leaflets, process the refuges, sound the warning horn...then level it.


correct answer , too bad it wont happen , the "peacnik sheiks" are on the way so says the article.
then the bad guys will throw down their RPG's and we'll all sing Koombayah

[Polybius]

Any other option (like use of C-130 gunships or air strikes) is just utterly useless and will just kill civilians more than bad guys.

You mean like the AC-130 gunships that have been used all through out this Fallujah engagement?

Fire burns, at left, as an AC-130 Spectre Gunship hits another target during military air attacks on insurgent activity in northwest Fallujah, Iraq, April 28, 2004. AP

AC-130 can put down very accurate fire and take out a single building or, as in the above case, an entire weapons storage area. It is not a B-17 carpet bombing weapon.

In regards to civilians, if civilians insist on staying in a building being used as a bunker by the jihadis, they can collect their Darwin Award at the same time they collect their 72 virgins.

It is not the job of U.S. Marines to die in order to save the lives of civilians too stupid to save themselves with a two mile walk to another part of town.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I'm all for flattening the place. If the citizens are too dumb and lazy to get the hell out, then may they too pay the ultimate sacrifice that so many of our soldiers paid just so the whole of Iraq can live peacefully as an example of Democracy in action in the war torn middle east.

Polticians, and armchair generals need to shut the hell up, and let our troops take care of things over there, they're only getting more of our guys killed.