MAGGIE MICHAEL,
Posted on 11/19/2004 9:14:50 AM PST by Former Military Chick
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi commandos backed by U.S. forces raided a hospital in northern Mosul allegedly used by insurgents, and detained three people overnight, the U.S. military said Friday.
U.S. troops sweeping through Fallujah found what appeared to be a key command center of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a workshop where an SUV registered in Texas was being converted into a bomb and a classroom containing flight plans and instructions on shooting down planes.
Gunbattles flared as troops hunted holdout insurgents in the city west of Baghdad. One U.S. Marine and one Iraqi soldier were killed, U.S. officials said.
In Mosul, commandos with the Ministry of Interior's Special Police Force cordoned off the al-Zaharawi Hospital in the western Shefa neighborhood on Thursday, after getting information that insurgents were treating their wounded there, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings with Task Force Olympia.
U.S. forces from the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment secured the area around the hospital, while Iraqi troops raided the building, detaining three individuals suspected of terrorist activities.
Pictures were taken of 23 bodies in the morgue believed to have been members of a terrorist cell, Hastings said, adding it was unclear how they came to be there.
"You can call it an insurgent hospital from what we found there," he said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major military operation Tuesday to wrest control of the western part of Mosul after gunmen last week attacked police stations, bridges and political offices in apparent support of Fallujah guerrillas.
On Friday, three of the five bridges had been reopened to traffic and most of the city remained calm, though U.S. forces came under some "indirect fire" that caused no injuries, Hastings said.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops sweeping through Fallujah on Thursday came across a large house with a sign in Arabic that said "Al-Qaida Organization," according to footage from a CNN crew embedded with the U.S. Army.
Inside the house, an imposing structure with concrete columns, U.S. soldiers found documents, old computers, notebooks, photographs and copies of the Quran. Several bodies also were found.
There were also two letters, one from al-Zarqawi giving instructions to two of his lieutenants. Another sought money and help from the terrorist leader.
Nearby, in another location in the industrial section of southeastern Fallujah, troops found a bomb-making workshop where a sport utility vehicle with a Texas registration sticker was being rigged as a car bomb. CNN's video also showed a makeshift classroom for training militants that included flight plans and instructions on how to shoot down aircraft.
The SUV was sitting in a warehouse surrounded by several bags of sodium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives. The vehicle had no license plate, but some 15 license plates were inside. Several bodies were also found in that area.
Iraqi authorities have acknowledged that al-Zarqawi and other insurgent leaders escaped the invasion of Fallujah.
Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said those who fled lack the resources available in their former stronghold.
"We feel right now that we have, as I mentioned, broken the back of the insurgency. We've taken away this safe haven," he told reporters at a base outside Fallujah.
The U.S. casualty toll in the Fallujah offensive stood at 51 dead and about 425 wounded. An estimated 1,200 insurgents have been killed, with about 1,025 enemy fighters detained, the military says.
Al-Zarqawi's group, Al-Qaida in Iraq, is considered the deadliest terrorist network in the country and is blamed for dozens of deadly car bombings and for the kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, including three Americans. Al-Zarqawi is wanted by both Jordan and the United States, and Washington has offered $25 million for information leading to his capture.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities launched the Fallujah operation as part of a campaign to restore order so national elections can be held in January.
The extremist Ansar al-Sunnah Army, in a statement found Thursday on the Internet, threatened to attack polling stations and assassinate candidates because democracy is an "infidel" institution.
Iraq's interim government warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as "participating in terrorism." Some clerics already have been arrested.
Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, said they arrested 104 suspected insurgents in a raid in Baghdad, including nine who had fled Fallujah.
Insurgents, though, struck back elsewhere in volatile Sunni Muslim areas. In Haditha, northwest of Fallujah, militants blew up the mayor's office and the police command center. Leaflets distributed by insurgents warned anyone who "wears a police uniform or reports to a police station will be killed."
Car bombs in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk killed at least four people, while mortar shells that exploded near the governor's office in Mosul wounded four guards, officials said. The governor of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad escaped assassination when a bomb exploded near his convoy, injuring four bodyguards.
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Associated Press Military Writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report
Ecellent news. God bless our brave fighting men.
ALLEGED ????
I suppose our troops would raid a nursery school full of nothing but kids?
I read unitl I reach the first LIE - I quit reading at the headline!!
Ditto. Lets clean their clocks before the end of December and round them up throughout early Jan before the elections. I'm worried for our soldiers on 12/24 and 12/25.
Bumping for our warriors!
U.S. troops sweeping through Fallujah found what appeared to be a key command center of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a workshop where an SUV registered in Texas was being converted into a bomb and a classroom containing flight plans and instructions on shooting down planes.
"Alleged". God I hate the press sometimes. Somehow there is a possibility that there is a legitimate school that teaches how to shoot down aircraft and build car bombs?!
If you're a terrorist for Zarqawi, you stand a 70% chance of being killed outright.
MAGGIE MICHAEL,
As usual AP tries to put a negative spin on this by reminding us that the "big names" escaped.
Well, everyone reading this thread should know that Israeli Intelligence (Debka web site) is reporting that the US has "sprung the trap" on insurgents fleeing from Fallujah.
In other words, what is happening in Iraq now is part of a strategic plan (described by Debka as a "scissors offensive") whereby US forces "deliberately pushed" the insurgents out to Mosul, Baquouba and Latafiya and then, to use Debka's words, "clobbered them there."
Finally, Debka reports that this offensive has cut Sunni-Shiite rebel links.
Yes our troops are number one.
Pass this on, because none of it is going to be reported in the MSM not even by so-called right wing types at Fox News.
There is nothing wrong with the press using 'alleged' until all the facts are verified. The only problem is that the press doesn't use this ubiquitously.
For example, "Marine shoots ''allegedly'' wounded enemy."
Our military is the fightingist, fiercestest, bravest, most get-the-job-done-est defenders of humanity of the face of the earth!
anybuddy figure out how a texas suv can find itself halfway around the world in the employ of terrorists?
I have been asking that question for several hours now and I cannot come up with a ligit idea.
i'm sure it was "stolen", but it had to get out of the country somehow. if it WAS stolen, then it had to go thru customs at some point. Unless is was legimately shipped out of the country THEN was stolen, (if it WAS stolen at all)
U.S. troops sweeping through Fallujah found what appeared to be a key command center of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a workshop where an SUV registered in Texas was being converted into a bomb and a classroom containing flight plans and instructions on shooting down planes.
Reuters headline: "U.S. Troops Raid School. Students Suffer When Classroom Seized."
Debka is right on.
Could it be just a Texas tag that was put on the SUV?
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