Posted on 10/05/2005 8:21:47 AM PDT by SmithL
Sada, Iraq -- Moving almost soundlessly, the Marines sprinted up to the sandstone wall surrounding the flat, yellow mosque, then hunkered down -- backs against the wall, their heads turned to look over it, M-16s at the ready.
An Iraqi flag flew from the metal minaret. Two empty, haphazardly nailed coffins lay on a weedy, dusty lawn. Everything inside the compound was quiet.
But such tranquility can be deceptive, said Marines conducting house-to-house searches as part of Operation Iron Fist, a military assault aimed at ridding western Iraqi towns near the Syrian border of armed insurgents before the Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution.
For weeks, insurgents had been lobbing mortars and rockets at Marine patrols outside Sada from the vicinity of another mosque, dubbed the "Blue Mosque" by the Marines for its turquoise onion dome. A leaflet glued to its gate warned local residents that the referendum soon to be voted on was "un-Islamic."
The leaflet was adorned with the distinctive symbol used by al Qaeda in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: an open Quran superimposed over a gray globe, a fist with an extended index finger, an AK-47, a black flag rising from the book and Arabic lettering spelling out "Monotheism and Jihad."
But when their search for insurgents and ammunition brought them to the mosque in Sada on Saturday afternoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment faced a quandary: how to rid a town of insurgents while showing respect for the local culture and religion -- and avoid alienating a population that has become unhappy with the U.S. occupation.
"The insurgents know that we are going to be very cautious about entering a mosque, so sometimes they would use it to their advantage, use them as storage points for ammunition, as meeting
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Who you gonna call? Mosque busters!!!
The Chronicle has an embedded reporter!
"avoid alienating a population that has become unhappy with the U.S. occupation."
No bias there. /sarcasm
What can you do with a religion that hates dogs?
Do yourself a favor.. don't read Anna Badkhen's articles in the San Fran Chronicle. You'd be better off reading AlJazeera.com.
"...a population that has become unhappy with the U.S. occupation."
Perhaps they'd prefer the Dresden approach?
This "Politically Sensitive" war is starting to get all too reminicient of VietNam for comfort.
From the very beginning it we should have let them know that they could not get away with using a mosque as a place to meet and plot and hide weapons and explosives. A few would be blown up initially, but you can bet that the locals would make sure that the terrorists stayed out of the mosque.
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