Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Iraqi Insurgents' Raid on Jail Thwarted ~ Heavy losses by the raiders....
AP via Yahoo ^ | March 22, 2006 | VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer

Posted on 03/22/2006 2:31:36 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Iraqi Insurgents' Raid on Jail Thwarted

By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

Insurgents emboldened by a successful raid and jailbreak laid siege to another prison facility Wednesday, but police said U.S. troops and a special Iraqi unit overwhelmed the gunmen and captured 50 of them at the detention center south of Baghdad.

The pre-dawn attack came a day after 100 Sunni gunmen freed 33 prisoners and wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in the town of Muqdadiyah northeast of the capital and about an hour's drive from the Iranian border.

Although Wednesday's raid failed, the insurgents' ability to put together such large and well-armed bands of fighters underlined concerns about the ability of Iraqi police and military to take over the fight from U.S. troops. Sixty militants participated in the second assault, which aimed to free more jailed insurgent fighters, police said.

The attack on the prison in Madain, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, began with insurgents firing 10 mortar rounds. They then stormed the facility, which is run by the Interior Ministry, a predominantly Shiite organization and heavily infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias.

Four police officers — including the commander of the special unit — died in a two-hour gunbattle, which was subdued only after American forces arrived. Among the 50 captured, police said, was one Syrian.

The U.S. military did not respond to a request for comment about its role in the counterattack.

Madain is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a farming region rife with sectarian violence — retaliatory kidnappings and killings in the underground conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

Police have discovered hundreds of corpses in the past four weeks, victims of religious militants on a rampage of revenge killing. At least 21 more bodies were found Wednesday, including those of 16 Shiite pilgrims discovered on a Baghdad highway, police said. Millions were returning home Wednesday at the conclusion of an important Shiite commemoration in the holy city of Karbala this week.

In the northern town of Beiji, meanwhile, a mortar fell on a government facility that Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi was visiting Wednesday, an aide said. Chalabi was not harmed and later returned to Baghdad, the aide said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Chalabi, who is also the interim oil minister, was believed to have been visiting the refinery in Beiji, the nation's largest.

As U.S. officials step up pressure on Iraqi leaders to form a national unity government quickly, the United States' top military commander said he had underestimated the extent of Iraqi reluctance to come together.

"I think that I certainly did not understand the depth of fear that was generated by the decades of Saddam's rule," said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I think a lot of Iraqis have been in the wait-and-see mode longer than I thought they would."

Pace said one solution was for the Iraqis to do a better job of recruiting more Sunnis into the army and for police forces to balance Shiite domination.

"A unit that has all (sects of) Iraqis embedded in it is better able to handle whatever kind of strife comes along," the general said.

The Bush administration views formation of a broad-based government as a first step in quelling violence and allowing the start of an American troop withdrawal this summer.

While the U.S. military has touted its progress in training the Iraqi army and police, a top expert on Iraq said the forces remained poorly matched against the insurgency and al-Qaida.

"The police have almost no protected vehicles, few heavy weapons similar to those of insurgents, are often located in extremely vulnerable buildings, and have weak communications. Corruption is a major issue," Anthony H. Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a position paper released this week.

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Iraq, and Lolita Baldor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraq; waronterror
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-33 last
To: inkling

It might also tell you that the captured jihadis are talking.


21 posted on 03/22/2006 3:44:28 PM PST by pfflier
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Jeez, why didn't my local morning news didn't breathlessly report this story? The other morning they were downright cheering the "bold prison break."


22 posted on 03/22/2006 4:01:30 PM PST by manapua
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: inkling

gonna have to put the word out-Any more attempts at a jail break and all prisoners will be moved out of country.Better yet,wire all jails with claymores,any jail break attempts and all prisoners are blown up.


23 posted on 03/22/2006 4:07:02 PM PST by Farmer Dean (Every time a toilet flushes,another liberal gets his brains.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: manapua; Shermy; Para-Ord.45; saganite; ASOC; WLR; don'tbedenied
Media is not reporting this either:

Insurgents found guilty of possession of illegal weapons,joining armed terrorist organizations

Seems like they are getting their Justice system cranked up!

24 posted on 03/22/2006 4:09:10 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach


Hang `em high:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq10mar10,1,4751074.story?coll=la-news-a_section

From the Los Angeles Times

13 Convicted Insurgents Are Executed in Iraq

By Louise Roug
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2006

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities Thursday hanged 13 prisoners, including a woman, convicted of being insurgents, said an official who was present.

The executions, which were authorized by the Iraqi government, were the first to involve insurgents. It was the second time since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 that the death penalty was carried out...


25 posted on 03/22/2006 4:20:26 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Para-Ord.45; manapua; Shermy; saganite; ASOC; WLR; don'tbedenied

Making progress!


26 posted on 03/22/2006 4:36:53 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; All

This is great news .. it tells us that the Iraqis are learning from their mistakes .. and the terrorists don't get a second chance to hit them.

Plus .. why are they raiding the jails anyway ..?? Maybe they're running out of terrorists ..??

But .. but .. but .. I THOUGHT WE WERE LOSING !!!!!


27 posted on 03/22/2006 4:38:14 PM PST by CyberAnt (Democrats/Old Media: "controversy, crap and confusion" -- Amen!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

"it took a lot of guts to make that splatter" said the bug as it hit the windshield

"Bet you don't have the guts to do it again " said the driver.




28 posted on 03/22/2006 4:41:56 PM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. Slay Pinch)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Thanks for link, I linked to this on my blog http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
... and made special mention of this metric that was posted as comment to Roggio's article ...
JAF:

Early March, for operations company level or higher:
34% were planned and executed by ISF alone.
43% were joint ISF/Coalition operations.
23% were Coalition operations alone.

In early December05 the numbers were:
21% were planned and executed by ISF alone.
29% were joint ISF/Coalition operations.
50% were Coalition operations alone.

... Terrorists are weakening but the Iraqi army is growing stronger.


29 posted on 03/22/2006 7:01:42 PM PST by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: A message

"Although Wednesday's raid failed, the insurgents' ability to put together such large and well-armed bands of fighters underlined concerns about the ability of Iraqi police and military to take over the fight from U.S. troops."

This sentence is nothing but pure AP BS propaganda."

Agreed. Indeed, if you parse it, it is thoroughly illogical.

Army Z, Zarqawi's army and their capabilities are described as "insurgents' ability to put together such large and well-armed bands of fighters", and that tells us nothing of the capabilities of Army I, the Iraqi Army, which could range from incompetent to extraordinarily superior. What Z can do tels us nothing ofwhat I can do. It doesn't 'underlines concerns', it tells us nothing,
and 'concerns' is a way to say absolutely nothing in the sentence. Such 'concerns' exist anyway, whatever the level of terrorist threat.

Does this attack demonstrate some fact relevent to the question of whether Iraqi army can fight on its own?
Well, since a joint US-Iraqi response *defeated* the terrorist attack, the one lesson is this: The Iraqi Army is at least capable of defeating even organized terrorist attacks, with the help of US forces.

That is the only logical and useful conclusion, and a positive one. Curiously, this obvious answer is missed by the defeatist media.


30 posted on 03/22/2006 7:24:07 PM PST by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Anyone know why we're taking prisoners?? Is it because we believe they can be rehabilitated and lead useful productive lives like our domestic child molesters we keep recycling?


31 posted on 03/22/2006 7:41:21 PM PST by kimosabe31
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Too many prisoners.


32 posted on 03/22/2006 7:44:58 PM PST by Unicorn (Too many wimps around.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: WOSG
Agreed. Indeed, if you parse it, it is thoroughly illogical.

Does this attack demonstrate some fact relevant to the question of whether Iraqi army can fight on its own? Well, since a joint US-Iraqi response *defeated* the terrorist attack, the one lesson is this: The Iraqi Army is at least capable of defeating even organized terrorist attacks, with the help of US forces. That is the only logical and useful conclusion, and a positive one. Curiously, this obvious answer is missed by the defeatist media.

You nailed it WOSG

May the AP rot in Hades.

33 posted on 03/22/2006 8:04:07 PM PST by A message
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-33 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson