Ansar al-Sunna claims attack on US base in Mosul: website (a martyrdom-seeking (suicide) operation)

Iraq security forces seize rockets smuggled from abroad, Allawi says

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces have captured rockets smuggled by rebels from a nearby nation with the aim of attacking polling stations and elections centers during the run-up to general elections, interim prime minister Ayad Allawi said.

Allawi did not specify the type of missiles involved nor did he name the country from which the rockets were allegedly smuggled into Iraq. But he said Sunday that several government ministries are preparing a security plan to prevent attacks during the electoral campaign for a new legislature.

“We captured (the rockets) at the beginning of this week. They were supposed to be fired by remote control. They were directed at election centers,” Allawi told the Baghdad’s Iraqiya television network in a live interview.

“Information came from citizens who reported them to special telephone numbers at the Interior Ministry, the intelligence department and the Ministry of Defense Ministry.”

“We did not capture (the rebels) but we seized the weapons,” Allawi said. “They are, in fact, very modern weapons and harmful at the same time.”

Allawi’s comments came just days after he accused Syria of harboring senior officials from the ousted regime of former President Saddam Hussein, including his half brother, Sabaawi. Iraq’s Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan accused Iran and Syria on Thursday of supporting terrorism in Iraq.

“Regrettably I cannot name it, but we know these weapons were smuggled from a nearby country,” Allawi said.

“These weapons are usually used by armies and we have contacted the concerned country and we are waiting for an explanation. Our initial information shows that (this nation’s government) had no knowledge” of the smuggled weapons.

La. Guard finds enemy weapons cache

12/21/04 Acadiana bureau

Soldiers from the Louisiana National Guard uncovered a large cache of weapons while on patrol in western Baghdad recently, according to a news release from the 256th Brigade.

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 156th Armor Regiment, Tiger Brigade, based at Camp Al Tahreer, were patrolling back roads on farmland once owned by Saddam Hussein's son, Udai.

Staff Sgt. Eric Lee, 156th AR, noticed an expensive vehicle parked outside an inconspicuous farmhouse. The vehicle seemed out of place, so he stopped the convoy for an inspection.

"That soldier probably saved 50 lives from attention to detail," said Col. Mark Milley, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division commander.

As the soldiers approached the house, several suspected insurgents fled in automobiles. Two suspects were detained before they could escape.

The 156th soldiers began to clear the area. As they moved in closer, they noticed weapons inside the building, said Sgt. Dominick Torti, 156th AR.

"At first we were nervous," Lee said. "We knew we had to get the area secured. Once we got our assets in place, we started a cordon search of the building."

What the soldiers found was more than a parking garage. One vehicle was rigged with explosives and ready for use. Sgt. Paul Truscinski said he was surprised when he looked through the car window and saw it loaded with explosives.

"When I looked though the window, I wasn't too comfortable being there," Truscinski said. "I was like 'Oh my God, is that what I think it is?' "

The vehicles contained approximately 1,000 pounds of explosives, including an Italian-made anti-ship bomb, three 155 mm artillery rounds, and 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate.

Another anti-ship bomb sat in the safe house.

Staff Sgt. Michael Stoddard, 2nd BCT, said this was not an everyday find.

"The anti-ship bomb sits on the bottom of the ocean," he said. "The air bubble it creates rips ships apart. Those usually don't just wash up onto the field."

The 156th AR soldiers also found a weapons cache of rockets, mortars and anti-tank weapons, plus medical supplies and industrial chemicals.

Milley said the keen awareness of the 156th AR soldiers made a well-hidden enemy safe house obsolete.

"They (insurgents) must be reading the ranger handbook," Milley said. "It was well hidden, off the beaten road away from everything."

Thanks TexKat.

Hey man. Ya doin' awrite?

I've got mail to catch up on...you know?

Foxhole FRiends BTTT

Attack on U.S. Base in Iraq Kills 24(sb 22)

By Maher al-Thanoon MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - An attack on a tented dining hall at a U.S. military base killed 24 people and wounded about 60 in the Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. forces since they invaded Iraq last year.

One U.S. official said it was a mortar or rocket strike but an Iraqi group claimed one of its suicide bombers was behind it.

"We're not ruling anything out," Captain Phil Ludvigson, a military spokesman in Mosul, said. Among the dead were 14 U.S. soldiers, though he said that might go higher, possibly to 18.

The attack came as U.S. war ally Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad where the British prime minister vowed the war on insurgents would be won and elections would go ahead on Jan. 30. As he left, mortars fell on Baghdad's Green Zone compound, as they do almost daily. There appeared to be no casualties.

Two French journalists, held hostage for four months were freed, ending a saga that had embarrassed the Paris government.

The Mosul strike came at noon (0900 GMT) when many soldiers at Forward Operating Base Marez, a huge camp built around the northern city's airfield, were sitting down to lunch four days before Christmas. The hall, made of canvas and metal, can seat hundreds, Reuters correspondents familiar with the base said.

"The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and pellet-sized shrapnel sprayed into the men," wrote eyewitness Jeremy Redmon of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick- thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot," the journalist said on his newspaper's Web site.

Mosul has seen near anarchy since U.S. forces launched an offensive last month on rebels in Falluja in effort break the back of the insurgency before the election. At least 150 bodies, many thought to be Iraqi security personnel, have been found.

IMO, every encampment should be surrounded by a 3-5 mile diameter cleared kill-zone. Take 500 bulldozers and just scrape everything from the ground within this radius and push the garbage into a ditch. Then call in Apache and A-10 airstrikes and use flamethrowers on anything that moves within that space.

Honestly, I do not think this is so much a cult of death as the result of several hundred years of lack of foreign policy resolve when the West dealt with Arab countries. They are convinced they can drive us out if they kill enough of us, as they did with the Crusaders, the European Colonialists, the United Nations, and even The United States in previous campaigns (e.g. Lebanon, Somalia). Having succeeded in driving out Spain and the Philippines already only further encourages this belief.

The sad part is they are absolutely right. Fixing the Middle East has never been important enough to the West to invest the amount of lives and treasure it would take to do the job right. If we try to run Iraq much longer, the political will in this nation to continue supporting the policy will collapse. I was a hawk when Bush took us in, and will not hypocritically turn on the policy now: Bush did what I wanted him to do and I appreciate that. However, I am beginning to wonder if democracy in Iraq is worth the price in American lives. Getting rid of Saddam was worth it up to this point, but is it worth the further sacrifice to play wet nurse to a democracy that will be dominated by the Shiites no matter what we do?

Maybe we need to pull a Diem on Saddam and some of his top henchmen (the whacking part, I mean, as we have already overthrown them) and get the hell out of Dodge. Let the Shiites win the election, make sure they dominate the new Army, and let nature take its course. I am sure if we were not there to stop guys like Al Sadr from going after the Baathists, the outcome for the Sunnis will be much more like Custer's outcome at Little Big Horn than Sitting Bull's. That may be as stable as Iraq can be without investing hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and tens of thousands of U.S. lives.

After all, we killed millions of Vietnamese and lost 55,000 American lives 30 to 40 years ago. The net result is we now have in Vietnam exactly what we would have had if we had not taken the war over from the French. The very ironic part is that today's Vietnam is much more like South Vietnam in 1964 than North Vietnam in 1964. We could have won that one by staying home. As with the invasion of Iraq, though, at the time and knowing what we knew then, I would have supported the Vietnam policy and would further have supported going into North Vietnam to do the job right. No one in 1964 could have forseen the ironic outcome I mentioned above, so I do not wish to diminish the value of the sacrifice of the brave Americans who fought in Vietnam - not even John Kerry. I do, however, want to learn the lessons of history.

If we leave Iraq in a hurry, say toward the end of next year after the legislative elections have been held, we will leave a nascent democracy dominated by Shiites. The Shiites and Kurds both have it out for the Sunnis and they can be much more effective in "repressing the insurgents" (translation: killing off all the Saddamites who do not want to play ball) than we could be with the world press and the U.N. and Amnesty International, etc. looking over our shoulders. If we stay for ten years and watch tens of thousands of Americans die and spend huge amounts of money we should be spending on preparing for the coming confrontation with China, the net result will be we will leave a nascent democracy dominated by Shiites.

My conclusion, if you have not been able to divine it from my turgid prose, is we should not cut and run today, but a year from now we may have reached the point of diminishing returns. It may be time to create a plan that will put an "Amen" to American involvement in Iraq before January 2006.

Aren't they there right now?

I thought they were. They are our friends, afterall.

But I think the Israelis are already in Iraq as part of the coalition, I think.

Just got an E-Mail from my Reenacting Pards advising that our Member in the 133rd ANG in Mosul has called his Sister to tell her that he is "all right" - so thanks for answered prayers!

Surely everyone at that Garrison in Mosul is shaken up and grieving, even if they escaped physical injury - so let's keep them especially in our thoughts and prayers.

I have a feeling that it's going to be a rough Christmas over in Mosul this year.

But I think the Israelis are already in Iraq as part of the coalition, I think.

No way. The A-rabs would lose their minds if we let Israelis play in their sandbox.

I haven't heard any reports of that. That doesn't mean there aren't any. I just know of none.

If they are there, they haven't seemed to quell the insurgency. Things seem to be getting worse.

No. That would be the last thing the Iraqi government would want or need in their country. The Israelis have no IDF contingent as part of the Coalition.

I just got back from a look at DU to see what idiot stuff they were saying--dont' go, it will make you sick. I hate those leftist little pukes. A great many of them actually SUPPORT the terrorists who KILL our troops. I'm going to remember that at my next protest warrior mission against these creeps. "Bring them home" indeed!

You got the links still?

Thank God. With the casualty list so high and many greviously wounded..I pray for the families. My heart wants vengeance, but we have to find the scum. I am happy for your friend and his family, though, that he escaped harm.

Ugh, no. Mind bleach was needed. I don't imagine they'd be too hard to resurrect, look at your own risk. Take care,

find the bastards family........