Fallujah, City of Horrors

[MKSheppard]

lInky

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines have found beheading chambers, bomb-making factories and even one Iraqi hostage as they swept through Fallujah — turning up hard evidence of the city's role in the insurgent campaign to drive American forces from Iraq

Marines on Sunday showed off what they called a bomb-making factory, where insurgents prepared roadside explosives and car bombs that have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops.

Wires, cell phones, Motorola handheld radios and a Plastic foam box packed with C4 plastic explosives sat in the dark building down an alley, along with three balaclava-style masks reading: "There is only one god, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."

"It's all significant because this is not the kind of stuff an average household has," said Lt. Kevin Kimner, 25, of Cincinnati assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. "This is better than Radio Shack."

So far U.S. troops have only found two hostages, one Iraqi and one Syrian. Marines last week found the Iraqi in a room with a black banner bearing the logo of one of Iraq's extremist groups. He was chained to the wall, shackled hand and foot in front of a video camera. The floor was covered with blood.

The rescued Syrian was the driver for two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, missing since August. The journalists have not been found, but France maintains they are still alive.

A Marine officer said he found signs that at least one foreign hostage was beheaded in that room. The Marine, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not give details.

The Iraqi hostage, who had been beaten on the back with steel cables, said his tormentors were Syrian and that he thought he was in Syria until the Marines found him, the Marine said. Other militants came and went, but "The Syrians were always in charge," the Marine said.

The hostage was in a room — inside a compound that also had AK-47 rifles, improvised bombs, fake identification cards and shoulder-fired missiles that could down an airliner. Beneath it were tunnels running under the northern Jolan neighborhood.

Marines said weapons depots were strategically placed throughout Jolan. Insurgents marked many of the caches with a piece of brick or rock, suspended from the buildings by a piece of string or wire.

U.S. officials hope that by retaking Fallujah they can deprive the rebels of an important headquarters and boost security in Iraq ahead of elections scheduled for January.

Among the rebels' most-fearsome weapons have been the car bombs and roadside explosives that have targeted military convoys but also churches and other areas where civilians gather.

On Sunday, a hollowed-out plastic foam container about the size of two shoe boxes lay in the bomb lab, packed with plastic explosives and wires. The plastic foam box was covered in cloth to disguise it as an innocuous package.

Scattered on the ground nearby — cell phones, walkie-talkies, Motorola handheld radios — all used as detonators lay tangled in coils of wire. There was a computer without a hard drive and a box full of professional explosives-triggering.

"We've seen better," Kimner said of the detonators. "But they're reliable and they do the job right."

When Marines uncovered the lab in a Saturday sweep. Among the clutter were two wills, addressed to friends and family in Algeria.

"I will join my friends in heaven," the will read. "Don't cry for me. Celebrate my death."

[Durandal]

SPOOFE's bullshit sent to HoS.

[Darth Wong]

In reference to the OP, why should any of this come as a surprise? Isn't it pretty much what people were expecting?

[Durandal]

In reference to the OP, why should any of this come as a surprise? Isn't it pretty much what people were expecting?

I think it might've been confirmation that the Syrians were running things.

[Augustus]

Click to See Image

Semper Fedelis!

[Darth Wong]

I like the "PS. Fuck you" part. I don't know why, but it made me laugh.

[Stofsk]

The picture doesn't work...

[Augustus]

Typical of the Corp

On a mor somber note it appears that one of the missing aide workers has been found....

More Sick Shit

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US troops tackled Fallujah's last tenacious insurgents but were still days away from completing major search operations, as the mutilated body of a Caucasian woman was found by marines.


With a convoy carrying aid for thirsty and hungry civilians in the rebel enclave still blocked by the military, US-led forces said that more than 1,200 insurgents had been killed in the assault launched late November 7.


Meanwhile, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the country's third largest, Iraqi and US troops moved in after days of unchecked lawlessness, with clashes erupting between rebels and security forces Sunday.


As US marines continued their slow, tense search of buildings in Fallujah, a senior officer warned that the operation would continue well into next week; belying the swiftness with which US-led troops first poured in.


"It is probably going to be another four to five days of clearing house to house," said Colonel Mike Shupp. "There is not going to be a stone unturned in the city."


With 25 marines killed, according to US figures, in the battle to take a city that is the symbol of Iraq (news - web sites)'s protracted insurgency, marine commander Major General Richard Natonski said: "We have killed over 1,200" rebels.


None of the figures could be independently verified.


Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi authorised the attack to bring Fallujah to heel, as a lesson to insurgents elsewhere, and to bring more stability ahead of key elections planned for January.


On Saturday, national security advisor Qassem Daoud announced that the so-called Operation Fajr (Dawn) was accomplished and "only the malignant pockets remain that we are dealing with through a clean-up operation."


He acknowledged, however, that Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose supporters had made Fallujah their base, and a top aide had slipped through their fingers.


But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a trip to Panama, said that while US troops were present in much of the city, the mission was not over.


"Needless to say there still will be pockets of resistance and areas that will be difficult, so I don't mean to suggest that it is concluded. It's not, to be sure."


Despite being hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the insurgents in Fallujah have refused to surrender their stronghold without a fierce struggle.


Three marines were killed Saturday in an explosion as they entered a booby-trapped building, while another 13 were wounded in a firefight nearby, a marine officer said.


The latest deaths bring to at least 25 the number of US troops who have been killed in the fight for Fallujah. Five Iraqi soldiers have also died.


In the south of the city, where insurgents regrouped over the weekend, the butchered body of a blonde-haired Caucasian woman was found Sunday lying on a street.

"It is a female ... missing all four appendages, with a slashed throat and disemboweled, she has been dead for a while but only in this location for a day or two," said a Navy Corps hospital apprentice who had inspected the body.

Two foreign women have been abducted in Iraq and remain missing: Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole, has blonde hair, and British aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, has chestnut-coloured hair.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, meanwhile, said two French journalists kidnapped south of Baghdad nearly three months ago were thought to be in a "fairly safe" zone in Iraq.

The assessment was based on information from their driver found alive in Fallujah.

At Fallujah's main hospital, aid from the Iraqi Red Crescent was still waiting as relief workers negotiated with US troops for access to residents.

The Muslim relief agency said it fears civilians are dying of starvation and a lack of medical equipment. Of the city's 300,000 residents, as many as one-third were thought to have remained when the assault began.

"They are still in the hospital and they are trying to have the facility to distribute material in Fallujah but until now they have not been able to," said Ahmed Nasser, head of the Red Crescent's disaster management unit.

But Health Minister Alaeddin Abdul Sahib Adwan said the fears of a humanitarian crisis were groundless and that only a small number of civilians had been wounded in the week-long battle, although he admitted he was unable to obtain information about residents in the thick of the fighting.

"The ministry of health is coordinating with the Iraqi military and the multinational forces in evacuating the civilian casualties, but so far the number has been very small," Adwan told AFP.

"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.

A further 400 civilians who were not in need of treatment have also been transported out of the city over the past 48 hours, he added.

Meanwhile, with the insurgents growing bolder by the day in Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi and US troops moved in and appeared to be regaining control, an AFP correspondent there said.

Clashes took place between rebels and Iraqi security forces in the centre of Mosul, with the two sides exchanging automatic gunfire and rockets. They were particularly heavy close to the police headquarters in the Zanjali area.

The Iraqi National Guard had deployed in several districts, as well as alongside the river Tigris and in the west of the city, he said. Two police stations were retaken in the centre and the north.

Elsewhere, US helicopter and tank fire blasted a building harbouring suspected insurgents near the restive city of Baiji, also north of the Iraqi capital, killing several rebels, a US military spokesman said.

Medical sources in the city said they had received 13 Iraqi dead and 26 wounded following clashes in the city and two US air attacks, including the one in Baiji and another in nearby Siniyah.

In the restive city of Ramadi, six Iraqis were killed and five wounded during clashes between gunmen and US troops, medics said. Rebels had deployed in force in the city after the start of the assault on nearby Fallujah.

Hey Shep...how big a 'device' does your mideast solution entail?

[Ace Pace]

Probebly a re-write for the TBO story but aiming for Mecca.

Their going house to house on the entire city? how long is the operation supposed to last?

[2000AD]

"It's all significant because this is not the kind of stuff an average household has," said Lt. Kevin Kimner, 25, of Cincinnati assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. "This is better than Radio Shack."

geez, no shit sherlock

[Stofsk]

This is fucked up.

I honestly am at a loss for words. This kind of action is absolutely shocking, and it makes me angry. Really angry.

[The Cleric]

"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.

That's comforting at least. Minimal civilian casualties.

[Tribun]

"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.

That's comforting at least. Minimal civilian casualties.

If you belive these numbers, you are really naive.

[RedImperator]

"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.

That's comforting at least. Minimal civilian casualties.

That's all they've seen; the numbers are likely much higher, sadly.

[MKSheppard]

Linky

US bombs gut insurgent bunker complex
Large stockpile of weapons said destroyed

By Anne Barnard and Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | November 15, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- US forces dropped a pair of 2,000-pound bombs early yesterday morning on a bunker complex believed to be an insurgent training facility on the southern edge of this city, where the most dedicated and best trained rebel fighters are making a last stand.

The bombs shook the ground of the former insurgent stronghold and set off secondary explosions that went on for 45 minutes but could not be seen above ground, persuading officers of the Army's First Infantry Division that there were large stockpiles of weapons underground.

After nearly a week of fighting, American forces said they and their Iraqi counterparts had wrested most of the devastated city from insurgents, but continued to comb through buildings in search of an elusive enemy and to unleash heavy artillery that added to the destruction that Iraq's US-backed government will have to repair.

''It's like a drop of mercury in a maze," US Marines Major General Richard Natonski, the architect of the Fallujah operation, said yesterday of the difficulty capturing small groups of insurgents roaming the city.

''You push it in one direction and it breaks into pieces and flows all around," Natonski said on a visit to a forward command post.

On the streets of Fallujah, Marines recovered the disemboweled body of an unidentified Western woman wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket.

It is not known if the body was of Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old director of CARE international who was one of two Western women abducted last month. Polish-born Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, another longtime resident of Iraq, has also been missing since last month.

Marines reopened the infamous bridge over the Euphrates River where Iraqis strung up the charred bodies of two American contractors in March in a brutal slaying that sparked a Marine assault on the city that was ultimately called off.

As fighting wound down in Fallujah, chaos erupted elsewhere in the country, as insurgents stormed two police stations yesterday in the strife-ridden city of Mosul, killing at least six Iraqis.

Saboteurs set fire to four oil wells in Iraq's northern fields, setting off successive explosions in Khabbaza, 12 miles northwest of Kirkuk, oil officials said.

Heavy explosions rattled central Baghdad near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels after dark fell last night, followed by bursts of sporadic gunfire. The US military said initial reports indicated rockets or mortars had struck the area, killing two Iraqis and wounding another.

Thirty-eight US soldiers have been killed in the attack on Fallujah, and 275 have been wounded. The US military estimates that at least 1,200 insurgents have been killed in a week of fighting, but the toll the assault has taken on the civilian population is still unknown.

ABC pool video footage showed Marines blowing the gates off houses with explosives. A bit of bright color stood out on the gray, rubble-strewn streets -- a pink dress on the body of a small child crumpled next to the curb.

Yesterday, Natonski said the operation was a success -- despite the eruption of violence in Mosul and other parts of the Sunni triangle -- because now it would not be easy for insurgents to establish a new base like the one they had in Fallujah.

'When they're moving they're vulnerable," he said. ''They no longer have the sanctuary they used to have in Fallujah, where they could rest, refit, resupply, and go back out."

The insurgency had also lost an important symbol, he said.

''This was there in your face: 'We have Fallujah and you don't.' They can't say that anymore," Natonski said.

In an interview with Iraqi television, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi defended his decision to order the attack on Fallujah, saying he decided to strike after security forces arrested ''two very important" terrorist organizations. He did not elaborate.

Allawi said up to 400 insurgents have been captured, including fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Morocco, but he gave no figures.

The First Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 has captured five foreign fighters and killed five, officers said, adding that many foreign fighters appeared to be fleeing. A group of men in Afghan dress were seen running away, the officers said.

''They're leaving the native Fallujans to die in place," Natonski said.

The detainees included Palestinians, Jordanians, and Saudi Arabians.

The 2-2 task force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newell, said that US forces had also bombed the headquarters of Omar Hadid, one of the strongest resistance leaders in Fallujah.

Hadid is considered Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's top lieutenant in Fallujah, representing the most lethal core group of jihadi fighters in the city.

Newell said that 40 fighters were seen entering a building in a block believed to serve as Hadid's headquarters.

Troops called in airstrikes, Newell said, killing all but eight fighters who escaped.

Natonski said it was unclear if Hadid or any other key leaders such as Zarqawi had been killed or captured.

The task force intelligence officer briefed the First Infantry Division commander, Major General John Batiste, who also visited the command post, located in a dusty lot.

The intelligence officer described how at one site warplanes dropped a single bomb and two men emerged.

After a second bomb, a larger number of people fled, he said. After the third and largest bomb, several trucks drove out from the building.

Barnard reported from Fallujah, Stockman from Washington. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

[The Cleric]

"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.

That's comforting at least. Minimal civilian casualties.

If you belive these numbers, you are really naive.

I don't think that those are the final numbers, but I find that taking those and running with them is better than "Doom&Gloom"ing and making wild predictions as to the actual numbers.