US Forces in Iraq Detain 61 Al-Qaeda Members

Anadolu News Agency ^ | March 02, 2006

[jmc1969]

American forces in Iraq have reportedly detained 61 people linked to al-Qaeda Iraq led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Spokesman of multinational forces in Iraq, General Rick Lynch said in a statement announced earlier today the detained al-Qaeda members were captured during an operation on a training camp near the city of Felluce (Fallaujah) on Monday.

The US forces conduct regular operations in the Al Anbar region, a popular area for sheltering many foreign insurgents.

[jveritas]

Excellent news.

[Marine_Uncle]

"a training camp? they are able to setup and operate a training camp in Fallujah?"
Please. Let us just reason this out. Fallujah is a pretty large city, with all kinds of neighborhoods, many isolated by industrial areas, geographic features such as large cementaries, things that look like say gravel pits, canals, cultural/religious centers, etc.. In some of the neighborshoods say the NW sector was once the HQ for al-Qaeda, the area is packed with rows of homes and buildings along very restricted streets. So many tunnel systems where dug prior to the Fallujah invasion that most likely many are still intack, that where not discovered, and blown up, filled in.
Like in any large American city for instance that has dozens of well organized drug gangs, meth/crack labs can be set up in any neighborhood, out of say a garage, and until good citizens report it's existence and a police raid goes down at just the right moment, the gang continues to prosper. I speak from knowledge since I live in Philadelphia where this is a way of life.
Just like the police who are not on the take cannot close down the hundreds of drug operations in these large American cities, likewise we should not expect the US Army,Marines, Iraqi Army and Police from finding every home/tunnel/operation set up in abandoned and destroyed buildings,tunnels, private homes in a city as large as Fallujah.
It is up to the Iraqi people to offer good HUMIT on all those remaining in this city and others at this point. Like our US military have said for two years, they cannot fully police these type populations centers. It has to be done by the Iraqis. Let us be fair in how we judge the ever increasing capabilities of the Iraqi forces, and the increasing good will of the people to point our remaining alla Babba, hijah, etc..

[G Larry]

Prisoners?
Why do we have those?
They're only trouble.

[ToDieUnsung]

Oh, just ignore it and listen to the AP and CBS and CNN. They know how things are really going in Iraq; the glorious, courageous freedom fighting insurgents are joining up against that HORRIBLE GREAT SATAN and Al-Qaeda is poised to take over Iraq and everything is going to hell and 200,000 americans are going to die just because Bush is a retard and those Middle-Easterners will never learn to adapt democracy. This is how it is; who needs actual facts or evidence to back any of it up?

[Deetes]

BOOM !!!

[threeleftsmakearight]

"foreign insurgents"
Is this not a contradiction in terms?
I always thought "insurgents" were from within said country.

[Marine_Uncle]

"The real problem has been the lack of security forces in western Iraq, we are just starting to get enough to make a difference, but there was far far too few from 2003-2005."
Sometimes I wonder if a continued sharing of information has any effect. I wonder how many understand just what your statement entails, and the solid reasoning behind it.
Guess we can only try, before finally giving up.

[ASA Vet]

Prisoners?
Why do we have those?

Because interrogation of a corpse doesn't yield much intelligence?

[MikeA]

Were these French Al Qaeda? 61 surrendered without so much as a fight? What a bunch of war heroes these losers were. Anyway, next time we should just put a KC-130 on it. I prefer my tax money not go to feed these animals.

[jmc1969]

Bill Roggio did a great job charting the Anbar campaign that went all out late 2005. The Anbar campaign was designed to seed Western Iraq with US and Iraqi forces. Before that time there was extremely little US or Iraqi forces in Western Iraq. We still don't have enough, but as Iraqi forces continue to grow by the end of this year we should be in decient shape.

Its easy to look back and see how much we messed up by allowing western Iraq to be completely lawless after the invasion. Of course Zarqawi and the Saddamists stepped in and became the law of western Iraq. But, none of that matters right now. All that matters is Western Iraq is finally changing hands rappidly away from the insurgency.

[LurkedLongEnough]

We've learned that panties do work on prisoners, but if you really want to rattle them, show them cartoons.

[RushCrush]

And by 'detain' I hope they really mean 'putting bags on their heads and making them sleep next to swine'

[L,TOWM]

After rubbing them with a slab of bacon while the others are watching.

[jamesm51]

no way, everyone knows there are no terrorists in iraq. /sarc

[Darkwolf377]

Excellent post, thanks for the overview. We need more of this kind of thing on FR and in the MSM. No, I'm not holding my breath for the latter.

[Marine_Uncle]

A good response with key points made. For any freeper that has followed the military objectives set forth, once it was fully established the insurgency was growing by leaps and bounds, to come back and criticize the whole effort, is being rather disingenuous. So much has been written on all the phases of these operations by many military analyst, that show clearly where phase lines had to be re-adjusted, in some cases re-defined, as the insurgency morphed into different forms.
As so many have pleaded for so long. Iraq had so many unknowns regarding whom would be considered the enemy.
And for the record, it has been established more then once, no matter how many ground troops we had in place, we would not have been able to crush this well planned insurgency. It would have meant literally destroying Iraq and it's peoples. And clearly that was not the intentions, for many of the obviouse and not so obviouse reasons.
Just one case in point. During late and into early 2004, the MO for all our forces was to start reconstruction programs in Iraq, rebuild their infrastructure, and with the will of the people of Iraq being thankful for Saddam being taken out, help them form a democratic elected government, "in due time". People like Bremmer continue to be bomblasted as to his failures in getting this process started, saying for instance, hey it took Sistani to demand free elections... but for some reason many refuse to carefully look at all the angles that where being shown.
The only Freepers with a safe argument are those that feel we should never had gone into Iraq. They can appear a bit smug.
But in the next few years as well written books come out containing all the facts carefully presented in time lines with all the reasons we went in, perhaps they shall not feel so smug. As their minds absorb the stuff coming forth just on the issues of known wmd programs, and what Iraq had, perhaps their baseline viewpoints shall change.

[Stand W]

"GOOD!!!"

Yes, good, but I would have preferred that we killed them.

[MaDeuce]

I hope they killed them after they got what ever information they wanted from them.

[Marine_Uncle]

Thank you for the kind remark. I for one as I am sure a few dozen other Freepers are becoming quite weary in attempts at writing the same stuff over and over again. Surely none of us claim a dominance in seeing the full picture. I for sure don't. But so many issues regarding things in Iraq have been so well defined at this point, whether military objects being meet or not, as well as the political arena.
Something as simple as following a one year series of campaigns in Al Anbar and how the rat lines have been closed down, seems to eluded so many Freepers. To be fair to us all. Surely not all are interested in reading the details on these various military actions, but surely if enough Freepers provide elucidate details in a form all can grasp, one could think,hope, more folks might be more receptive to the many gains made, that the L/MSM continue to cover up or attempt to negregate.

[ASA Vet]

Anyway, next time we should just put a KC-130 on it.

You want to dump fuel on them?