Fallujah leaders condemn gruesome murders amid US threats of revenge

AFP | 4/02/04

[kattracks]

Town leaders in troubled Fallujah denounced the gruesome murder of four American contractors here, as imams decided to devote Friday prayers to condemn such acts considered sins in Islam.

Police and paramilitary forces were deployed across Fallujah, setting up checkpoints at main entrances to the dusty town west of Baghdad, with many anticipating the harsh retaliation vowed by the US Army.

In an apparent move to ease tensions and avoid escalation, town leaders rushed to denounce Wednesday's grisly killings as residents headed to mosques for Friday weekly prayers expected to issue similar condemnation.

"The City Council held a meeting late last night to condemn the acts of mutilation of the bodies," council president Saadallah al-Rawi told AFP.

"We will distribute a statement to that effect later today," he said.

Rawi also said "imams across Fallujah have decided to make a unified Friday sermon today that will condemn the mutilation of the bodies, based on the holy Koran and the teachings of Prophet Mohammed, which prohibit them."

Many Fallujah residents expressed dismay at the mutilation of the bodies which they considered against Muslim teachings, although some justified the acts as a reaction to army raids on homes and mosques in the town.

On Thursday, the army recovered remains of the four slain Americans, after police officers gathered dismembered body parts from various locations around the town, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

The four were killed in an ambush by armed insurgents in downtown Fallujah, located in the so-called Sunni Triangle region where insurgents are leading a battle against US-led occupation forces.

Following the attack charred bodies were dismembered and publicly paraded by jubilant residents in this town located in the so-called Sunni triangle where insurgents are waging a fierce battle against US-led occupation forces.

Graphic pictures and footage of the macabre killings and mutilation filled airwaves and newspapers, shocking viewers around the world and prompting Iraqi officials to issue stern condemnations.

Iraq's interim Governing Council denounced the killings as a "savage" act that did not represent the Iraqi people.

Council member Samir Sumaidai said "what happened in Fallujah represents the worst of savage behaviour."

"What happened is very far away from the nature of Iraq and Islam," said Rosch Schaways, deputy to Kurdish leader and council member Massoud Barzani.

US officials have vowed a forceful response to the murders.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at Baghdad's police academy on Thursday, an angry Paul Bremer, the US overseer in Iraq, said: "Their deaths will not go unpunished."

Top US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt said "we will respond. It is going to be deliberate and precise and it will be overwhelming.

"We will re-establish control and will pacify that city," he added. "It will be at the time and place of our choosing."

Replaying scenes from Fallujah, US televisions noted the similarities with the abuse meted out to the corpses of American soldiers killed in Somalia in 1993 in an ill-fated raid depicted in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."

Pictures of a dead US serviceman being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu aired constantly on US television at the time, and led to the eventual evacuation of US forces from Somalia.

[adam_az]

I ran into this incredibly written article about the event, I urge you all to read it

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_belmontclub_archive.html#108086661437741372

An excerpt

But since it is Al Qaeda's policy to precipitate civil war in Iraq and America's goal to hold it together, the Sunnis in Fallujah will be safe from massive reprisal for the present, though the perpetrators of this recent outrage are living out their last hours. Yet even if the challenge can be met without destroying Fallujah it is uncertain whether it can be accomplished without destroying Fallujah's culture. In a wider sense the ritual dragging and meathook hangings, the passing out of sweets and cold drinks to celebrate the death of the infidel are things not confined to Sunni triangle. The West Bank festivities after September 11, the famous scene of Palestinian youths holding out their bloodstained hands in almost sexual ecstasy as they tear a Jew limb from limb, or troops pursuing Islamic rebels on a Philippine island seemingly littered with detached heads poses an existential problem for Western democracy. They are the 21st century equivalents of finding the crematoriums of Auschwitz and Dachau or being forced to watch, with unaverted eyes, the wholesale extermination of a Chinese city under the banner of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They leave us wondering whether there are ideas on earth which cannot claim the protection of tolerance and democratic space.

[wayoverontheright]

Top US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt said "we will respond. It is going to be deliberate and precise and it will be overwhelming.....

And our response will not be preemptive, but punitive and retaliatory, we therefore apologize in advance that the collateral death of innocents may ensue, in our effort to protect our innocents and your benefactors. If you know the guilty, we suggest you turn them in, at the very least you should distance yourself from them, physically.

[tgslTakoma]

Stalking then murdering, burning the bodies, dragging them throught the streets (in one piece)... that's apparently OK by the imams and CAIR.

Chopping up the bodies and stringing up the parts all over town... now that's not what the religion of peace teaches. Savages.

Tammy Bruce is right. Level the place.

[littleopie]

This is pure Wahhabism. This is pure evil. America must make an example out of these followers of Satan.

[pending]

I have not been able to listen to the radio or watch the news for a couple of days now.

I share and understand the desire to
flatten the place, but a little voice
says we should stand on law and order,
a judicial process, public trial.
Hold these guys up as
examples of what we are not.

It should be possible to cordon off this town,
squeeze em out. Limit electricity and water, l
et it be known that we want these guys.
If there is resistance, so be it.
But I do think we have to try to introduce law and order here, not just reproduce the previous terrors.

The men who have died are gone, there is a longer term issue here. We do not have to be in a big hurry,
got to keep our eyes on the goal of a transition in July.

This is a good example of a time to set a good example.

Publicize who our guys were, what they were doing.
Publicize who the killers and mutilators were, what they were doing.

Good guys, bad guys, no grey area in this one.

If the majority of the people in Iraq feel the same way as these killers and the cheering throng, we have already lost.

I would go with the chance that they do not either know what to think, or are at least partially open minded, and likely fully supportive of what we are doing. Also, they have to be afraid of the radicals within their group. It is likely still not safe to take a pro american stand for a lot of folks.

These killers are criminals to the believers of Islam, they are an excellent example of a bad example, and this is a big chance to show how Americans really do things, what we stand for, and what kind of people we are and what kind of
country we envision for them.

[steveegg]

Islam is encouraged to lie to all non-muslims. Actions speak louder than words and somebody knows who did it. Turn the pigs over immediately.

Bingo (then again, the Left is so used to lying that they'll just respect the Islamists more for continuing the pattern).

[samtheman]

Turn the pigs over immediately.

And if they're not sure who the pigs are, there is plenty of taped footage the "town leaders" can review.

Along with those denunciations, give us names and addresses. We know you've got them.

[listenhillary]

I wonder how confused the Falujihan's are? "But, But that contradicts what you just said in your last sermon!!!"

Would be nice if the Imam's could be held responsible for inciting the violence in the first place, but I doubt it will ever happen.

[7.62 x 51mm]

No Muslims = No Terrorism.

[SouthernHawk]

The impression that I had was if this is against islam(lower case on purpose) where were the "Holy Leaders" when this was happening?

The mutilation wasn't against islam until the negative publicity started coming in! ! ! They had to have a meeting to decide that it was bad?

This is like saying it wasn't rape until the check bounced!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Town leaders in troubled Fallujah denounced the gruesome murder of four American contractors here, as imams decided to devote Friday prayers to condemn such acts considered sins in Islam.

Iraq's interim Governing Council denounced the killings as a "savage" act that did not represent the Iraqi people.

Council member Samir Sumaidai said "what happened in Fallujah represents the worst of savage behaviour."

Top US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt said "we will respond. It is going to be deliberate and precise and it will be overwhelming.

"We will re-establish control and will pacify that city," he added. "It will be at the time and place of our choosing."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                     
                                                          
 God bless our troops and allies!   

     Thank you to all who serve! 

[CatoRenasci]

Bingo!

We should sit the town leaders down and have a little "chat":

You have two options:
1. Turn everyone involved in this over to American forces - including the children mutilating and attacking bodies. Oh, and here's a copy of the video shot to help you identify the people involved. We mean 100%, without exception. Within 48 hours.
2. Fallujah ceases to exist, one neighborhood at a time. We're going to reduce the city, stone by stone. Resistance will be met with overwhelming force. Serious resistance will be met with tactical nuclear artillery. Oh, by the way here is some generally unseen footage taken in Hiroshima and Nagasaki right after the atomic bombs were used in 1945.

OK, we're waiting. In 48 hours, unless we have all of the perps, the siege begins.

Ceterum Censeo Fallujah Esse Delendam!

[boxerblues]

One of the 4 is a local man whose family lives not to far from me. The Imams need to do more than denounce it, turn in who did this, hang them in public. According to the Koran mutilation of a corpse is against the teaching of Islam. The people of Fallujah are nothing more than vicious junkyard dogs with the mentality of one


http://www.news-herald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11229251&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=21849&rfi=6

[boxerblues]

Top US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt said "we will respond. It is going to be deliberate and precise and it will be overwhelming

I prefer this quote from Kimmitt

"It will be at the time and the place of our choosing. We will hunt down the criminals. We will kill them or we will capture them, and we will pacify Fallujah."

[BunnySlippers]

They laugh at us while they have their fingers crossed behind their backs. Revenge now, I say.

[TomGuy]

Remember, this is a culture (Islam/muslim/arab) that has had public executions for centuries. Those public executions serve 2 purposes.

1. Punish by death (beheading, usually) the perp.

2. Send a loud message to others that they will receive the same fate for committing the same kinds of acts.

The perps should be apprehended and publically executed. That is their culture; that is their law. Use it.

If the coalition continues to be so PC, Iraq will eventually devolve into another Somalia situation.

Be tough now or tuck tail later.

[TomGuy]

When did we in the US see the mutilated bodies?

They don't want to arouse the populace. Better for the sheeple to go about their daily lives and not get riled up. Otherwise, the populace might through PC out the window and deal with th thugs in a manner that is appropriate. Public execution to send a loud message to the thugs.

[MEG33]

#6

[Happy2BMe]

Deliberate, overwhelming, at our choosing. .

I hope so.

Father God, have mercy on our troops and give Your strength and power to utterly destroy this enemy.

[F14 Pilot]

Bump!