[Shadow_Group] Troops meet resistance as battle for Fallujah continues - Iraq

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

Posted on Thu, Nov. 11, 2004 
Troops meet resistance as battle for Fallujah
continues
BY ALEX RODRIGUEZ AND JAMES JANEGA
Chicago Tribune

FROM:
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/10158463.htm<http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/10158463.htm>
BAGHDAD - (KRT) - As U.S.-led troops pressed their
offensive Thursday in Fallujah, insurgents stepped up
their counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, exploding a
car bomb that killed 17 people and wounded 20 in
Baghdad and storming six police stations in an
audacious attack in the northern city of Mosul.

The attacks came as the U.S. forces rumbled into the
cramped streets of southern Fallujah, seeking to
squeeze out hundreds of insurgents from their hiding
places and forcing a climactic fight for control of
the restive Sunni Muslim city.

With the offensive in Fallujah in its fourth day, U.S.
military leaders said as many as 600 insurgents have
been killed or captured.

But the all-out assault is also taking its toll on
U.S. forces: 18 American soldiers have died and 178
have been wounded in the fighting since Monday,
officials said. Five Iraqi soldiers have been killed,
34 wounded. Many of the injured were being flown to a
U.S. military hospital in Germany for treatment.

U.S. military leaders say fierce fighting in northern
sections of the city pushed insurgents southward into
neighborhoods such the Shuhada District, a maze of
alleyways and buildings that American troops pressed
toward Thursday evening.

In apparent response to the Fallujah offensive,
insurgents have unleashed a wave of attacks across
Iraq in recent days, aimed at sending a strong message
that even if Fallujah is lost to U.S. and Iraqi
security forces, the insurgency can resurface and
inflict mayhem at will elsewhere.

The violence in Mosul appeared to be part of a
coordinated attack. Dozens of gunmen stormed six Iraqi
police stations, looting them of weapons and
ammunition and setting some of the buildings ablaze.

A battle raged in the northern city for hours between
the insurgents and U.S.-led forces, and officials
suggested that the city would be dangerous for some
time. A Kurdish official in the city suggested that
some Iraqi police had been cooperating with the
insurgents.

Residents reported masked gunmen roaming the streets,
setting cars on fire and waving rocket-propelled
grenade launchers.

A curfew had already been imposed on Mosul after
violence there Tuesday killed five people, including
three members of the police force. The U.S. military
said it responded to Thursday's attacks by sending a
Stryker Brigade Combat Team to help pacify the city.

In Baghdad, the midday car bomb blast on bustling
Sadoun Street destroyed two buildings and gutted at
least 12 cars.

Hadi Omer, a 33-year-old Iraqi police officer, said he
believed the explosives, placed inside a Kia microbus,
were intended for a police patrol in the vicinity.

"I heard a huge blast and saw a fire behind us," said
Omer, who suffered wounds to his head from broken
glass. "It was a car bomb directed at our patrol, but
it hit civilians. We're still trying to find people
under the rubble."

Recovering at Baghdad's Ibn al Nefis Hospital, Sami
Hanon said he was in a currency exchange when the
blast occurred.

"I entered the shop, then suddenly there was a huge
blast that brought down the roof. Then I don't know
what happened next," said Hanon, 34, a laborer. "Right
now, I can't feel my legs. I don't know if I can walk
again."

Also Thursday, a car bomb exploded near the
headquarters of a leading Kurdish political party in
the northern city of Kirkuk, killing one bystander and
injuring four others, The Associated Press reported.

The blast detonated some 100 yards from where the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, is housed, said
Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi
National Guard in the city. The target was not
immediately clear.

Before the assault in Fallujah, Capt. David Gray,
intelligence officer for the 2nd Battalion, 7th
Cavalry Regiment of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division,
laid out in color the challenges for the battalion's
armored vehicles: Streets colored red on the map were
15 feet wide or less. Yellow routes were two-lane
streets. Green roads were boulevards.

Most of the Shuhada neighborhood was crisscrossed with
red lines.

"We're thinking there are still around 200 to 300 guys
around there. That has not been addressed," Gray said.

As the attack southward began, Marines followed a
cluster of the Army's Abrams tanks and Bradley
Fighting Vehicles. Marines were on the lookout for
insurgents able to hide and escape during the first
big push into Fallujah, which began Monday.

"We kept going, and the enemy leaked around the sides.
That's OK," said Lt. Col. Jim Rainey, commander of the
2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment. Rainey said he was also
concerned about Marines getting attacked from the rear
with bombs hidden in roadside garbage heaps, parked
cars and buildings.

"The Marines are having a tough fight; I don't want
them to have a catastrophic fight," Rainey said.
"Those roadside bombs, car bombs, (improvised
explosive devices) in 55-gallon drums, those kids
can't see that. So pound those roads."

Addressing his soldiers before launching the attack,
Rainey urged them to protect civilian lives but give
no quarter to insurgents.

"Given those constraints, kill everything that you can
kill," he said.

The U.S. military has said that as many as 3,000
insurgents may have been holed up in Fallujah before
the start of the offensive. Some analysts caution that
many of those insurgents, including Jordanian militant
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, probably fled Fallujah well
before the offensive began.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show, Gen. Richard Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged
that many insurgents may have slipped away and blended
into Iraqi society, only to wreak havoc elsewhere in
the country.

"That's the nature of an insurgency," Myers said. "You
know, where people can fight one minute and then blend
into the surroundings the next minute... If anybody
thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the
insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective,
never our intention and even never our hope."

Myers added that he believed the offensive in Fallujah
is on track.

"It's not working at all for the insurgents," Myers
said. "We're exactly on plan. The insurgents are
paying a heavy price for their resistance."
---
Alex Rodriguez reported from Baghdad, with James
Janega from Fallujah. Yasser Yasin in Baghdad
contributed to this report.
---
© 2004, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at
http://www.chicagotribune.com<http://www.chicagotribune.com/>

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.
 



 



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