Release the hostages, or there'll be... Trouble!!!
Posted on 04/17/2005 7:24:02 AM PDT by 11th_VA
BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers fought their way Sunday into a town where Sunni militants had seized up to 80 hostages and threatened to kill them unless all Shiites left, an interior ministry official said.
“Police forces, backed by coalition forces, entered the town at 9:00 am (05H00 GMT) and encountered severe resistance from the terrorists”, a defense ministry official told AFP.
Government forces have recaptured half of Al-Madain and freed 10 to 15 families held hostage by the gunmen, he said, adding that the clashes were continuing.
Earlier an interior ministry official had said that two army battalions had crossed into the town and the neighboring communities of Hafriyah and Al-Wihda at 5:00 am (0100 GMT).
“They have cordoned off the area and started search operations”, he said.
National Security Advisor Qassem Daoud told the Al Arabiya satellite news channel: “Iraqi security forces have the situation under control and are dealing with the hostage takers in a serious manner.”
Iraqi army special forces on Saturday surrounded the town, home to Shiites and Sunnis, in hopes of averting a sectarian bloodbath that could badly damage Iraq’s ethnic and religious ties.
On Saturday afternoon, gunmen blew up the building housing the Husseiniyat al-Rasul al-Adham mosque in Madain, which is built on the ruins of the ancient city of Ctesiphon, said a source at the interior ministry, adding that it was empty at the time.
The same source said events in Madain may be a tit-for-tat kidnapping of Shiites after the abduction of Sunnis from the powerful Dulaimi tribe, who have a presence in the area.
A spokesman for radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, Abdul Hadi al-Darraji also suggested the incident may be part of a settling of scores among some families in the community.
Many residents have already fled the town, 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Baghdad, with some heading further south to predominantly Shiite Kut.
The kidnapping drama began on on Friday when armed men entered the town in pick-up trucks. They then threatened in messages from loudspeakers to kill their hostages unless Shiites left the town.
The road linking Baghdad with Kut, 200 kilometres (120 miles) to the south, is among the most dangerous in the country where several beheaded bodies have surfaced in recent months.
The area around Madain and neighbouring Salman Pak is home to several Sunni Arab tribes who follow the radical Wahabi brand of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia and recent reports suggested that Shiites have set up vigilante groups for protection.
Daoud’s fellow National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie blamed the rising wave of Islamic extremism around Madain on former dictator Saddam Hussein’s policy of settling Sunni extremists in the stretch of towns just south of Baghdad after the 1991 Shiite uprising against the old regime.
“Saddam started a policy of “colonies’ whereby he allowed and encouraged some of the Sunni extremists to live at the southern Baghdad borders ...basically to put a human barrier between Baghdad and the south and stop any future uprising in the south from reaching Baghdad.”
Rubaie urged Iraq’s 15-million-strong Shiite majority not to carry out reprisals against the country’s Sunni community, which is blamed for fueling Iraq’s deadly insurgency.
“We have called for people not to take the law into their own hands,” Rubaie said.
“In killing innocent Sunnis, this is what the extremist Salafists want. They want to draw the Shiites into a sectarian conflict. This is a fatal mistake.”
The latest incident in Madain came as the Shiites, who won control of parliament in January, have been trying to woo the Sunnis, who largely skipped January 30 elections, to join the political process
My favorite part ...
"serious manner" is a euphemism for returning them to Allah.
LOL - Maybe this should be a "Series Manner Ping !"
bttt
“Iraqi security forces have the situation under control and are dealing with the hostage takers in a serious manner.”
My favorite part ...
Yes, the plan is all coming together.
I had read earlier that when these terrorists first came into town the local police garrison melted away. I would imagine the Iraqi Special Forces are being backed up by US Armor, with out it, I doubt they would even come near that town.
The M1A2 is a VERY frightening weapon system.
Iraqis....getting it done.
Possibly, but the Iraqi Army has reformed a couple of tank platoons of their own. Granted they are only T-55's, but they still get the job done against foot soldiers (or terrorists as the case may be).
A target-rich environment.
IRAQ THE MODEL
Saturday, April 16, 2005
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
I've been to Mada'en once; that was late last year but I still clearly remember what I saw. The walls were full of slogans of hatred and violence; some slogans praised Saddam and the Ba'ath, others called for Jihad and others were frank death threats addressing the "collaborators and spies".
I understood later that the poor town was falling under a number of terror groups that were trying to make that town look like another Fallujah.
This place became a source of many local troubles through out the past several months but never made the big news in Iraq until this morning when a number of criminals took around 60 of the residents hostages.
I don't expect these terrorists would get away with what they did; actually I'm expecting a large-scale military operation to take place in that spot real soon because I heard from local sources that the (Wolf) brigade which has been famous for its successful operations in Mosul is now taking positions around Mada'en.
I'm sure that some "experts" will celebrate this incident and consider it a spark that will ignite the civil war fire they have been hallucinating about.
What such "experts" always fail to notice is that the conflict in Iraq is taking place between the people, the government and the coalition on one side and the extremists and remaining Ba'athists on the other side. It is NOT a people vs. people conflict; it never had and it will never be like that.
I really don't blame people who live outside Iraq for believing the "experts"; they didn't live here and they depend on the news to build their opinions.
But I live in Iraq and seen almost every city in it, so I know how thinks work and I know what the people think.
This time, the pathetic terrorists are trying to make it look like a sectarian conflict; it is NOT.
They would simply kill anyone who dares to oppose them in their territories and they don't care whether the "collaborator or infidel" was Sunni, She'at, Christian or Kurdish.
I know people from every single component of the population in Iraq and they all realize that Salafi extremists groups and their Ba'athist and foreign allies are the ones behind terrorism in Iraq.
I hope we will hear some good news from that town soon and I hope to see the hostages released and I have a good feeling about it.
Release the hostages, or there'll be... Trouble!!!
Dang. That blog continues to be about 10 times more informative (and accurate) than the MSM.
Good news from Iraq.
Nod...
Send 'em home to alluh bump!
To free the oppressed, good work! ... and dealing with terrorturds.
Double bonus!
It's good to see the Iraqis stepping up here. I think they're getting some confidence since they've been getting training from U.S. special forces:
U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers train soldiers from the Iraqi Army on air assault procedures near Kirkuk, Iraq, March 15, 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Mike Buytas
Iraqi Army soldiers conduct their first air assault training near Kirkuk, Iraq, March 15, 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Mike Buytas
An Iraqi soldier guards suspected terrorists during a coordinated ground and air assault operation near Kirkuk, Iraq, March 17, 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Mike Buytas
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