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thedrifter
04-11-04, 07:34 AM
Fighting north of Baghdad kills 40 Iraqis
By Lourdes Navarro
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:57 p.m. April 10, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq – Hundreds of reinforcements joined Marines besieging Fallujah on Saturday, and the military said it would move to take the entire city if negotiations fail. Fighting raged through the center of the country, killing 40 Iraqis and an American airman.

Gunfire crackled in Fallujah even as Iraqi government negotiators met with city leaders, trying to persuade them to hand over militants who killed and mutilated four Americans in the city March 31.

Nearly 60,000 Fallujah residents – about a third of the population – have streamed out of the city over the past two days, a Marine commander said.

Militants struck a U.S. air base with mortars in Balad, north of Baghdad, killing the airman. Other fighters attacked government buildings and police stations in Baqouba, setting off firefights in which about 40 Iraqis were killed. Several U.S. troops were wounded, said Capt. Issam Bornales, spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade.

Insurgents also fought U.S. troops in Baghdad's northern, mainly Sunni neighborhood of al-Azamiyah.

Masked gunmen played havoc on the road between Baghdad and Fallujah, a key supply route, rocketing a second fuel convoy in the area in as many days. Nearby, guerrillas hit a U.S. tank with an rocket-propelled grenade, setting it ablaze.

Militants threatened to kill and mutilate Thomas Hamill, an American civilian captured Friday during another convoy ambush in the same area – the latest in a series of kidnappings in Iraq. They demanded troops withdraw from Fallujah.

"Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques," a spokesman said in a videotape given to the Al-Jazeera television network. Hamill was shown in front of an Iraqi flag.

"If you don't respond within 12 hours ... he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah."

Four American civilian workers were killed, burned to death, mutilated and hanged from the Euphrates River bridg in Fallujah last week.

Two U.S. servicemembers and several contract employees were still unaccounted for from attacks on Friday, a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Commander Dan Hetlage, said Saturday.

Militants continued to hold hostage two aid workers – a Canadian and an Arab from Jerusalem – but announced they would free three Japanese civilians.

The kidnappers of the Japanese, identifying themselves as the "Muhahedeen Squadron," said they made the decision after mediation by the Islamic Clerics Committee, a Sunni organization, Al-Jazeera reported.

In a statement, the kidnappers urged the Japanese public to press their government to withdraw its troops from Iraq, the station said.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt called on Fallujah's insurgents to join a bilateral cease-fire. But he said a third battalion of Marines had moved to the city – joining two battalions totaling 1,200 troops and a battalion of Iraqi security forces already in place.

Kimmitt warned that if talks between city leaders and members of the Iraqi Governing Council did not produce results, the military would consider renewing its assault on Fallujah. Marine commanders in Fallujah were skeptical the talks would succeed.

"The prospect of some city father walking in and making 'Joe Jihadi' give himself up are pretty slim," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Batallion, 5th Marine Regiment.

"What is coming is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah ... they have two choices: Submit or die," he told reporters.

Sporadic gunfire could be heard Saturday in the city. Kimmitt said Marines were respecting a unilateral halt in offensive operations called Friday but said gunmen continued to fire on troops, who were responding. Byrne said the new battalion pushed a small distance into the northeast corner of the city before stopping to allow the council delegation to enter.

"Were we not at this point observing suspension of offensive operations ... it could well have been that we would have had the entire the city by this point," Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.

In the north of the country, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent's Irbil office, Barzan Umer Mantik, and his wife were attacked and killed Saturday in their car in the nearby city of Mosul, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The German Foreign Ministry said two security agents from its embassy in Baghdad have been missing for several days. It gave no further details, but Germany's ZDF and ARD television reported that the missing were two Germans, 38 and 25 years old, who were ambushed Wednesday while on a routine trip from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad.

ARD said the two were agents with GSG-9, a counterterrorism unit trained in freeing hostages and other commando missions.

In the south Saturday, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr remained in control of Karbala and nearby Najaf and Kufa.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are in Karbala and other Shiite cities to mark al-Arbaeen, the end of the mourning period for a 7th-century martyred Shiite saint. Ceremonies are to be held until Sunday night.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, meanwhile, made a surprise visit to Italian troops in the southern city of Nasiriyah, which saw fighting with al-Sadr followers earlier in the week but has largely become quiet in the meantime.

"I bring you the embrace of the Italians," he told the troops. "Your actions are in support of peace, for the fight against terrorism, and in defense of democracy."

The U.S. military's death toll from the week of fighting across the country stood at 47. The fighting has killed more than 500 Iraqis – including more than 280 in Fallujah, a hospital official said. At least 648 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

In other violence Saturday:

– Gunmen attacked a checkpoint of Iraqi security forces near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqi security members, said the head of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in the city. The attackers kidnapped three other ICDC members, said Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin.

– A member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Ahmed al-Barak, was attacked while travelling from Hilla to Baghdad. He escaped unharmed but three bodyguards were wounded, a council spokesman said.



AP correspondent Abdul-Qader Saadi in Fallujah and Daniel Cooney in Baghdad contributed to this report.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040410-1257-iraq.html


Ellie

thedrifter
04-11-04, 07:35 AM
Militants threaten to kill, mutiliate American hostage unless troops withdraw from Fallujah




ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:06 p.m. April 10, 2004

BAGHDAD – Militants on Saturday threatened to kill and mutilate Thomas Hamill, an American civilian captured during the ambush of a convoy west of Baghdad.

In a videotape given to the Al-Jazeera television network, Hamill was shown in front of an Iraqi flag. A spokesman off camera demanded that U.S. troops end their siege of the city of Fallujah, where four American civilians were killed and mutilated last week.

"Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques," a spokesman said in a tape given to the Al-Jazeera television network. "If you don't respond within 12 hours ... he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah."

Hamill was captured by gunmen who rocketed a fuel convoy on the road between Baghdad and Fallujah on Friday. He identified himself to a reporter for Australian television seconds before being whisked away in a car by gunmen.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040410-1206-iraq-ushostage.html


Ellie

thedrifter
04-11-04, 09:45 AM
Gunmen Shoot Down U.S. Helicopter in Iraq

Sunday April 11, 2004 1:01 PM


By LOURDES NAVARRO

Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen shot down a U.S. attack helicopter during fighting in western Baghdad on Sunday, and the fate of its two-member crew was unknown. Insurgents and Marines called a cease-fire in the besieged city of Fallujah, though the peace was shaken by sniper fire.

A pall of black smoke rose on Baghdad's western edge where a military spokesman said the A8-64 Apache helicopter was downed by ground fire in the morning. More helicopters circled overhead, while U.S. troops closed off the main highway - a key supply route into the capital.

``The condition of the (Apache's) crew is unknown,'' the spokesman said.

Heavy firing was heard, and tanks and Humvees moved into the area, near the suburb of Abu Ghraib, where masked gunmen have wreaked havoc for the past three days, attacking fuel convoys and blowing up tanker trucks. Insurgents kidnapped an American civilian and killed a U.S. soldier in the area Friday.

The captors of the American hostage - Thomas Hammil, a Mississippi native who works for a U.S. contractor in Iraq - threatened to kill and burn him unless U.S. troops end their assault on Fallujah by 6 a.m. Sunday. The deadline passed with no word on Hammil's fate.

Video footage aired on Arabic television Sunday showed the bodies of two dead Westerners - apparently a pair of Americans seen by APTN cameramen on Friday being dragged out of a car on the Abu Ghraib highway, in a different incident from Hammil's kidnapping.

The cameramen fled the scene Friday, and the fate of the two men was unknown. But one of the bodies in Sunday's footage resembled one of the Americans taken out of the car.

The new footage showed the bodies surrounded by gunmen, who are heard on the tape saying the two are American intelligence officers. One of the bodies lay sprawled on the pavement, his face bloodied and his right leg drenched in blood. The other body had been rolled face down, his shirt lifted to reveal a bullet hole in his back. Both wore dark t-shirts and khaki pants often worn by private contractors.

Meanwhile, in Fallujah - 35 miles west of Baghdad - a rebel sniper shot and wounded two U.S. Marines patrolling an industrial zone on Sunday and an ensuing gunbattle left at least one of the insurgents dead. The violence came despite an apparent cease-fire and as negotiators held a third round of meetings aimed at ending the fighting.

Sunni militants told Arab TV stations that they had agreed to a U.S.-offered truce and vowed that it would hold until Sunday night.

The shooting occurred in the city's southeastern region. One of the Marines was shot in the head, the other in a leg, said Marine Capt. Jason Smith. They were evacuated to a field hospital and their condition was unknown.

He said troops shot and killed the sniper and also shot at four rebels who were spotted nearby running with rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Smith, 30, from Baton Rogue, La., said the shooting showed the rebels were not serious in abiding by the truce.

``We've got one (a cease-fire) in place, evidently they don't,'' he said.

Beside the clash, which lasted for several minutes, only sporadic gunfire could be heard around the city.

Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which is deployed in the city's south, had said earlier that the rebels had not shot at them for several hours. He said the Marines would not launch offensive attacks against the insurgents.

The talks - the third round between members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council and Fallujah representatives - were scheduled to be held between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday, Byrne said.

A guerrilla commander in Fallujah's al-Jolan neighborhood told Al-Jazeera television that his fighters would abide by the truce.

``I have ordered my fighters to adhere to the cease-fire. We will stop operations as long as the other side does as well,'' said the commander, identifying himself only by the nom de guerre Abu Muadh. ``But I warn everyone: If the enemy breaks the cease-fire, we will respond.''

He added that the truce was due to last until 10 p.m. and that talks were being held aimed at extending it.

About a third of Fallujah's population of 200,000 have fled the city since noon Friday when the Marines announced a unilateral pause of their offensive, according to U.S. commanders. Women and children piled into pickups and clung to the outside of packed minivans. U.S. forces barred men of fighting age from leaving.

Marines used the relative lull in fighting Sunday to search for weapon caches in the industrial area, which they have occupied for several days and used as a staging area for raids into adjoining neighborhoods. Troops used sledge hammers to smash locks on doors of metal workshops before searching inside.

One group of Marines went into a four-story apartment building on the outskirts of the industrial zone and escorted members of three families sheltering there to a nearby warehouse to stock up on food and other supplies.

``Families are holed up in houses. They have been told to stay inside. But they are running out of water and food. We are trying to get rations to them,'' Smith said.

There was no confirmation from U.S. commanders that a cease-fire with the rebels had been struck.

But Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council, said the militants agreed in principle to a truce starting Sunday, but the deal depended on the doubtful prospect of American soldiers withdrawing from the city.

U.S. commanders have said that for a truce to hold, the militants must hand over the Iraqis who killed and mutilated four American civilians on March 31 and allow the return of Iraqi police to their stations to keep order, Othman said.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters Saturday that fighters must also ``lay down their arms'' and renounce their membership in extremist groups to fully end the insurgency that has made Fallujah its stronghold.

The Marines have moved in reinforcements around Fallujah and have warned of an assault to take the entire city if negotiations fall through.

Hospital officials on Wednesday said the Iraqi death toll was 280. No figure has been released since then. Five Marines have been killed in the fighting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3965258,00.html

Ellie

thedrifter
04-11-04, 06:57 PM
Religious faith in evidence at U.S. military base near Fallujah

BY PATRICK PETERSON

Knight Ridder Newspapers


CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - (KRT) - Navy Capt. Bradley Sickler, the deputy chaplain for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, sums up pretty easily the sentiments of hundreds of Marines and sailors based here after a week of some of the deadliest fighting since U.S. troops entered Iraq.

"It doesn't feel like Easter at home," he said.

When Marines and sailors gather at sunrise Sunday for a traditional Easter service, they'll be wearing helmets and protective vests in case of attack.

In Fallujah, where Marines have dug in as officials of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council attempt to negotiate a cease-fire, chaplains will venture from unit to unit, holding informal services wherever possible.

In the midst of battle, many say they have seen a strengthening of religious faith. Convoys often gather in prayer before heading "outside the wire."

"After any kind of close hit, you get a spike in visitors," said Lt. Marc Massie, a resident of Diamondhead, Miss., and chaplain for Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74, a "Seabee" construction unit based in Gulfport, Miss.

"Anybody that comes in, I offer to pray with them," Massie said. "Everyone has walked out feeling so much better."

Many of those now stationed at this former Iraqi military base a few miles outside of the disputed city of Fallujah have seen little of the combat that has claimed the lives of at least 20 Marines around Anbar province. At night, a handful of mortar rounds land around the camp, doing little damage. Artillery and machine-gun fire can be heard and tracer rounds seen, but the battle is several miles away.

Here, the impact of the fighting has been felt in other ways.

Meals have become less lavish at the dining hall, as fighting along roadways has all but halted the convoys that bring food to camp.

Iraqi workers have stopped coming to work, so the portable toilets are full.

A mail truck burned after an attack several days ago, and many now wonder whether they lost a letter from home.

The Seabee unit had been assigned here as part of what was supposed to be a stint building public-works projects _schools, playgrounds, and the like. It was billed as an effort to win the hearts and minds of the mostly Sunni Muslims who live near and in Fallujah.

But those projects are now on hold. The Seabees find themselves doing quite different duty: filling sandbags, building checkpoint barriers, and welding fresh steel to under-protected Humvees. Saturday, a unit went "outside the wire" to scout possible sites for camps to house refugees from the fighting.

Marine chaplains had brought along books and school supplies as gifts for the children of Fallujah - something they thought would help build bridges between the American and Iraqi people.

"Sadly, so far we haven't been able to make those bridges," Sickler said.

Instead, Easter services take on a special meaning.

"Sometimes in the challenging times, we can see the hand of God," said Catholic Chaplain John Gwudz, a Navy captain and chaplain for the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "Under these circumstances, we've found family."

Said Lance Cpl Joshua Langston, 20, of Augusta, Ga., who attends church service three times a week at Camp Fallujah, "It lets us know we're not alone."

---

© 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/world/8403372.htm


Ellie