Posted on 11/14/2004 4:41:04 PM PST by saquin
Fleeing rebels are tracked by aircraft and killed by US troops
THE last hours of the mujahidin are terrifying. With the city they once ruled with the absolute authority of medieval caliphs now overrun by American and Iraqi troops, they have to keep moving. To pause even for a few minutes can mean instant death from an unseen enemy.
A group of 15 fighters dressed in black and carrying an array of weapons ducked into a two-storey house in war-torn southern Fallujah yesterday morning. Their movement was picked up by an unmanned spy plane that beamed back live footage to a control centre on the edge of the city. Within minutes, an airstrike was called and the house disappeared in a giant plume of grey smoke.
From a house across the road, the explosion flushed out another group of guerrillas. Deafened by the blast, they stumbled out into the street, formed a ragged line and started off on the marathon to postpone their deaths, the drone dogging their every step.
“The rats are trying to move about,” Major Tim Karcher, of the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, said as the figures flitted from street to street, seeking cover close to walls.
Sometimes they can throw off the drone, ducking out of sight of the men in whose power it is to summon FA18 fighter-bombers or 155mm artillery strikes. But they have no way of knowing. And, increasingly, as they run they are coming into the crosshairs of American snipers, crackshots such as Sergeant Marc Veen and his long-barrelled rifle, Lucille. Yesterday morning he spotted a black- clad man with an AK47 assault rifle peering round a corner 500 yards from the villa where Cougar Company of the Seventh Cavalry has set up a forward base.
He shot the man in the stomach: he fell, but kept crawling, so Sergeant Veen shot him again in the shoulder. Still the man tried to move away, so the sergeant blasted him with his 50-calibre machinegun.
“There’s pretty much no feeling,” the 24-year-old from Chicago explained, perched on the parapet of the house, the shell of the killer bullet tucked as a trophy into his flak jacket. “If I didn’t get that guy, that guy would get one of my buddies some time later down the line.”
The battle for Fallujah is all but over. The main north-south road in the once-dreaded Jolan district is a US military highway, smothered in dust kicked up by troop carriers and giant bulldozers. Almost every building is cracked, chipped or holed by the fighting.
Any guerrilla who could make his way back up from the last pockets of resistance in the south would see the mujahidin graffiti — “Jihad, jihad, jihad, God is Greatest and Islam will win” — replaced by slogans daubed by the US-backed Iraqi Army, posted the length of the route. Standing on a street reeking of decomposed bodies, the ruins of a five-floor building silhouetted behind him, Lieutenant Fares Ahmed Hassan said that the destroyed city would send a strong message to a nation where force has long been the lingua franca of government. “When the people of Fallujah come back and see their houses, they will kick out any terrorists. This will be an example to all Iraqi cities,” the Kurdish officer said.
Apart from a handful of women and children, the only civilians he had encountered were men of fighting age, about 500, detained for vetting. He said that some civilians had said that insurgent snipers had shot anyone trying to leave their homes. As US troops sweep through the houses, they are unearthing the insurgents’ horrifying secrets — more akin to the handiwork of psychotic serial killers than guerrillas or even terrorists — that have shocked the world and explain why this devastating offensive has met with so little opposition from the Arab world.
In the south of Fallujah yesterday, US Marines found the armless, legless body of a blonde woman, her throat slashed and her entrails cut out. Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the US Navy Corps, said that she had been dead for a while, but at that location for only a day or two. The woman was wearing a blue dress and her face had been disfigured. It was unclear last night if the grisly remains were the body of the Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, or of Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole abducted two weeks ago. Both were married to Iraqis and held Iraqi citizenship; both were kidnapped in Baghdad last month.
US and Iraqi troops have discovered kidnappers’ lairs filled with corpses or emaciated prisoners half-mad with fear, and piles of bodies of men who had refused to fight to the death with the insurgents. As the guerrillas run their last sprint from death, sympathy for their cause among Iraqis is rapidly running out.
I love it that we have unmanned spy planes.
I love it that the soldier named his rifle "Lucille."
I hope Lt. Fares Ahmed Hassan is right: "When the people of Fallujah come back and see their houses, they will kick out any terrorists. This will be an example to all Iraqi cities,” the Kurdish officer said."
Ghastly, what they did to the woman. It's not difficult to comprehend Sgt. Veen's remark, “There’s pretty much no feeling ... ", when facing such evil.
There will be wailing in the MSM and in Europe about our merciless troops.
History tells us that in the 8th century, Timur-i-leng, known to the West as Tammerlane, conquered Baghdad and built a pyramid of skulls from the 750,000 people he slaughtered to, as the French say, "pour encourager les autres."
Now, there's merciless.
The heroes of the Islamic world, for all to see - the psychopath serial killers of Fallujah whos' means are their ends.
He just summed up this war better than most pundits who get paid for their words.
Truly a great article. Thank you.
It seems that they are the only ones with any any backbone or integrity. It seems that when you hand any other Iraqi a gun, he immediately thinks that he now has a tool in which to be the opressor over his neighbors.
The difference between western troops and the Iraqis is that we know when there is a time to NOT shoot.
there will be little to no media coverage of these slaughterhouse atrocities. the sheeple will remain ignorant, every Kerry voter thinks these insurgents are simply "fighting american imperialism".
Good observation. Agreed.
ditto
Good riddance to the vermin.
Perhaps named after B.B. King's guitar Lucille.
Badda...Bing...Badda...BUMP!!
This is where we veer sharpley away from the leftists...they would bemoan the death of these wicked, worthless scum. They would even say the death of these vile things was a stain on America and a sign of evil itself.
On the other hand we realize the truth: That the world is a much better place with these cockroaches dead.
Post #15
I can't tell if our guys are army or marines but I love the expression on the face of the guy on the right!!
This article reminds me of some scene from Terminator where the drones are flying around looking for humans. If that does not terrify the insurgents nothing will. Somehow it looks like those drones are terrifying the insurgents more than the so-called "black flags" are terrifying our troops (from an earlier article by the NY Slimes).
If "Lucille" is a .50 caliber, you can bet there was a LOT of feeling on the other end!
I'm sorry, Sgt. Veen, but I wouldn't have finished him off with the machine gun.
These vermin need to suffer like they make others suffer.
"..and started off on the marathon to postpone their deaths."
This guy sure writes purdy.
I read that and hoped it was the intent. There's no way the sarge would have missed a head shot at 500yds unless he wanted to. IMO
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.