US says controls most of Falluja, insurgents trapped

MSNBC.com ^ | 11/11/04 | Reuters

[MNJohnnie]

FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 11 — U.S.-led forces have gained control of most of Falluja and insurgents are trapped in the southern part of the Iraqi city, Marine officers said on Friday.

[MNJohnnie]

God bless our troops! Prayers for the families.

[GeronL]

trapped?? I thought the media said they all got away??.. I mean Bush let the bad guys get away?? =o)

[MNJohnnie]

trapped?? I thought the media said they all got away??.. I mean Bush let the bad guys get away?? =o)


Yeah, there is a sort of disconnect in the Dinosaur Media today. 1st they report "Insurgents are flying black flags and casualties are mounting". Then they report that the "Insurgents have all got away"

So which is it? Are they fighting or fleeing? Funny how they aren't reporting on the thousands of tons of equipment and weapons we are capturing.

[clee1]

You know.... NEVER let the truth get in the way of the leftist party-line.

[GeronL]

The dinosaur media is going to really be hurting soon. In a few years... oh never mind =o)

[Dallas59]

After listening to the MSM...I haven't figured out if Ararat is dead yet. Is he?

[BJClinton]

AP via Yahoo!

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Insurgents tried to break through the U.S. cordon surrounding Fallujah on Thursday as American forces launched an offensive against concentrations of militants in the south of the city. Some 600 insurgents, 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the four-day assault, the U.S. military said.

AP Photo

(AP Video)

Latest headlines:

·	Blair in Washington for Middle East, Iraq talks with Bush AFP - 1 hour, 16 minutes ago

·	Many Killed in Fallujah U.S. Reservists AP - 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

·	U.S. Tries To Corner Fallujah Insurgents washingtonpost.com - 1 hour, 52 minutes ago

Special Coverage

U.S. troops, meanwhile, went on the offensive Thursday in Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites)'s third largest city, after guerrilla attacks launched against police stations and bridges across the Tigris river in an apparent bid to relieve pressure on their trapped allies in Fallujah.

A U.S. official acknowledged it might take "some time" to secure the city, 220 miles to the north.

Elsewhere, a series of attacks throughout central Iraq underscored the nation's perilous security. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded Thursday moments after a U.S. patrol passed on Saadoun Street, killing 17 bystanders and wounding 30. There were no U.S. casualties.

Another car bomb exploded in Kirkuk as the governor's convoy was passing by, killing a bystander and wounding 14 people. Three Iraqis were killed in a shootout between U.S. troops and insurgents in Samarra. Two car bombs injured eight people in Hillah.

Al-Jazeera television aired a videotape showing what the station said was an American contractor of Lebanese origin held hostage in Iraq. The balding, middle-aged man, who carried a U.S. passport and an identification card in the name of Dean Sadek, was shown sitting in front of a green wall. Al-Jazeera did not air any audio but quoted Sadek as saying all businesses should stop cooperating with U.S. authorities.

The four-day Fallujah offensive has wounded an additional 178 Americans along with 34 Iraqi soldiers, the military said.

As night fell, U.S. Army soldiers and Marines attacked south of the main east-west highway that bisects Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold 40 miles west of Baghdad.

An Iraqi journalist in the city reported seeing burned U.S. vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper.

Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A U.S. tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were afraid to go there, he said.

"People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves."

Many, if not most, of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault. It is impossible to determine how many civilians who were not actively fighting the Americans or assisting the insurgents may have been killed.

Commanders said 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed in Fallujah before the offensive.

Most of the insurgents still fighting in Fallujah are believed to have fallen back to southern districts ahead of the advancing U.S. and Iraqi forces, although fierce clashes were reported in the west of the city around the public market.

American officers said the majority of the insurgent mortar and machine-gun fire Thursday was directed at U.S. military units forming a cordon around the city to prevent guerrillas from slipping away.

Officers said that suggested the insurgents were trying to break out of Fallujah rather than defend it.

Meanwhile, two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said. The four pilots were rescued, though one suffered slight injuries.

At a U.S. camp outside Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the operation was running "ahead of schedule" but he would not predict how many days of fighting lay ahead.

He said troops had found an arms cache in "almost every single mosque in Fallujah."

Natonski also said he had visited a "slaughterhouse" in the northern Jolan neighborhood where hostages were held and possibly killed by militants. He described a small room with no windows and just one door. He said he saw two thin mattresses, straw mats covered in blood and a wheelchair that apparently was used to transport captives.

Also, a Fox News reporter embedded with India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment said the unit found five bodies in a locked house in northwest Fallujah on Wednesday. All the victims were shot in the back of the head. Their identities were not known, although there were indications they were civilians, the report said.

U.S. officials believe the al-Qaida-linked terror movement of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, used Fallujah as a base. They said they believe al-Zarqawi may have slipped away before the offensive.

Last April, Fallujah militants fought Marines to a standstill during a three-week siege, which the Bush administration called off amid public criticism over civilian casualties.

The current offensive was begun so the government can hold national elections in January, although Sunni clerics have called a boycott to protest the Fallujah operation.

This offensive has gone swiftly, in part because of a larger ground force and massive use of air and artillery.

"Our air superiority is incredible," said Sgt. Michael Carmody, 26, of Thompson, Pa., with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines in northern Fallujah. "All we can do now is clear through the city and look for survivors. Air power is our best friend."

Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in Fallujah was only a rough estimate and that many died in air and artillery bombardments ahead of the ground advance.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured. He called the Fallujah offensive "very, very successful" but said it would not spell the end of the insurgency.

"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," Myers told NBC.

The attacks in Mosul may have been intended to divert attention from Fallujah.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Capt. Angela Bowman, said it could take "some time until we fully secure the city."

Smoke rose over Mosul on Thursday as U.S. warplanes streaked overhead. City officials warned residents to stay away from the five major bridges. Militants brandishing rocket-propelled grenades were in front of the Ibn Al-Atheer hospital.

Saadi Ahmed, a senior member of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said nine police stations were attacked and that "Iraqi police turned some stations over to the terrorists."

"The internal security forces...are a failure and are ineffective because some of them are cooperating with the terrorists," Ahmed said

[LibWhacker]

I think it's okay to do this . . . If not, please delete it, Moderator, thank you, and my apologies. PMSNBC requires articles be excerpted, but not Reuters or iol.co.za . . . So an alternative source url is:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=qw1100235420611B262&click_id=2813&set_id=1

US says it controls most of Fallujah

Fallujah - US-led forces have gained control of most of Falluja and insurgents are now trapped in the southern part of the Iraqi city, US officers said on Friday.

"They can't go north because that's where we are. They can't go west because of the Euphrates river and they can't go east because we have a huge presence there. So they are cornered in the south," Master Sergeant Roy Meek said.

Tank crews who have swept south over the last 24 hours said they had driven insurgents to the southern part of Falluja towards a guerrilla stronghold the Americans call 'Queens'.

"We met some resistance along the way, mostly RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) fire, but these insurgents are fleeing south," said lieutenant Joe Cash, a tank platoon commander.

Eighteen US and five Iraqi soldiers have died since the assault began on Monday and 178 US soldiers have been wounded, the military said in a statement in Baghdad.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi defended the attack on the rebel stronghold on Friday and said it would improve security across Iraq and pave the way for planned January elections.

Kosher or no?

[ppaul]

"The Americans are shooting anything that moves."

It's about time.

[FairOpinion]

I read we killed at least 600 terrorists as of yesterday.

I bet by now there are more dead ones and there will be even more in another day or two.

As Tommy Franks said: "We have a choice of fighting the terrorists over here or over there. I prefer to fight them over there".

So do I.

[GeronL]

BUMP.

Good to know. Its past my bedtime. YAWN...

even my cat is yawning =o)

[FairOpinion]

Now you made me sleepy! I can't stop yawning.

I think it's time for me to call it a night too.

Good night.

PS. Cute cat! Is this really a picture of your cat?

[iso]

Marines Find Syrian Driver Missing in Iraq

7 minutes ago Middle East - AP

FALLUJAH, Iraq - A Syrian man believed to have been the driver captured along with two French journalists by militants in August has been found in Fallujah, Marine officials said Friday.

Capt. Ed Bitanga said the man, discovered late Thursday in handcuffs in an undisclosed location in the city, told military officials he had been separated from the journalists about a month ago.

On Aug. 20, French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot disappeared along with their Syrian driver Mohammed al-Joundi on a trip to the holy city of Najaf. Yahoo.com

[GeronL]

Yes, its my cat. WANDERER

[FairOpinion]

Great cat! With real personality.



I need a cat, to let me know when it's time to go to bed too. ;)

And now I really am going to bed.

Good night. Say good night and pet your cat for me.

Good night, Wanderer. :)

[Grampa Dave]

According to the POS Ny Slimes, a single sniper has held up our Marines. The Ny Slimes is caught in another lie"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277629/posts

Hard Lesson in Battle: 150 Marines Meet 1 Sniper
NY Times via Excite News ^ | November 11, 2004 | DEXTER FILKINS


Posted on 11/11/2004 12:04:21 PM PST by leadpencil1


ALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 10 - American marines called in two airstrikes on the pair of dingy three-story buildings squatting along Highway 10 on Wednesday, dropping 500-pound bombs each time. They fired 35 or so 155-millimeter artillery shells, 10 shots from the muzzles of Abrams tanks and perhaps 30,000 rounds from their automatic rifles. The building was a smoking ruin.

But the sniper kept shooting.

He - or they, because no one can count the flitting shadows in this place - kept 150 marines pinned down for the better part of a day. It was a lesson on the nature of the enemy in this hellish warren of rubble-strewn streets. Not all of the insurgents are holy warriors looking for martyrdom. At least a few are highly trained killers who do their job with cold precision and know how to survive.

"The idea is, he just sits up there and eats a sandwich," said Lt. Andy Eckert, "and we go crazy trying to find him."

The contest is a deadly one, and two marines in Company B, First Battalion, Eighth Regiment of the First Marine Expeditionary Force have been killed by snipers in the past two days as the unit advanced just half a mile southward to Highway 10 from a mosque they had taken on Tuesday.

Despite the world-shaking blasts of weaponry as the Americans try to root out the snipers, this is also a contest of wills in which the tension rises to a level that seems unbearable, and then rises again. Marine snipers sit, as motionless as blue herons, for 30 minutes and stare with crazed intensity into the oversized scopes on their guns. If so much as a penumbra brushes across a windowsill, they open up.

With the troops' senses tuned to a high pitch, mundane events become extraordinary. During one bombing, a blue-and-yellow parakeet flew up to a roof of a captured building and fluttered about in tight circles before perching on a slumping power line, to the amazement of the marines assembled there.

On another occasion, the snipers tensed when they heard movement in the direction of a smoldering building. A cat sauntered out, unconcerned with anything but making its rounds in the neighborhood.

"Can I shoot it, sir?" a sniper asked an officer.

"Absolutely not," came the reply.

This day started at about 8 a.m., when the marines left the building where they had been sleeping and headed south toward Highway 10, which runs from east to west and roughly bisects the town. At the corner of Highway 10 and Thurthar, the street they were moving along, was a headquarters building for the Iraqi National Guard that had been taken over by insurgents.

Almost immediately, they came under fire from a sniper in the minaret of a mosque just south of them. Someone in a three-story residential building farther down the street also opened up. The marines made 50-yard dashes and dived for cover, but one of them was cut down, killed on the spot. It was unclear what direction the fatal bullet had come from.

"I don't know who it was," Lt. Steven Berch, leader of the fallen marine's platoon, said of the attacker, "but he was very well trained."

After two hours of bombardment, the sniper at that mosque ceased firing. But just around the corner at the famous blue-domed Khulafah Al Rashid mosque, another sniper was pinning down marines, and airstrikes were called in on it, too. The issue of striking at mosques is so sensitive in the Arab world that the American military later issued a statement saying that the strike on the Khulafah mosque was unavoidable and that precision munitions merely knocked down a minaret.

By noon, the marines had worked their way down to the national guard building, still taking fire from the sniper, or snipers, on the other side of Main Street. Inside was a sign in Arabic that said: "Long live the mujahedeen." Soon the marines had spray-painted another sign over it: "Long live the muj killers."

But for the next five hours, they could not kill whoever was running from window to window and firing at them from the other side of Main Street, despite the expenditure of enormous amounts of ammunition.

"We're not able to see the muzzle flashes," said Capt. Read Omohundro, the company commander. "As a result," he said, "we end up expending a lot of ammunition trying to get the snipers."

At one point, they thought that they had a bead on someone running back and forth between the two buildings. Then Capt. Christopher Spears exclaimed: "He's on a bike!"

And somehow, through a volley of gunfire, whoever it was got away.

At 5 p.m., the marines finally crossed Highway 10 and searched the smoking remains of the two buildings. At 5:30 p.m., a sniper opened up on them.


Marines from Company B, First Battalion, Eighth Regiment of the First Marine Expeditionary Force entered a mosque from which they were being fired on Wednesday in Falluja. Fighting in the city was intense.

---

Hopefully the maggot who wrote this gets to meet Marine in Iraq who will "enlighten him"!

[FairOpinion]

Considering that in about 4 days the Marines pretty much took over all of Falluja, this story is obviously false.

[Grampa Dave]

[Bonaparte]

"I haven't figured out if Ararat is dead yet. Is he?"

Of course he is. The french gave us their word on it. And Tommy Flannigan, Joe Isuzu and Baghdad Bob vouch for them.

[FairOpinion]

We have several proven instances of so-called journalists deliberately lying, so why should this be any different.

No doubt there are snipers shooting at our Marines, but we made tremendous progress anyway.

The NYT makes it sound as if 3-4 sniper can practically keep our Marines out of Fallujah.