Map locates Youssifiyah, Iraq, where a U.S. soldier has been killed and two are missing. (AP Graphic)
GIs abducted in death triangle
From Ned Parker in Baghdad
THE US military mounted a huge search over the weekend for two American soldiers apparently abducted by insurgents in an area known as the Triangle of Death last Friday.
Witnesses said that the insurgents staged what appeared to be a well-planned attack that divided the pair from their colleagues so that they could be seized. If so, that would mark a sinister new development in the insurgents’ tactics.
Only one US soldier is known to have been abducted since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and he has not been seen since. If these two are found dead, or the insurgents release a videotape of their fate, it would be a serious blow to the White House, just when the formation of the new Iraqi Government and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had boosted public support for the war.
The missing GIs were part of a team of about 12 US soldiers equipped with three Humvees who were manning a checkpoint near Yusufiyah, about 50km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, last Friday evening.
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, told the Associated Press news agency that the team were fired on from palm groves along the road. Some of the soldiers went after the assailants in two of the Humvees. Six masked gunmen then attacked the third Humvee, killing the driver. After radio communications went dead, an emergency team arrived at the checkpoint within minutes to find one soldier dead and two others missing. Witnesses said that the gunmen had driven the two soldiers away in cars.
The rescue operation began almost immediately. Civilian traffic was stopped and the area cordoned off. All weekend helicopters scoured the area from the air. Divers searched the River Euphrates and irrigation canals. Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches but found no trace of the soldiers.
The outlook appeared grim. The Triangle of Death, a pastoral land of date and orange groves between the Tigris and Euphrates, has been a bastion of al-Qaeda militants for more than two years. It has been afflicted by roadside murders and kidnappings since the autumn of 2003. Many Shia families have fled their homes after coming under attack from Sunni extremists. Religious pilgrims heading to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have often been ambushed. In turn Shia militias have taken out revenge on the Sunni population of the region.
But repeated drives by the US military to impose order have failed to tame the triangle, allowing some of its communities to become havens for insurgents. Tony Snow, a White House spokesman, gave a sober assessment of the situation yesterday. “We’re simply trying to find them,” he said. “We hope they’re alive.” The insurgents were trying to use the capture of the US servicemen to “ drive a wedge between American public opinion . . . It’s important to remember that we’re involved in a war in Iraq . . . the insurgents are going to do everything they can.”
Major-General William Caldwell, the leading US military spokesman in Iraq, said: “We are currently using every means at our disposal on the ground, in the air and in the water to find them.”
The last known abduction of a US soldier was that of Sergeant Matt Maupin, seized by insurgents near Fallujah after the start of a Sunni revolt in April 2004. A video sent to the al-Jazeera satellite TV channel claimed to show the body of the sergeant, but it did not show his face. The US military lists him as missing.
The attack coincided with a weekend in Baghdad that left more than 50 people killed in bombings. Gunmen stormed a bakery yesterday in the Shia district of Kadhimiya and snatched ten employees. Ten bodies, showing signs of torture, were also found in different parts of Baghdad overnight. The violence appeared to be a direct challenge to a new government security plan that put 50,000 Iraqi forces on the streets of the capital last week.
The Mujahidin Shura Council, an Islamist extremist umbrella organisation, which includes al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for four of seven car bombings on Saturday. Last week the Iraqi Government said that al-Zarqawi’s death had put the extremist group on the run. In Basra last night the Sunnis closed all but one of their mosques after the killing of a cleric last Friday.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2232027,00.html
Map locates Youssifiyah, Iraq, where a U.S. soldier has been killed and two are missing. (AP Graphic)
When Free Republic first started circa 1997/1998, one thing that it did very well was to expose the generally well-crafted and often slightly hidden propaganda in news articles. Over time this became less necessary as the quality of writing declined in the news media (the Left seems to be losing IQ points each year).
But the above propaganda harks back to the days when the Left did it well.
Kidnapping 10 civilians isn't a "direct" challenge; it's an indirect one at best, and pales in comparsion to the scope of fielding 50,000 troops on a whim.
That didn't stop the writer for the above article, though.