[Shadow_Group] Fw: US troops fire off another volley of shots

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041210033510.1bgx7r1p.xml<http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041210033510.1bgx7r1p.xml>

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US troops fire off another volley of shots amid
the trashed houses of Fallujah, hunting down new adversaries carrying a
potentially deadly weapon that threatens to plague reconstruction
efforts. 

But this time the marines are not chasing down the insurgents who they
defeated in a devastating assault on the city last month. Their quarry is
stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and who could harbor
rabies. 

The marines gather briefly over a pile of trash, one pointing across the
dirt lot to a row of burned out homes where moments before a dog was seen
loping for cover amid the ruined buildings. 

"I think we wounded a couple and they took off that way," he said, as
another marine pulled his quarry onto a ridge, its bloodied head rolling
side to side in the dust. 

As their numbers have swelled, so has the risk the animals pose to the
tens of thousands of people expected to return to Fallujah in the coming
weeks. The marines have been told to organize special details to "thin
out" the battered city's animal population. 

Medical personnel say rabies is one of the biggest threats to people
returning to the city. Cases of the disease were already reported in
humans in Al-Anbar province before the Fallujah attack. 

"Rabies, and standing water, are our most immediate concerns," said
Captain Dennis Staggs, a surgeon with the 1st Marine Exepditionary Force
(MEF), adding that among a host of measures suggested to head off a
health crisis, medical officers said feral animals should be cleared from
the city. 

"If you consider the entire public health situation, with nobody in town,
there's no public health crisis, and if it is prepared correctly there
won't be a health crisis," Staggs said Wednesday. 

Standing by his humvee last week in northern Fallujah, marine Lance
Corporal Will Lathrop of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit said, "The
problem has gotten bad enough that there's actually an order for this,"
referring to a command issued recently to deal with Fallujah's feral
animals. 

His convoy of three humvees and a truck had rolled briefly into the
school occupied by 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines' Charlie Company and
several men with shotguns stood around the vehicles smoking. 

Rock-n-roll played loudly from one of the vehicle's radios as marines
just outside the base walls fired off several more shots at flashes of
fur among the piles of rubble. 

It was a good day for this self-described "goon squad" -- a dozen or so
black plastic trash bags heavy with dead animals were dumped
unceremoniously in the back of a truck. 

"It eliminates the threat," marine Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert, spokesman for
the 1st MEF, said Wednesday. 

"Before they (residents) go into the city, dogs and cats probably should
be cleared out. They're a source of rabies and other diseases." 

But there was none of the bloodlust that many marines say they felt last
month as they stormed the Sunni-Muslim enclave and wrested it away from
insurgents during several days of vicious fighting. 

A gunnery sergeant stalked past the convoy, tersely ordering his
executioners to put on surgical gloves before handling the dead animals,
his mouth pulled into the tight grimace of a man trying to finish the job
before him as quickly as possible. 

"This is hard on these guys, especially killing the dogs. But these
animals have been eating dead bodies. They can spread disease," said
Lieutenant Aaron Brown, grimly reciting the toll for the day -- several
cats and at least one dog. 
 
 
Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
information contained in the AFP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of Agence France Presse.

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