Posted on 06/16/2005 11:33:19 PM PDT by angkor
Insurgents have taken over much of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and used it to launch attacks against United States forces while terrorising the population with public beheadings.
A huge bomb killed five marines on Thursday and showered body parts on to rooftops, fuelling suspicion that armour-piercing technology is being developed and tested in Ramadi.
US troops recovered the remains and withdrew to their base outside the Arab Sunni stronghold, leaving masked gunmen to erect checkpoints and carry out what residents said was the latest of many executions.
A man described as an Egyptian spy was beheaded and his body dumped on a busy shopping street. Warned by the killers to leave it for five days, shoppers pretended not to notice the figure in the brown robe, its head resting on its back.
Four days ago two suspected Shia militiamen were beheaded in the marketplace in full view of traders, said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified. Two boys played football with one of the heads, he added.
Ramadi, 112km west of Baghdad, became an insurgent citadel soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell two years ago. US and Iraqi forces claimed to have quelled it in February during Operation River Blitz, a sweep through restive towns and cities in Anbar province.
Fallujah, 64km east of Ramadi, has been largely quiet since an offensive last November pushed much of the civilian population as well as rebels out of the city.
US forces tightly control movement to and from Fallujah. But in other towns and cities in Anbar the guerrillas returned after the Americans withdrew and swept aside weak or non-existent Iraqi forces.
Americans have been forced to mount a fresh offensive in the northern town of Tal Afar.
They may soon do so in Ramadi: it was clear on Thursday nobody was fully in charge. American troops guarded two bridges outside the city and every few entered the town in armoured Humvees. Each time streets emptied, leaving the convoy to patrol in near silence. Once it passed, people ventured outdoors again, including men in scarves and masks who wielded knives, assault rifles and rocket launchers.
Two cars with about 10 men set up checkpoints during the day, stopping and questioning anyone deemed suspicious. Several people were taken away, their fate unclear.
Civil and tribal leaders, including Sheikh Harith al-Dari, a spokesperson for Sunni Arabs, had scheduled a meeting in the main mosque to discuss political developments in Baghdad. But insurgents cancelled the meeting, saying informal contacts with American and Iraqi officials had achieved nothing.
Residents said they were frightened of the insurgents but most dreaded a US-led offensive similar to that which flattened Fallujah. They said the rebels were Iraqi Sunnis, not foreign Islamist radicals.
The Sunni minority, privileged under Saddam, bitterly resents the US presence and the political ascendance of Shias and Kurds.
An American sailor was shot dead in the city on Wednesday, hours before the five marines were killed. Witnesses said the bomb detonated at 2am on Thursday just after a convoy crossed a bridge.
All Humvees are now armoured but there is suspicion that insurgents have learned to make "shape charges" which narrow the force of blasts to penetrate armour. Children played with the vehicle's charred debris.
Brigadier General Donald Alston, a coalition spokesperson, played down the violence.
"I would not consider the situation in Ramadi to be anything extraordinary at this time," he said.
"We continue to put pressure on the insurgency in all parts of Iraq, including Ramadi."
Residents said that in reprisal for their losses US troops fired grenades at a minibus as it crossed the bridge at 6am on Thursday.
Eight girls and women died and a Jordanian man was injured, said hospital staff. It was not possible to verify the account. A US military spokesperson said he had heard no such reports.
Elsewhere in the country, a suicide bomber killed at least eight police commandos and injured 25 when he rammed their truck in Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul US soldiers captured Muhammad Khalaf Shakar, who they said was the most trusted lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, reportedly wore a suicide vest 24 hours a day to avoid capture but when cornered in a hideout gave up without a fight, said US officials.
Meanwhile a US army sergeant has been charged with the premeditated murder of two US officers at a military base near Tikrit.
Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez, of the 42nd infantry division, was charged over the deaths last week of two officers, Captain Phillip Esposito and Lieutenant Louis Allen.
The deaths were initially attributed to a mortar blast. -
All the more reason to flatten Ramadi.
As a soldier recently said: "Fallujah? What Fallujah? It's gone."
Wouldn't that make them terrorists?
Why yes indeed, it would.
But you see, they're Iraqi Sunni terrorists and not Saudi and Syrian terrorists, therefore Ramadi citizens should not be pounded into the dust for being complicit with them.
See how it works? They're "freedom fighters."
(/sarcasm)
It's that sort of illogical and twisted thinking which demands that Ramadi be converted into a pile of gravel. Fine gravel.
Fallujah wasn't flattened. It was heavily damaged but far from having been flattened.
I've been there several times since mid December.
It sounds like Ramadi needs some of the love that only the US military can give.
Someone told me they bulldozed most of the damaged buildings and paid-off the legal owners.
I haven't been there, just circulating hearsay which you've credibly corrected.
Uh, I don't want to go there either.
It is time for truth. Stop the PC crap, the traitor trash talk and visit the wrath of the Christian God on Ramadi, turn it into dust! It's time to take off the gloves, time to face reality...I and most Americans are ready for some major Dixie style a-kickin'!! No need to put off the inevitable, time to Get Some!
"Most" buildings is a bit of an overstatement.
Don't mistake what I'm saying, there was a LOT of damage. It tended to be a case of a building either being completely destroyed or lightly damaged. I didn't see much that wasn't either way.
There was no mistaking that a battle had been fought there.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
"Most" would be a majority and a majority (more than half) were heavily damaged. Almost all were damaged to some degree, from broken windows and doors to holes in the walls. From what I saw only about 1/3 were destroyed and the rest were repairable. They make them out of brick and concrete so holes in the walls aren't a huge deal to repair.
In late January there was a LOT of bulldozing going on. Part of why Fallujah is *relatively* calm is that so many people have work rebuilding and are being paid for it.
Sorry, that's not gonna' convince me to go there either :)
A man described as an Egyptian spy was beheaded and his body dumped on a busy shopping street. Warned by the killers to leave it for five days, shoppers pretended not to notice the figure in the brown robe, its head resting on its back.
Four days ago two suspected Shia militiamen were beheaded in the marketplace in full view of traders, said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified. Two boys played football with one of the heads, he added.
It's not too bad!
Series though, I fly everywhere I need to go. Occasionally I convoy but it's a hugh risk.
In Viet Nam people dies by the thousands (tens of thousands?) when Nixon gave in to the procommunist in our news media and universities.
No way will I get on a convoy. Not happening.
We had some sustained incoming yesterday, a few hundred yards from where I was standing.
That's quite enough excitement for me.
Yes, and two of my wife's six Vietnamese relatives who went for "reeducation" are permanently crippled as a result. The guys who believed in freedom and liberty are forced to drive cyclos and moto taxis for a living (their fluent English helps with the tourist trade).
Every Cambodian I ever knew without exception lost at least one relative (and sometimes 5 or even 10 or more) to the Maoist KR.
Yeah, that's what the lefties want for Iraq, for the Middle East, and ultimately for America.
I'm sorry, but I do not trust any of the Guardian newspapers. They are bitterly partisan leftist and anti-American. Take this story with a very big grain of salt.
But they are so full of love and compassion! < /massive sarcasm>
The best way to end war and ensure peace is to kill the enemy.
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