Posted on 04/10/2006 7:26:23 AM PDT by Dubya
RAMADI, Iraq - On an eerie, battle-scarred street in this blown-out urban war zone, a mannequin with painted black hair stares silently at U.S. Marines hunkered down in sandbagged observation posts atop buildings a few blocks away.
It's the latest insurgent ruse in an evolving war pitting the world's most powerful military against guerrilla fighters using their most effective weapon: ingenuity.
Insurgents in Ramadi recently have flown kites over U.S. troops to align mortar-fire, released pigeons to give away U.S. troop movements and staged attacks at fake funeral processions complete with rocket-stuffed coffins, U.S. forces here say.
"They're crafty; I'll give 'em that," said Marine Cpl. John Strobridge, 20, of Orlando, Fla., as his Humvee passed the mannequin along one of the most bomb-infested roads in town, a street Americans call Route Michigan.
"Gun it! Gun it!" he screamed to his driver as the vehicle crossed a frequently targeted intersection.
The mannequin first popped up a few weeks ago in the courtyard of a secondary school near a collapsed building. The simple figure appears to be made of wood, with a white shirt and blue pants painted on. Two white arms hang down, carrying a briefcase.
"We kind of laugh at it. We don't know why they do it," Strobridge said. "But I think the idea is, we get used to looking at the mannequin, and then one day there's a real person standing there" -- with an AK-47 or a rocket launcher.
Marines said there's no point stopping to take it down. The road is too dangerous, and such bizarre sites are often booby-trapped. At the bottom of a light pole beside another mannequin elsewhere in the city, the sleeve of an American MRE package was found concealing a bomb.
A Marine intelligence officer, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said insurgents had placed other booby-trapped mannequins on roadsides, hoping that U.S. forces would believe that they were corpses and stop to check on them. He said they had used the same trick with real corpses.
In recent weeks, Marines found a human leg in the road with a pressure-switch bomb set to go off when it was picked up.
"The enemy will always try different things to try to get us to bite on. They're very smart," Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, 30, commander of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment said during an interview at Government Center.
The Government Center, a sandbagged fortress topped with camouflage netting that serves as headquarters of the provincial government, came under two hours of sustained attack Saturday.
The most dangerous threat remains roadside bombs -- hidden in trash, potholes, piles of dirt or animal carcasses.
But guerrilla fighters also fly kites that signal to other fighters where U.S. soldiers are, to help them direct their fire, and Del Gaudio said insurgents have released flocks of pigeons as patrols go by.
Carlos Goetz, 29, of Miami said insurgents have also used mosque loudspeakers.
"They'll call for blood drives in the hospital or say there's gonna be a funeral procession, and seven out of 10 times that's code for an attack," Goetz said.
They are so proud of their terrorists!
A$$holes!!
As someone here said, when you play against the varsity every day, you get better.
The skies above Ramadi have Predator drones flying around 24/7. I wouldn't trade places with any of these "clever" insurgents for anything.
The "guerillas" most important weapon is their alliance with the socialist MSM, as evidenced by this softball article.
I'd booby-trap the dummy. When Mr Bad @ss terrorist comes to retrieve/move it ---- KABOOM.
Fight to win, or go home.
The "guerillas" most important weapon is their alliance with the socialist MSM, as evidenced by this softball article."
AP is a non profit cooperative/consortium financed by the MSM of America. It seems to be a so called reporter or editor for the AP, they have be militant gay agenda pushers, hate America, hate our military and of course hate GW.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060403/ap_board.html?.v=2&printer=1
AP
Two New Members Named to AP Board
Monday April 3, 11:39 am ET
Five Incumbents and Two New Members Are Elected to the Board of Directors of the Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) -- Five incumbents and two new members were elected to the board of directors of The Associated Press in results announced Monday at the annual meeting of the news cooperative.
Re-elected to three-year terms were Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Douglas McCorkindale, chairman of Gannett Co. Inc.; R. John Mitchell, publisher of the Rutland (Vt.) Herald; Gary Pruitt, chairman, president and CEO of McClatchy Co.; and Jay R. Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc.
The new members are Kenneth W. Lowe, president and CEO of E.W. Scripps Co., and Jon K. Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications.
Two members have retired -- Robert C. Woodworth, president and CEO of Pulitzer Inc., and Lissa Walls Vahldiek, chief operating officer of Southern Newspapers Inc. Vahldiek was vice chairman of the AP board.
Re-appointed to three-year terms on the board were David Westin, president of ABC News, and Bruce T. Reese, president and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Bonneville International Corp., both representing the broadcast industry.
The Associated Press is a not-for-profit cooperative of U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, a global network providing coverage of news, sports, business, entertainment, politics and technology in all media formats to some 15,000 news outlets in more than 120 nations, reaching more than 1 billion people a day.
On the Net: http://www.ap.org
Good thinking, but you can only do that once. The probable resulting countertactic is to have an innocent -a kid or somebody- forced to go retreive it.
Life sucks, doesn't it?
Secret Commandos Behind Enemy Lines with the Elite Warriors of SOG
John L. Plaster
One of my favorite bits was the ELDEST SON operation- which consisted of slipping doctored munitions into enemy stockpiles, followed up by forged NVA communications dealing with the issue of suddenly exploding weapons, that were crafted to cause further doubt among enemy troops.
I'd be willing to bet our snipers could figure out the difference between a live human and a mannequin in about 1/2 a second.
Some shennanigans over there, Sarge?
"They are so proud of their terrorists!"
By the title, I thought it was an Al Jazeera piece.
Sounds like our boys should start killing a few more of these "crafty" little b@stards.
AP SUCKS.
I've read about that before, fill 7.62x39 rounds with a high explosive, they'd find dead NVA with an AKM bolt sticking out of their head after the weapon blew apart...
That was done with mortar rounds, as well. There is an anecdote related wherein an American unit, being mortared, heard an odd-sounding 'fwump' in the middle of the attack. A patrol found an 82mm mortar opened up like a banana, with a dead mortar crew around it.
SOG inserted bogus NVA documents into the NVA supply system that said things like, 'we're aware of the problem, and should have it resolved shortly'. Meanwhile- Nguyen the NVA snuffy looks over at stacks of boxes of ammunition stamped with dates of manufacture from the previous decade. (evil grin)
Another trick: a patrol would thumbtack a Playboy centerfold to a tree in an NVA-controlled area. With an M14 'toe popper' mine concealed in front of it.
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