8 American's killed ???

[TrailerParkJawa]

I've been up since 2:30am cause the some local talk show host on the radio say's that 8 soliders were killed in Iraq yesterday and the Pentagon is not fessing up to it. This brought me out of my slumber and now I cant get back to sleep 3 hours later.

Anyway, it really upset me cause I cant confirm it. The only sources that say 8 soliders died all refer to Al-Arabiya television station.

Does anyone have a credible source on this, Im inclined to believe the story is simply wrong. A product of early confusion after a battle. Here is one of the links, there was another story on the French Lemonde website but I cant find it now.

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publis ... 4923.shtml

[Gil Hamilton]

I heard something just seconds ago on CNN, but they said only three of our soldiers died and two injured and the ambush was bad for the Iraqi fighters, as we took a bunch of them prisoner and more dead.

[Gil Hamilton]

Here's a link from the BBC.

[Vympel]

KHALDIYAH, Iraq, Sept 18 (AFP) - Cries of triumph and allegiance to Saddam Hussein mixed with the joyous honking of car horns for weddings here Thursday as locals celebrated the ambush of a US convoy on the "highway of death."

About 200 demonstrators gathered at the site where the Americans reportedly took heavy casualties. They brandished bits of US vehicles, hoisted portraits of Saddam and pledged to die for the US-ousted leader.

"With our blood, with our soul, we will sacrifice for you O Saddam," they chanted once the US tanks cleared out from this town 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad. Others wailed, "Saddam is the glory of my country."

With traditional Thursday evening wedding corteges trying to snake through the crowd, residents here recounted the attack on the convoy, giving it epic dimensions in the telling.

"The mujahedeen were lying in wait for hours," said a man in a red keffiyeh (headdress) who lives near the road. "They had video cameras. I saw them near the mosque. When they attacked they filmed the operation."

The man surveyed the blue dome of the mosque, situated on a slope in the road where the ambusher staked out their prey.

"They attacked the first convoy that passed. The Americans will be attacked and killed all along the road between Ramadi and Fallujah. It's the highway of death," exulted the man, who refused to give his name.

Around him echoed shouts of glee from the crowd that barely drowned out the horns of cars packed with smiling men, abundantly made up women and young girls from the numerous marriage parties.

"We struck them here, there and there," said Adel Faidawi, 22, dressed in greasy, torn overalls and pointing his finger at where the US vehicles were caught by the ambush.

A witness said the attack was launched by a bomb that exploded under a transport vehicle which caught fire. The rest of the convoy was hit with rocket-propelled grenades as it tried to limp back to base in nearby Ramadi.

Residents said they saw several badly burned soldiers pulled out of a flaming vehicle, but the US military would not confirm heavy casualties and said only that two soldiers were wounded in an attack near Ramadi.

The Americans said they had no knowledge of a deadly ambush in Khaldiyah, but the dozens of shell casings on the side of the road along with burning remains of tires testified to a fierce clash.

Ali Khaled Ismail al-Azzawi, a local tribal chief clad in Bedouin robes, said that the Americans were lying when they say the problems in Iraq were confined to a "Sunni triangle" west and north of Baghdad.

"All Iraqis are united in the jihad (holy war), whether they be Kurds, Arabs, Sunnis or Shiites," he said.

"We don't need America, we did not ask for their help," Azzawi said. "We pulled off the revolution in 1920 against the British."

One of his relatives, Yasser Khodayyir al-Azzawi, 45, came with him to get a first-hand look at the US setback. He thinks the Americans are simply reaping the whirlwind they have sown.

"It gives me great cause for joy because we are fighting an occupying power that has come with false promises and brought chaos to the country," he said.

Yasser Khodayyir recalled bitterly how the Americans dropped leaflets from the sky during the war promising the Iraqis a better life once they got rid of Saddam.

"All that was lies," he hissed. But asked if he missed the old regime, he became quiet and slightly embarrassed.

"We want progress but things were better in the days of Saddam," he said. "At least there was order and security."

So the Mujhadeen are now recording their assaults. Expect to see morbid video footage hit the internet, Chechnya style. Or- it could be for propaganda consumption at home. Anyway, here's a happy fellow:



I heard 8 killed too, but I'd suspect only 3 were killed and the rest is just wounded who looked dead and/or simple error. Or they're covering it up, and will release it as an accident later to soften the impact- whatever works.

[Vympel]

Actually, they're already releasing tapes:

A resistance group in Iraq has made a videotape showing members of the group planning and carrying out an attack against U.S. forces in the treacherous "Sunni Triangle" in central Iraq.


The tape, which is believed to be the first videotape of its kind to surface, sheds light on the shadowy groups that have been carrying out daily attacks on U.S. troops. It was obtained by Time magazine and shared with ABCNEWS.

The 27-minute tape shows a Sept. 6 attack on an ammunition dump guarded by U.S. troops on the outskirts of the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

It opens in the dark with a pre-operational briefing conducted by a resistance commander. The commander instructs his foot soldiers of the plan for the attack, drawing diagrams in the dust. He tells one unit, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, to stay behind a hill, and a second unit, armed with mortars, to position themselves behind a second hill. The instructions go on for several minutes.

"It seems their ultimate objective was to destroy American armor and kill as many American troops as they could," said Time reporter Michael Ware, who obtained the tape. Ware said he did not solicit the tape, but that contacts he had made with a group fighting in the name of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered it to the house where he was staying in Baghdad.

On the tape, the fighters refer to themselves as "Mohammed's Second Army." Ware said the group's full name is the Armed Vanguard of Mohammed's Second Army, and said they apparently made the videotape as a propaganda tool.

After the briefing, the tape shows the attack as it gets under way.

"We ... see the extraordinary lights of the explosions," said Ware. "We see the lights flaring into the night sky."

Locals who witnessed the attack later described it to Ware as if "night became day," he said.

The third scene on the video shows the fighters returning to debrief their commander on what they claimed to have achieved in the attack.

Sending a Message

Members of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment who watched the tape today confirmed there was an attack on the ammunition dump in their area on Sept. 6. They said there were no U.S. casualties and no damage done to U.S. equipment.

Ware believes the group sent him the tape to "send a message to the American people."

A voice on the tape says: "This was the work of the Iraqi Mujahedeen. We will never let anybody come here to occupy or rebuild Iraq. We are the powerful striking hand for Saddam."

The group's members say they are prepared to die for Saddam, Ware told ABCNEWS.

According to Ware, there is a wide range of resistance groups currently conducting operations activities against the U.S. forces in the area west of Baghdad. He said three types of groups are conducting the attacks: hard-core Fedayeen, who are die-hard Saddam loyalists; newly emerging Islamist groups rising up against the Americans in the name of Islamic jihad; and a number of homegrown groups who are simply fed up with the American occupation.

'These groups are operating independently," said Ware. "However, there is a loose coalition. They appear, from what I have learned, to be sharing weapons, sharing intelligence, sharing personnel."

Ware said members of the Mohammed's Second Army group were Saddam supporters who also espoused militant Islam.

?We Are Not Alone?

Some of the officers who watched the tape today said it confirmed what they have noticed lately ? that recent attacks seem less rash and appear to reflect more planning. The 3rd Armored has seen 17 of its men killed in the so-called Sunni Triangle since April.

But others who saw the tape were less impressed.

"It is kids doing it," said Maj. Tony Aguto, a commander at the American base at Ramadi, in the hostile Sunni heartland. "Someone is paying them to do this. They are ragtag."

Another portion of the tape shows the aftermath of a different attack, on Iraq's Highway 10 on Sept. 11, 2003, in which one U.S. soldier was wounded. The tape shows Iraqi civilians celebrating the attack, jumping around and shouting pro-Saddam slogans.

"They're telling us, 'We are not alone,'" said Ware, "that they had the support of the people around them, the civilian population."

Col. David Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, argues that, overwhelmingly, most Iraqis in his area are ready to cooperate with the coalition.Today he hosted a group of local leaders who appeared comfortable discussing community needs with Americans.

According to Teeples, the idea that Iraqis would cheer after an attack like this is not believable ? he believes they were paid to cheer.

[:lol: don't you love it when someone believes their own bullshit? Paid to cheer? Sure, whatever]

Maybe so. But even the threat of violence is still chilling. This week, in the town of Fallujah, someone posted a sign at the entrance reading, "To all our brother drivers ... we are warning you for the last time that when you get near Americans you are risking your life. You might be destroyed by the mujahedeen at any time. God as our witness."

[Howedar]

So why didn't we napalm the party?

[Gil Hamilton]

So why didn't we napalm the party?

From what I've heard of the battle, our gunships tore them a new one.

[Sea Skimmer]

First I heard five killed, then it was three, then it was three but possibly two others ad died, then it was back to three. I've never heard eight dead, that could be correct if it was dead and wounded though.

"We don't need America, we did not ask for their help," Azzawi said. "We pulled off the revolution in 1920 against the British."

I wonder if they remember what happened in 1941?

[Chardok]

Okay, let's just go. They don't need us. Let em rebuild on their own.
HAVE FUN, LOSERS! AAAHAHAHAHA!!!



As an aside, I do not agree that we needed to go to iraq in the first place. But since we are there...and we DID blast them back to the stone age, might as well give em real power plants and stuff.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Well, its been a long time since the initial report and I think the claim of 8 dead was unfounded. The Mercury news today said some locals claimed that many dead, but the Army said 3. I dont see any reason for the Army to try and hide 8 deaths for a few days. Im glad it was not 8.

[Uraniun235]

As an aside, I do not agree that we needed to go to iraq in the first place. But since we are there...and we DID blast them back to the stone age, might as well give em real power plants and stuff.

What a disgusting exercise in hyperbole. If you want to see shit truly "blasted into the stone age", look at the WW2 bombing campaigns, culminating in the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There may have still been a lot of collateral damage, but nowhere on the level it could have been.

[TrailerParkJawa]

As an aside, I do not agree that we needed to go to iraq in the first place. But since we are there...and we DID blast them back to the stone age, might as well give em real power plants and stuff.

What a disgusting exercise in hyperbole. If you want to see shit truly "blasted into the stone age", look at the WW2 bombing campaigns, culminating in the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There may have still been a lot of collateral damage, but nowhere on the level it could have been.

I think Afghanistan is the best contender for a country living in the stone age. Although, we didnt send them there. They chose it.

[Chardok]

As an aside, I do not agree that we needed to go to iraq in the first place. But since we are there...and we DID blast them back to the stone age, might as well give em real power plants and stuff.

What a disgusting exercise in hyperbole. If you want to see shit truly "blasted into the stone age", look at the WW2 bombing campaigns, culminating in the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There may have still been a lot of collateral damage, but nowhere on the level it could have been.

I wouldn't call it disgusting....more like...i don't know...but not disgusting...