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thedrifter
06-21-04, 02:08 PM
Insurgents gun down four Americans in Ramadi, South Korea rejects kidnappers' demands

By Robert H. Reid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11:24 a.m. June 21, 2004


BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents gunned down four U.S. service members west of Baghdad on Monday, and South Korea said it would go ahead with plans to send thousands more troops to Iraq despite a threat by Iraqi kidnappers to kill a South Korean seen pleading for his life on a videotape.

Elsewhere, Iraq resumed oil exports Monday, six days after attackers blasted pipelines carrying crude oil to the Basra terminal on the Persian Gulf. Iraqi officials have announced stepped-up measures to protect the oil industry – the foundation of the nation's economy.



A videotape delivered Monday to Associated Press Television News showed four Americans in uniform lying dead in what appeared to be a walled compound in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 60 miles west of Baghdad. One of the Americans was slumped in the corner of a wall.

The bodies had no flak vests – mandatory for U.S. troops operating in contested areas – and at least one was missing a boot. One fieldpack was left open next to a body as if the attackers had looted the dead before fleeing.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, confirmed the killings but gave few details. He said a U.S. quick reaction force found the bodies after the troops failed to report to their headquarters as required.

American officials had been concerned about the deteriorating security situation in Ramadi, located along a belt of Sunni militancy running westward from Baghdad along the Euphrates River.

Last week, seven Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members were arrested for planting a roadside bomb that killed a policeman and wounded seven civilians in Ramadi.

Most of the kidnappings of foreigners over the past two months are believed to have occurred along that belt.

The South Korean government said it would go ahead with plans to send another 3,000 troops to Iraq despite a threat by an Islamic extremist group to kill a South Korean man seen begging for his life on a videotape broadcast Sunday night by the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera.

"Korean soldiers, please get out of here," the man, Kim Sun-il, screamed in English. "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I know that your life is important, but my life is important."

Kim, 33, who works for a trading company in Baghdad, was believed to have been kidnapped about 10 days ago. The kidnappers claimed to be from the Monotheism and Jihad group led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain. South Korea now has 600 military medics and engineers in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

South Korean medics suspended free medical treatment to Iraqi patients because of security concerns stemming from the kidnapping, said Maj. Chun Heung-soo, a Defense Ministry spokesman in Seoul. He said the action should not be interpreted as a protest.

Hundreds of protesters attended a candlelight vigil in Seoul Monday to demand the government reverse its decision to send soldiers to Iraq.

On Saturday, a U.S. airstrike destroyed a house in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, that the United States said was a hideout for the al-Zarqawi group. Kimmitt told reporters Monday the attack killed "key personnel in the Zarqawi network" but he would not confirm that any foreign fighters were among the dead.

Iraqi officials in Fallujah, long one of the centers of anti-American militancy, maintain that the attack killed only Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi Health Ministry said at least 17 people died.

The recent kidnappings and attacks appear aimed at undermining the interim Iraqi government set to take power June 30, when the U.S.-led occupation formally ends. U.S. and Iraqi officials have vowed to go ahead with the transfer despite the violence.

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said that by the end of the week, all Iraqi government ministries would be under full Iraqi control.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has promised to crush the terrorist threat and said Sunday his administration was considering martial law in some areas to restore law and order.

"They are trying to destroy our country, and we are not going to allow this," Allawi said Sunday.

But the interim president sought to temper those remarks Monday, saying martial law was only one of several steps under consideration.

President Ghazi al-Yawer said during a meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation that Allawi's remarks were in response to a "hypothetical question asked to a member of the government."

"It's our right," al-Yawer said, while adding it was not certain to be employed. "But it's an option that we are not ruling out. If we need to do so in order to preserve our security we will do so in a way that will not pose problems to the Iraqi public."

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded about 30 miles south of Mosul, killing four IraqDi contractors and wounding four others.

Resumption of Iraqi oil exports followed intense efforts to repair the damaged pipeline. The country's other major export line, which runs from the northern oilfields to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, has been out of service since May 27 because of sabotage.

Coalition officials said that tankers were being loaded as of Monday morning at the Basra port. Analysts and traders said halting exports costs Iraq about $65 million in lost oil revenue daily.

Iran said Monday it had impounded three British military vessels and detained eight armed crewmen in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, Iraq's main link with the Persian Gulf, for entering Iranian territorial waters.

Britain confirmed it had lost contact with a patrol of a three small vessels that Royal Navy personnel were delivering to an Iraqi river patrol. It said Britain was in contact with Iran to determine the circumstances of the seizure.

The waterway that divides Iran and Iraq has long been a source of tension. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war broke out after then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein claimed the entire waterway.

Monday's incident follows a strain in Iranian-British relations after London last week helped draft a resolution rebuking Iran for past nuclear cover-ups.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040621-1124-iraq.html

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/images/040621killed.jpg

This is a frame from a videotape, which was delivered to Associated Press Television News, showing the bodies of U.S. service members, still in uniform, after four were killed in the Sunni Muslim city of Ramadi, Iraq. Residents said the Americans were killed in an ambush with Iraqi resistance fighters but no further details were available.



Ellie:mad:

HardJedi
06-21-04, 03:19 PM
know what kinda gets me besides the obvious? The whole" insurgent stronghold"
HELLO! if we know it is a stronghold of the enemy, WHY is it still occupying this part of reality?

stalkmaster
06-21-04, 05:50 PM
It appears these galliant men are marines according to press
reports. Pictures like this really p--s me off. Especially that the
bodies were looted. When in the hell are we going to quit playing
games, when the death toll reaches 2000.

I say Rest in Peace My brothers... Semper Fi!!

yellowwing
06-21-04, 06:36 PM
From ABC News Australia (http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newstories/RANewsStories_1137188.htm)
United States Brigadier-General, Mark Kimmitt says the latest target was a building site west of Baghdad.

"This morning we had servicemen operating in the vicinity of the city of Ramadi," he reported.

"As you might expect, they report in to the higher headquarters at certain intervals. There was a time when they should have reported in and did not report in. We sent a quick reaction force to their location. I can report that we do have four servicemen dead as part of that combat action," General Kimmitt said.

What the heck is a fire team doing patrolling on their own? One of our platoons can hold their own on pretty much any size ambush. Time to bring out 155s and sweep out the Ramadi trash!

Rest easy Brothers, Semper Fi

snipowsky
06-21-04, 06:38 PM
I'm so EFFIN ****ED right now. Those are pictures of my dead brothers. I can tell by the digi-cams. We are most definitely pussy footing around if my brothers are getting caught up like this. No doubt. I only wish I could serve again. I would. Rest in peace my brother teufelhundens. You will not be forgotten! Not as long as I live!

My only question is what unit is this?

WillManning
06-21-04, 08:32 PM
OK, now I've shed a tear.

Semper Fi-Brothers

MillRatUSMC
06-21-04, 10:33 PM
I'm angry but I don't know who or where to aim it at.
We see pictures and we hear reports by reports and Central Command.
We have to await a report by an investigating body.
As who to blame and why were these four Marines by themselves.
Says that they were in a compound, not wearing their flak jackets.
They appear to have in t-shirts, and one pack was opened.
It might appear that they had stop to eat.
Can't let your guard down, these insurgents are waiting for these kind of moments.
PAYBACK will be a mother...
The world cries about the "abuse" of a couple prisoners, and not a word will be said about the death of these four Marines.
May they rest in peace, in God's name we pray...I feel for the families and parents of these four Marines...

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

thedrifter
06-23-04, 11:36 AM
4 Marines heroic to very end



BY JONATHAN LEMIRE and RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Four Marines killed in Ramadi were elite snipers sent on a dangerous mission into the hostile town to pick off terrorists, the family of one of the slain troops said yesterday.
The four - highly trained marksmen who were one of the U.S.' most lethal weapons against insurgents in the restive Sunni town and in the infamous siege of Fallujah - were killed Monday, far from any backup. One of the soldiers had been the sole survivor of another attack in Ramadi last April, an incident that led him to take on the more dangerous role of a sniper.

"All he ever dreamed about was being a Marine," said Robin Otey, 45, mother of Lance Cpl. Deshon Otey, 24, of Hardin, Ky.

"He was the consummate Marine - reserved, soft-spoken, would only speak when spoken to. He lived for the Marines," she said.

"I know he's been successful . . . in shooting a lot of people."

The heavily camouflaged sniper teams operate independently, often in hiding for days at a time.

They were so effective in Fallujah in April, insurgents put a bounty on their heads.

Otey and three other Marine snipers - including Cpl. Tommy Parker, 21, of Cleburne, Ark., and Lance Cpl. Pedro Contreras, 27, of Harris, Tex. - were found shot to death Monday in a walled compound.

It was unclear how the crack unit met its end, but the four were operating without nearby backup in Ramadi, a center of unrest in the Sunni Triangle about 20 miles west of Baghdad.

When they failed to make radio checks, a reaction force raided the town and found their bodies. Video given to Associated Press TV News showed the Marines sprawled in a courtyard and stripped of body armor.

"They haven't told me anything yet" about the circumstances of her son's death, Robin Otey said. "The Marines came early Monday morning but missed me, since I was at work.

"When I got home that evening, I saw them and knew what was coming - I know what their blue dress suits mean," the mother said.

Otey, whose 20-year-old son, Ronald, also is a Marine - waiting to go to Iraq - said when she initially saw the Marines on her doorstep, "I just didn't know which son of mine was gone.

"When they said it was Deshon, my world felt like it was ending," she said. "I am devastated and so hurt by what those monsters did to my son."

Otey said the April ambush killed five of her son's buddies.

"His Jeep was ambushed, and he was the only member to make it out alive," she said. "I thought it was a miracle, but now he's been taken from us."

The corporal called home once a week, and spoke to his mother two days before he was killed, thanking her for a package of food, Gatorade and horror-movie DVDs.

"Don't worry, I'll be safe - I always am," Deshon told his mother. He then told her he loved her, his last words to her.

"I don't want my other sons to go to Iraq now," Robin Otey said. "I don't think I can handle losing another."

Originally published on June 23, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/205478p-177369c.html


Ellie

HardJedi
06-23-04, 02:57 PM
rest in peace, brothers.

MillRatUSMC
06-23-04, 06:48 PM
Now the question;
"What happen to the sniper rifles that those Marine snipers were using?
Besides any other high tech equipment.
Now there has to be a review of how to deploy these snipers and what will be their backup.

http://www.geocities.com/millrat_99/index.html

"The saddest part of the job that I have undertaken is that the armed services by their nature, represent the last resort,
when rational solutions to the country's problems have failed."
~ Lt. Cmdr. Harry Mossman US Navy ~
Remains recover in 1992 and indentified recently.

"A man or woman is measured
by the footprint,
he or she leaves behind".

"They were the best you had, America,
and you turned your back on them".
~ Joe Galloway ~ Speaking about Vietnam Veterans

"The price of Freedom is buried in the ground."
~ Author Unknown ~

TO THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES
THAT OTHERS MAY SAY PROUDLY
I AM A MARINE

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

CPLRapoza
06-24-04, 05:31 AM
Staff Sergeant, that is a very good question, I to would like to know where there gear has gone.

DSchmitke
06-24-04, 09:01 AM
Rest In Peace Marines