Operation Phantom Fury-----Day 4----Live thread

Various media sources. | Nov 11 2004

[Dog]

Todays thread.....the offensive contiues...with word(unconfirmed so far) that two top Zarqawi commanders are dead.

[balk]

ping

[TomGuy]

Greg Palcott (FoxNews)

5-6 human shields killed by terrorists.

600 terrorists killed in Fallujah.

[TexKat]

They were in a hurry. It was reported that were they found the hostage chained and bound, whoever was there left in a hurry, because there was ice in a glass left at the location.

[MEG33]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277267/posts
GOTTA SEE THIS-WarEndur.Freedom 11/11/04-Fallujah, Baghdad,Mosul,Hergeina

[TexKat]

AMERICAN MORNING

HEMMER: Want to get back to Iraq. Heidi mentioning the headlines out of there. Jane Arraf embedded with the U.S. Army now in Falluja, again today by way of telephone, checking in now.

Jane, I don't know what you have now, but go ahead from your position there in Falluja. What are you seeing? And what's in front of you?

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Bill, we're moving through the streets of the industrial section, and they're doing expanded search-and-attack operations. This is Taskforce 22 of the Army, and they have been clearing these streets.

I don't know if you can hear that sound of gunfire, but it's almost constant. The air is thick with smoke, and there's a smell of cordite all over.

They've been firing into buildings with tank rounds, as well as launching artillery. Essentially, what they are doing -- you can probably hear that what they're doing is pretty intense, Bill. They are trying to clear these streets to basically make sure that insurgents in this area do not come back.

They're encountering sporadic fire as they move through here. The only people we've seen, though, have been dead ones. There was one dead body in the street lying on a weapon. This area seems to have been cleared of civilians a long time ago.

And Bill, earlier we spoke to Marine Major General Richard Natanski (ph), who told us that he had just come from what sounds like a house of horrors, a nondescript building in the north of the city where he said there were bloodstains that may be the blood of slaughtered hostages -- Bill.

HEMMER: Jane, it appears based on your reporting that the U.S. military knew exactly where to go in Falluja based on the reports we're getting about these "slaughterhouses." Is that apparent to you as well there?

ARRAF: It's a variety of things, Bill. Some of them are definite targets that they have been tracking through human intelligence, signal intelligence, wiretaps, through aerial surveillance, through all sorts of other means. Perhaps the most importance of those being Iraqis who actually provide information.

So some of those targets they've had their eye on for a long time. And that's why we've seen the airstrikes up until this offensive into the city itself. And that's why we've seen them go after specific targets in parts of the city.

But a lot of them are also what they call targets of opportunity, noticing insurgents activity, for instance, in a specific house, where they then either dropped a bomb on that house or attack it. There are -- there is no shortage of military targets in this city. That's the worry for the civilian population in parts of it -- Bill.

HEMMER: And Jane, one more thing here. We were told 50,000 civilians or residents were still in Falluja before this raid began. How many people do you see, hour to hour, as you continue the embedded process?

ARRAF: Bill, I have not seen a soul. It is - it's been absolutely eerie here the last four days.

We are in a part of the town in the industrial section. And that was an insurgent stronghold. And they have booby-trapped entire city blocks everywhere we have been going through. They found explosives, landmines, improvised explosives devices.

The civilians appear to have been chased away. But as we move further, Bill, and we will be moving shortly, there are expected to be pockets of civilians they tell us who either could not leave or have not been able to leave. And they -- there are Iraqi forces on this operation, as well. The Iraqi forces, one of their jobs are to go in and see what they can do for those Iraqis still in the city as the fighting goes on around them -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right. Be safe. Jane Arraf, again, embedded with the U.S. Army there in Falluja, the 1st ID -- Soledad.

[TexKat]

Bump.

[Gucho]

Saddam Hussein's old cronies (the secular reactionaries) and Musab al-Zarqawi's suicide bombers (the religious reactionaries) don't hold elections, they don't dig sewers, and they don't build hospitals. The secular reactionaries want to return Iraq to a Sunni-dominated dictatorship — the corrupt, murderous hellhole Iraq was in March 2003. The religious reactionaries have a grander target, with their "golden age" a bit deeper in time. They want to run the entire world along the lines of an 11th or 12th century Muslim caliphate.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2895227

[MEG33]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277375/posts
Dramatic Images Show Intense Urban Fighting(Must see Fallujah video)
yahoo ^ | 11/11/04

[prairiebreeze]

600 killed. Thanks for that info I hadn't heard a figure put out in the media as to numbers of enemy killed.

Super job by our military!

Prairie

[prairiebreeze]

Well, that is the concern isn't it, that the Sunni's will boycott the Jan. elections. Wretchard seems to think it likely. Kofi will "I-Told-You-So" us to death aided by our ever-willing media pigs.

Sigh, I hope it doesn't go this way...

Prairie

[jbstrick]

If the sunnis boycot the election, they are guarnteed not to have a voice.

[TexKat]

A firefighter hoses wreckage at the scene of a huge explosion that hit the heart of Baghdad on Thursday.

An Iraqi stands on the roof of a building next to the remains of a vehicle which landed there following a car bomb in Baghdad. The bomb ripped through one of the main shopping streets in the Iraqi capital and sent a thick column of black smoke into the air.(AFP/Marwan Naamani)

U.S. Troops Comb Falluja; Baghdad Bomb Kills 17

U.S. Army soldiers secure area after a car bomb attack in the northern Iraqcity of Kirkuk, November 11, 2004. Kirkuk's provincial governor escaped unhurt when a car bomb blew up near his convoy in the northern city, wounding 16 people, police and hospital officials said. REUTERS/str

Smoke billows from US targeted areas in the restive Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. US marines said they discovered three Iraqi hostages inside the basement of houses in Fallujah.(AFP/Patrick Baz)

US Marines sneak into a breach in a wall in the restive Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. US marines backed by Iraqi troops occupied nearly three-quarters of Fallujah.(AFP/USMC/HO)

A US soldier patrols a street in Fallujah. The US military estimates that more than 500 insurgents have been killed in the battle for the restive Iraqi city.(AFP/USMC/HO)

U.S. Launches Second Phase in Fallujah

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Marines launched a large attack Thursday into the southern half of Fallujah, where insurgents are still holding out, opening a second phase in the offensive, U.S. officials said.

The assault began around sundown and followed three days of fighting in the northern districts.

U.S. troops launched their major assault against Fallujah late Monday, pushing into northern districts until they reached the main east-west highway that bisects the city. Fighting has been underway since then to clear pockets of resistance from northern areas, where insurgent positions were believed the strongest.

Commanders say their troops have cordoned off the entire city to prevent fighters from escaping.

U.S. warplanes and artillery bombarded southern parts of Fallujah where troops were trying to squeeze Sunni fighters in a smaller and smaller cordon Thursday. The military estimated 600 insurgents have been killed in the offensive but acknowledged success in the city won't break Iraq's insurgency.

The huge Fallujah campaign has also sent a stream of American wounded to the military's main hospital in Europe. Planes carrying around 90 bloodied and broken troops were expected Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They join 125 wounded soldiers flown there already this week.

The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense — at least in some areas — than the military had initially indicated. Only seriously wounded troops are flown to Landstuhl.

At least 13 U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed so far in the Fallujah operation, according to military reports pieced together since Monday. The military has been slow in releasing official, comprehensive reports, citing security.

Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in Fallujah was only a rough estimate. Some 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed holed up in the city before the offensive. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured.

The number of civilian casualties in the city is not known. Most of the city's 200,000-300,000 residents are thought to have fled before the offensive. The rest have been hunkered down in their homes without electricity during days of heavy barrages, with food supplies reported low.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded on a central commercial street Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least eight, police said. It was the latest in a wave of attacks that insurgents have unleashed this week, trying to divert U.S. and Iraqi forces and show they can still wage their campaign of violence despite the Fallujah assault.

The car bomb — the second one in as many days in the capital — narrowly missed a U.S. patrol on Saadoun Street but ripped through the crowded thoroughfare, near major hotels housing foreigners. Huge plumes of black smoke rose in the air as a dozen mangled cars burned, and bystanders pulled bodies and bloodied survivors from the rubble.

Heavy fighting also continued in the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents overran several police stations, the U.S. military said. Militants were roaming the streets amid the sounds of explosions and gunfire.

In Fallujah, U.S. troops were steadily advancing through the city from the northern side, pushing militants slowly into the southern half. With U.S. units positioned to the south and east, and the Euphrates River on the west, insurgents are being squeezed into a corner, the military said.

Loud explosions rocked the city throughout the morning as gunfire reverberated across town and helicopters hovered overhead. Marines were seen perched on rooftops. Many buildings were heavily damaged, with few signs of civilians.

Gen. Myers, speaking on NBC's "Today" show, called the offensive "very, very successful."

But, he added, "If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope."

U.S. officers in Fallujah have said many insurgents may have abandoned the city — long their strongest bastion — before the U.S. assault and moved elsewhere to continue their campaign of attacks.

"There has always been pockets of resistance in this type of fighting, just like there was in World War II — we would claim an island is secure and fight them for months after that," Marine Capt. John Griffin said. "Claiming the city is secure doesn't actually mean that all the resistance is gone, it just means that we have secured the area and have control."

In the past 24 hours of fighting, three Americans were killed and another 17 wounded in Fallujah, commanders said. The military on Tuesday put the total American toll in the operation at 10.

Two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The crews were not injured and were rescued.

With American troops in control of large swaths of the city, an Iraqi commander reported the discovery of "hostage slaughterhouses" in which foreign captives had been killed. Documents of hostages were found, along with CDs showing beheadings and the black clothes of kidnappers, he said.

U.S. troops also discovered an Iraqi man chained to a wall in a building in northeastern Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The man, who was shackled at the ankles and wrists, bruised and starving, told Marines he was a taxi driver abducted 10 days ago and that his captors had beat him with cables.

In what could be a sign of progress, the Marines began turning over the northern neighborhood of Jolan to Iraqi forces, signaling that they consider the area relatively secure. Jolan, a dense, historic district of tight alleyways, was considered one of the strongest positions held by militants inside Fallujah and parts of it saw heavy fighting.

In one of the most dramatic clashes Wednesday, snipers fired on U.S. and Iraqi troops from the minarets of the Khulafah al-Rashid mosque, the military said. U.S. Marines called in an airstrike, and an F-18 dropped a 500-pound bomb on the mosque, destroying both minarets.

Pool footage showed U.S. forces battling insurgents in a neighborhood surrounding the mosque. Troops were pinned down by gunfire on a rooftop, forced to hit the deck and lay on their stomachs.

U.S. troops were also skirmishing with insurgents late Wednesday in Fallujah's Wihdah and Muhandiseen neighborhoods, according to Iraqi journalist Abdul Qader Saadi, who said he saw burnt armored vehicles and tanks and bodies in the streets.

The U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the Fallujah battle.

Meanwhile, rebels have continued heavy attacks elsewhere. At least 28 people were killed in violence outside Fallujah Wednesday — including 10 killed in a Baghdad car bomb.

In Mosul, where authorities announced a curfew a day earlier, insurgents attacked several police stations, overwhelming police and forcing U.S. and Iraqi troops to intervene and prompting the governor to seek police reinforcements from neighboring provinces, the U.S. military said.

Residents saw masked gunmen roaming the streets, setting police cars on fire and controlling some of the bridges. Police and American troops were not visible in those neighborhoods.

A car bomb targeted the convoy of the governor of Kirkuk, who escaped, but a bystander was killed and 14 others were wounded, police said.

Militants kidnapped three relatives of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and a militant group on Wednesday threatened to behead the three in 48 hours unless the Fallujah siege is halted. Militants also claimed to have abducted 20 Iraqi National Guard troops in Fallujah.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Krane near Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.

[TexKat]

Clashes Escalate in Mosul, Iraq

MOSUL, Iraq - Insurgents overwhelmed several police stations and clashed with U.S. and Iraqi troops Thursday in this northern Iraqi city, where gunmen roamed the streets and explosions and gunfire heard.

Some of the attacks on the police stations overwhelmed "the capabilities of the existing police force," prompting U.S. and Iraqi forces in the city to intervene with "offensive operations," a U.S. military spokeswoman, Capt. Angela Bowman.

There was no immediate word on casualties. A curfew imposed this week remained in effect and bridges across the Tigris river remained closed to civilian traffic. Bowman said Iraqi forces controlled the bridges.

"The whole city is not under attack by any means," Bowman said.

However, the situation in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city about 225 miles north of Baghdad was tense. A U.S. statement said the local governor, Duraid Kashmoula, was "working with other regional governments to identify measures to restore and maintain a police presence in local police stations."

That suggested that Iraqi authorities were planning to call in Iraqi reinforcements from other northern areas.

Residents saw masked gunmen roaming the streets, setting police cars on fire and controlling some of the bridges. Police and American troops were not visible in those neighborhoods.

In one clash, insurgents tried to storm an office of the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Mosul's Jammia district and were battling Kurdish guards.

[TexKat]

Two U.S. Helicopters Shot Down in Iraq - Arabiya

[TexKat]

Police vehicles burn near an Iraqi Police station in Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004. Insurgents attacked police stations in several parts of the city, and explosions and gunfire could be heard in various areas. Gunmen could be seen roaming the streets, and a curfew imposed this week remained in effect. (AP Photo)

Masked rebels stormed into six Iraqi police stations in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, seizing weapons and torching buildings.(AFP/Mujahed Mohammed)

A masked insurgent runs with a rocket propelled grenade launcher after a police station was attacked in Mosul November 11, 2004. Insurgents set police stations ablaze, stole weapons and brazenly roamed the streets of Mosul on Thursday as Iraq's third largest city appeared to be sliding out of control, residents said. Explosions and fire from assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard echoing across the city and columns of smoke rose from at least two police stations set alight. The photographer was shot in the leg and wounded after the picture was taken. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen

[cgk]

BTTT

[cgk]

God Bless our troops!

Wounded GIs sent to Germany

Dozens of Wounded GIs Sent to Germany

Associated Press

FRANKFURT, Germany - A steady stream of wounded from Iraq, mostly from fighting in Fallujah, has begun arriving at the U.S. military's main hospital in Europe, an official said Thursday.

Two planeloads with around 90 wounded who could not be treated in Iraq were expected later Thursday at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, said spokeswoman Marie Shaw.

"We are very busy," Shaw said. "We have seen an increase of patient arrival since the outbreak of the Fallujah conflict."

She said 38 injured soldiers arrived on Monday, 23 more on Tuesday, and 64 on Wednesday.

Shaw said the hospital was expanding capacity to cope with the additional numbers of patients. "We have expanded our intensive care unit here with about 10 more beds, and we have expanded our medical surgical wards with about 40 more beds," she said.

Including the expansion, the hospital, the largest military medical facility outside the United States, now has 27 intensive care beds.

Landstuhl has long been a destination for wounded from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's normally equipped with some 162 beds, the hospital's Web site says, with an expansion capability of up to 310 beds. The center also provides specialized care for the more than 250,000 additional American military personnel and their families based in Europe.

All the wounded who have come so far from Fallujah are U.S. soldiers, although U.S. forces are fighting alongside Iraqi forces in Fallujah.

[cgk]

U.S. Launches Second Phase in Fallujah

U.S. Launches Second Phase in Fallujah

By EDWARD HARRIS

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Marines launched a large attack Thursday into the southern half of Fallujah, where insurgents are still holding out, opening a second phase in the offensive, U.S. officials said.

The assault began around sundown and followed three days of fighting in the northern districts.

 

U.S. troops launched their major assault against Fallujah late Monday, pushing into northern districts until they reached the main east-west highway that bisects the city. Fighting has been underway since then to clear pockets of resistance from northern areas, where insurgent positions were believed the strongest.

Commanders say their troops have cordoned off the entire city to prevent fighters from escaping.

U.S. warplanes and artillery bombarded southern parts of Fallujah where troops were trying to squeeze Sunni fighters in a smaller and smaller cordon Thursday. The military estimated 600 insurgents have been killed in the offensive but acknowledged success in the city won't break Iraq's insurgency.

The huge Fallujah campaign has also sent a stream of American wounded to the military's main hospital in Europe. Planes carrying around 90 bloodied and broken troops were expected Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They join 125 wounded soldiers flown there already this week.

The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense _ at least in some areas _ than the military had initially indicated. Only seriously wounded troops are flown to Landstuhl.

At least 13 U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed so far in the Fallujah operation, according to military reports pieced together since Monday. The military has been slow in releasing official, comprehensive reports, citing security.

Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in Fallujah was only a rough estimate. Some 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed holed up in the city before the offensive. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured.

The number of civilian casualties in the city is not known. Most of the city's 200,000-300,000 residents are thought to have fled before the offensive. The rest have been hunkered down in their homes without electricity during days of heavy barrages, with food supplies reported low.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded on a central commercial street Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least eight, police said. It was the latest in a wave of attacks that insurgents have unleashed this week, trying to divert U.S. and Iraqi forces and show they can still wage their campaign of violence despite the Fallujah assault.

The car bomb _ the second one in as many days in the capital _ narrowly missed a U.S. patrol on Saadoun Street but ripped through the crowded thoroughfare, near major hotels housing foreigners. Huge plumes of black smoke rose in the air as a dozen mangled cars burned, and bystanders pulled bodies and bloodied survivors from the rubble.

Heavy fighting also continued in the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents overran several police stations, the U.S. military said. Militants were roaming the streets amid the sounds of explosions and gunfire.

In Fallujah, U.S. troops were steadily advancing through the city from the northern side, pushing militants slowly into the southern half. With U.S. units positioned to the south and east, and the Euphrates River on the west, insurgents are being squeezed into a corner, the military said.Loud explosions rocked the city throughout the morning as gunfire reverberated across town and helicopters hovered overhead. Marines were seen perched on rooftops. Many buildings were heavily damaged, with few signs of civilians.

Gen. Myers, speaking on NBC's "Today" show, called the offensive "very, very successful."

But, he added, "If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope."

U.S. officers in Fallujah have said many insurgents may have abandoned the city _ long their strongest bastion _ before the U.S. assault and moved elsewhere to continue their campaign of attacks.

"There has always been pockets of resistance in this type of fighting, just like there was in World War II _ we would claim an island is secure and fight them for months after that," Marine Capt. John Griffin said. "Claiming the city is secure doesn't actually mean that all the resistance is gone, it just means that we have secured the area and have control."

In the past 24 hours of fighting, three Americans were killed and another 17 wounded in Fallujah, commanders said. The military on Tuesday put the total American toll in the operation at 10.

Two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The crews were not injured and were rescued.

With American troops in control of large swaths of the city, an Iraqi commander reported the discovery of "hostage slaughterhouses" in which foreign captives had been killed. Documents of hostages were found, along with CDs showing beheadings and the black clothes of kidnappers, he said.

U.S. troops also discovered an Iraqi man chained to a wall in a building in northeastern Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The man, who was shackled at the ankles and wrists, bruised and starving, told Marines he was a taxi driver abducted 10 days ago and that his captors had beat him with cables.

In what could be a sign of progress, the Marines began turning over the northern neighborhood of Jolan to Iraqi forces, signaling that they consider the area relatively secure. Jolan, a dense, historic district of tight alleyways, was considered one of the strongest positions held by militants inside Fallujah and parts of it saw heavy fighting.

In one of the most dramatic clashes Wednesday, snipers fired on U.S. and Iraqi troops from the minarets of the Khulafah al-Rashid mosque, the military said. U.S. Marines called in an airstrike, and an F-18 dropped a 500-pound bomb on the mosque, destroying both minarets.

Pool footage showed U.S. forces battling insurgents in a neighborhood surrounding the mosque. Troops were pinned down by gunfire on a rooftop, forced to hit the deck and lay on their stomachs.

U.S. troops were also skirmishing with insurgents late Wednesday in Fallujah's Wihdah and Muhandiseen neighborhoods, according to Iraqi journalist Abdul Qader Saadi, who said he saw burnt armored vehicles and tanks and bodies in the streets.

The U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the Fallujah battle.

Meanwhile, rebels have continued heavy attacks elsewhere. At least 28 people were killed in violence outside Fallujah Wednesday _ including 10 killed in a Baghdad car bomb.

In Mosul, where authorities announced a curfew a day earlier, insurgents attacked several police stations, overwhelming police and forcing U.S. and Iraqi troops to intervene and prompting the governor to seek police reinforcements from neighboring provinces, the U.S. military said.

Residents saw masked gunmen roaming the streets, setting police cars on fire and controlling some of the bridges. Police and American troops were not visible in those neighborhoods.

A car bomb targeted the convoy of the governor of Kirkuk, who escaped, but a bystander was killed and 14 others were wounded, police said.

Militants kidnapped three relatives of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and a militant group on Wednesday threatened to behead the three in 48 hours unless the Fallujah siege is halted. Militants also claimed to have abducted 20 Iraqi National Guard troops in Fallujah.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Krane near Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.

[TomGuy]

Already saved that video to my HD.


Mr. Kewl under Fire

[Bahbah]

Interesting news from Iraq: "Iraqi rebels released a video showing 20 Iraqi National Guards (ING) (wearing ING uniforms) captured. There are no ING forces in Fallujah. There are special forces and regular army forces in Fallujah."