Insurgents Assert Control Over Town Near Syrian Border

Washington Post ^ | 9/6/2005 | Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer

[playball0]

BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 -- Fighters loyal to militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi asserted control over the key Iraqi border town of Qaim on Monday, killing U.S. collaborators and enforcing strict Islamic law, according to tribal members, officials, residents and others in the town and nearby villages.

Residents said the foreign-led fighters controlled by Zarqawi, a Jordanian, apparently had been exerting authority in the town, within two miles of the Syrian border, since at least the start of the weekend. A sign posted at an entrance to the town declared, "Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Qaim."

The report from Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad, marked one of insurgents' boldest moves in their cat-and-mouse duels with U.S. Marines along the Euphrates River. U.S. forces have described border towns in the area as a funnel for foreign fighters, arms and money into Iraq from Syria.

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Marines conducted heavy airstrikes in the past week on suspected insurgent safe houses in area. Ground fighting has also been reported between Zarqawi's group and Sunni Arab tribes more open to the Iraqi government and U.S. military.

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Witnesses in Qaim said Zarqawi's fighters were killing officials and civilians who they consider to be allied with the Iraqi and U.S. governments or anti-Islamic. On Sunday, the bullet-riddled body of a young woman dressed in her nightclothes lay in a street of Qaim. A sign left on her corpse declared, "A prostitute who was punished."

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[Recovering_Democrat]

Okay, well, time to wipe that city off the map.

[AmericaUnited]

Here come the 1000 pounders...

[Dog]

Exactly....its like a football game...when you begin to wear the other team down late in the game and are playing on his side of the 50 yard line.

[Dog]

Why would they put up a sign like that?

It has to do with PR....see how the media is spinning this grab the terrorists knew the media would do it.

This is but a bump in the road.

[anymouse]

Fighters loyal to militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi asserted control over the key Iraqi border town of Qaim on Monday, killing U.S. collaborators and enforcing strict Islamic law, according to tribal members, officials, residents and others in the town and nearby villages.

Michael, don't your writers know that 'collaborator' is a curse used for locals who assist foreign conquest, NOT people in their own country supporting their OWN elected givernment against foreign terrorists?

Your writers -- and their editors -- need to have their PC's washed out with soap for this shameful insult to these murdered patriots.