Troops Pound Insurgents In Mosul

[thedrifter]

Troops Pound Insurgents In Mosul
Associated Press
November 12, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops pounded insurgents in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, after guerrillas attacked police stations and bridges in an apparent attempt to relieve pressure on Fallujah, where American forces continued their assault on the rebel stronghold.

Insurgents Thursday tried to break through the U.S. cordon surrounding Fallujah, where an estimated 600 insurgents, 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the four-day assault, the U.S. military said. At least 178 Americans and 34 Iraqi soldiers have been wounded.

Smoke rose over Mosul on Thursday as U.S. warplanes streaked overhead. City officials warned residents to stay away from the five major bridges. Militants brandishing rocket-propelled grenades stood in front of a hospital.

Saadi Ahmed, a senior member of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said nine police stations were attacked and that "Iraqi police turned some stations over to the terrorists."

"The internal security forces ... are a failure and are ineffective because some of them are cooperating with the terrorists," Ahmed said.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Capt. Angela Bowman, said it could take "some time until we fully secure" Mosul.

An Iraqi journalist in Fallujah reported seeing burned U.S. vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper.

Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A U.S. tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were afraid to go there, he said.


"People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves."

Many of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault. It is impossible to determine how many civilians who were not actively fighting the Americans or assisting the insurgents may have been killed.

Commanders said 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed in Fallujah before the offensive.

Elsewhere, a series of attacks throughout central Iraq underscored the nation's perilous security. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded Thursday moments after a U.S. patrol passed, killing 17 bystanders and wounding 30. There were no U.S. casualties.

A car bomb exploded in Kirkuk as the governor's convoy was passing, killing a bystander and wounding 14 people. Three Iraqis were killed in a shootout between U.S. troops and insurgents in Samarra. Two car bombs injured eight people in Hillah.

Al-Jazeera television aired a videotape showing what the station said was an American contractor of Lebanese origin held hostage in Iraq. The middle-aged man carried a U.S. passport and an identification card in the name of Dean Sadek. Al-Jazeera did not air any audio but quoted Sadek as saying all businesses should stop cooperating with U.S. authorities.

Most of the insurgents still fighting in Fallujah are believed to have fallen back to southern districts ahead of the advancing U.S. and Iraqi forces, although fierce clashes were reported in the west of the city around the public market.

American officers said the majority of the insurgent mortar and machine-gun fire Thursday was directed at U.S. military units forming a cordon around the city to prevent guerrillas from slipping away.

Officers said that suggested the insurgents were trying to break out of Fallujah rather than defend it.

Meanwhile, two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said. The four pilots were rescued, though one suffered slight injuries.

At a U.S. camp outside Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the operation was running "ahead of schedule," but he would not predict how many days of fighting lay ahead.

He said troops had found an arms cache in "almost every single mosque in Fallujah."

Natonski also said he had visited a "slaughterhouse" in the northern Jolan neighborhood where hostages were held and possibly killed by militants. He described a small room with no windows and just one door. He said he saw two thin mattresses, straw mats covered in blood and a wheelchair that apparently was used to transport captives.

U.S. officials believe the al-Qaida-linked terror movement of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, used Fallujah as a base. They said they believe al-Zarqawi may have slipped away before the offensive.

In April, Fallujah militants fought Marines to a standstill during a three-week siege, which the Bush administration called off amid public criticism over civilian casualties.

The current offensive was begun so the government can hold national elections in January, although Sunni clerics have called a boycott to protest the Fallujah operation.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured. He called the Fallujah offensive "very, very successful" but said it would not spell the end of the insurgency.

"If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope," Myers told NBC.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Troops Push Deeper Into Fallujah

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - American forces pushed deeper into the southern reaches of Fallujah, cornering militants backed into smaller pockets of the city. Hundreds of men trying to flee were turned back by U.S. troops


In Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites)'s third largest city, guerrillas launched mass attacks against police stations and political party offices in what could be a bid to relieve pressure on their allies here.


On Friday, Army and Marine units moved to tighten their security cordon around the beseiged city, backed by FA-18s and AC-130 gunships.


Some three to four dozen militants tried to break out towards the south and east late Thursday but were repelled by U.S. troops, the military said.


U.S. forces were also positioned to the west near key bridges, blocking rebels from crossing the Euphrates River with patrol boats.


Troops have cut off all roads and bridges leading out of the city and have turned back hundreds of men who have tried to flee the city during the assault. Only women, children and the elderly are being allowed to leave.


The military says keeping men aged 15 to 55 from leaving is key to the mission's success.


"If they're not carrying a weapon, you can't tell who's who," said one officer with the 1st Cavalry Division.


A U.S. soldier was killed Thursday night when his tank rolled over near Fallujah, the military said.


Another American soldier was killed in northern Mosul during "combat operations" there Thursday, the military said.


In Iraq's third-largest city, guerrillas assaulted nine police stations on Thursday, overwhelming several, and battled U.S. and Iraqi troops around bridges across the Tigris River in the city, where a curfew had been imposed a day earlier.


In Baghdad Friday, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. troops, arrested a hardline Sunni cleric and about two dozen others after a raid of his Baghdad mosque uncovered weapons caches along with photographs of recent attacks on American troops, the U.S. military and the Iraqi National Guard said.


Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, a conservative Sunni organization, was detained Thursday, along with 25 others, the U.S. military said.


A car bomb in the capital Thursday exploded Thursday moments after a U.S. patrol passed on Saadoun Street, killing 17 bystanders and wounding 30.


The four-day Fallujah offensive has killed some 600 insurgents, 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military said. An additional 178 Americans and 34 Iraqi soldiers have been injured, the military said.


Overnight, U.S. troops launched another mass offensvie south of the main east-west highway that bisects Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold 40 miles west of Baghdad.


An Iraqi journalist in the city reported seeing burned U.S. vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper.





Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A U.S. tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were afraid to go there, he said.

"People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves."

Many, if not most, of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault. It is impossible to determine how many civilians who were not actively fighting the Americans or assisting the insurgents may have been killed.

Commanders said they believe 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were in Fallujah before the offensive.

Most of the insurgents still fighting in Fallujah are believed to have fallen back to southern districts ahead of the advancing U.S. and Iraqi forces, although fierce clashes were reported in the west of the city around the public market.

Meanwhile, two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said. The four pilots were rescued, though one suffered slight injuries.

At a U.S. camp outside Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the operation was running "ahead of schedule" but he would not predict how many days of fighting lay ahead.

He said militants have been using mosques as military strong-points.

"In almost ever single mosque in Fallujah, we have found an arms cache," he said. "We have found IED-making (bomb-making) factories. We have found fortifications. We've been shot at by snipers from minarets."

Natonski also said he had visited a "slaughterhouse" in the northern Jolan neighborhood where hostages were held and possibly killed by militants. He described a small room with no windows and just one door. He said he saw two thin mattresses, straw mats covered in blood and a wheelchair that apparently was used to transport captives.

Also, a Fox News reporter embedded with India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment said the unit found five bodies in a locked house in northwest Fallujah on Wednesday. All the victims were shot in the back of the head. Their identities were not known, although there were indications they were civilians, the report said.

Late Thursday, Marines found the Syrian driver captured with two French journalists in August inside an undisclosed location in Fallujah. Capt. Ed Bitanga said the man told military officials he had been separated from the journalists about a month ago.

On Aug. 20, Christian Chesnot, 37, with Radio France Internationle, and Georges Malbrunot, 41, with Le Figaro, disappeared along with their Syrian driver Mohammed al-Joundi on a trip to the holy city of Najaf. A militant group calling itself "the Islamic Army in Iraq" claimed responsiblity, demanding that France revoke a new law banning Islamic head scarves from state schools.

U.S. officials believe the al-Qaida-linked terror movement of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, used Fallujah as a base. They said they believe al-Zarqawi may have slipped away before the offensive.

Last April, Fallujah militants fought Marines to a standstill during a three-week siege, which the Bush administration called off amid public criticism over civilian casualties.

The current offensive was begun so the government can hold national elections in January, although Sunni clerics have called a boycott to protest the Fallujah operation.

This offensive has gone swiftly, in part because of a larger ground force and massive use of air and artillery.

However, a steady stream of wounded being flown to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany suggests that fighting in some parts of Fallujah has been intense.

Hospital staff were expanding bed capacity as 102 wounded U.S. service members were flown in Thursday — up from the usual 30 to 50 a day the U.S. military hospital receives, officials said. A day earlier, 69 wounded were brought in.

Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in Fallujah was only a rough estimate and that many died in air and artillery bombardments ahead of the ground advance.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Krane near Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Stateside Marines glued to Fallujah news



Camp Pendleton, CA, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The Marine-led advance into Fallujah Monday had their fellow leathernecks on stateside duty hungry for news from the front.

Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva told MSNBC from Camp Pendleton he and his fellow Marines were "glued" to the Internet and television news channels as the battle was joined in the Iraqi city.

Pendleton, located north of San Diego, is the home of the battle-tested 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and many of the Marines at the base have seen combat in Iraq.

Oliva said that most Marines were looking for signs of steady advances into the city, which would indicate the attackers were able to overcome whatever resistance the Iraqi insurgent defenders were able to mount.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Troops Become U.S. Citizens
Associated Press
November 12, 2004

SAN DIEGO - Marine Cpl. David Antonio Garcia stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier Thursday and was sworn in as an American citizen - after already serving under the U.S. flag in Iraq.

The native of Mexico was among 80 sailors and Marines from 25 countries - from Canada to Syria - who became citizens in a Veterans Day ceremony aboard the USS Midway, a reward for putting their lives on the line for their adopted country.

The ceremony, watched by more than 100 cheering relatives, came as the nation observed Veterans Day with about 160,000 troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan - some of them locked in fierce house-to-house fighting in Fallujah.

"I wouldn't want to compare myself to World War veterans or Vietnam veterans," said Garcia, 21, who was with combat engineers who cleared the path for tanks to roll into Iraq. "But I feel some of what they must feel today. I know what it's like to leave loved ones and not to know if you will come back."

The citizenship ceremony was one of dozens of events held nationwide to celebrate Veterans Day, a holiday that has taken on added meaning in the last three years after wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Veterans were honored Thursday at ceremonies big and small: an event recognizing a teenage Purple Heart recipient in South Carolina, a parade on the streets of Manhattan, a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Ceremony attended by President Bush.





The war in Iraq was a dominant theme at the ceremonies. There are about 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; the American death toll stands at more than 1,140.

"Let no one tell you we aren't doing good things there," Army Col. Jill Morgenthalher, who recently returned from Iraq and earned a Bronze Star, said at a wreath-laying ceremony at Chicago's Soldier Field. "We are standing up for what is right. This is our next greatest generation."

At the ceremony aboard the USS Midway, U.S. District Judge William Hayes administered the oath of citizenship, noting that many of the troops were from countries that deny individual liberties and had left behind families who "cannot know what joy you are experiencing today."

"You as representatives of the armed forces know above all, like most citizens, that freedom is not free," Hayes said. "Thank you for your sacrifice."

Legal permanent residents of the United States had been allowed to join the military and seek citizenship after three years of active service. But in July 2002 President Bush signed an executive order allowing anyone on active duty after Sept. 11, 2001, to immediately apply for citizenship. There are about 31,000 non-citizens in the U.S. military.

On the other end of the country, dozens of veterans, some into their 80s, stood and applauded one of the nation's youngest Purple Heart recipients during a ceremony in North Charleston, S.C.

Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas Riccio, 19, who was born on the Fourth of July and wanted to be a soldier from childhood, was wounded in Iraq in June when shrapnel from a mortar round passed through his brain. He survived but only after a Navy corpsman held his head together on a 30-mile drive to a first aid station.

"I guess you could say I grew up quick," he said. "I was 18 years old, a gunner, a Humvee driver and engaged in firefights against insurgents in Fallujah."

In New York, thousands lined Fifth Avenue for a parade that has seen attendance surge in recent years. "Five or 10 years ago when I would come, there might be 200 or 300 people here," Sen. Charles Schumer said. "And now the whole street is full."

Illinois officials said dozens of schools received permission to stay open for the holiday, inviting veterans to join students in flag-raising ceremonies, question-and-answer sessions, and the singing of patriotic songs. More than a quarter of schools sought to waive the holiday, up considerably from five years ago.

Wayne Miller, commander of a VFW Post outside Chicago, said attending school on Veterans Day will help children "understand it's more than just getting a day off and prancing around."

In Arkansas, about 60 elementary students attended a ceremony and presented veterans with a handmade card, with one girl telling a vet: "You're my hero."

"You can walk down the streets or be in your house and know you're not going to get hurt because they're there (in Iraq)," said 10-year-old Sarah Burns. "We need to think more about our veterans than we do because we don't honor them as much as we should."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Many Killed In Fallujah Are Reservists
Associated Press
November 12, 2004

WASHINGTON - At least nine Army and Marine reservists died in Iraq on the first full day of the Fallujah offensive, the highest single-day death toll for part-time troops since U.S. forces entered Iraq in March 2003.

Most of those killed since Monday in Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul and other cities where insurgents are active have not been identified by military authorities, so it's not possible to give a complete account beyond Monday.

Of the nine reservists killed Monday, six were members of the Marine Corps Reserve, two were Army National Guard and one was Army Reserve.

An Army National Guard soldier from California also was killed on Sunday in Baghdad.

Nine is the highest number of part-time soldiers and Marines to have died in Iraq on a single day. The only comparable surge in deaths of reservists was in June 2004 when nine died in a four-day span, according to Pentagon records.

In the Fallujah offensive alone, at least 18 U.S. troops had been killed in action and 178 wounded by Thursday, according to Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division in Fallujah. Five Iraqi soldiers had been killed and 34 wounded, Natonski told reporters.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him to El Salvador that U.S. troops fighting to secure Fallujah "are well along in that task, and they will finish it successfully."

On the question of whether insurgents had fled the beleaguered city before the operation began, Rumsfeld said: "I have no doubt that some people did leave before it started. We also know there are a number of hundreds that didn't and have been killed. Others have been captured."

Rumsfeld said Fallujah must be eliminated as a "safe haven for extremists, former regime elements and terrorists."

The military's top officer, meanwhile, said in Washington on Thursday that no one should think that success for U.S. forces in Fallujah will mean the end of the insurgency. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was pleased with progress so far.

"From our viewpoint this is very, very successful," Myers said. "If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope."

Myers spoke as U.S.-led forces steadily advanced through Fallujah on the fourth day of an operation aimed at making the city safe enough so residents can vote in January's planned elections.

"The whole point is not how many insurgents are killed or captured but the return of Fallujah to a status where the people of Fallujah can go about their business without intimidation and where, hopefully, come January, we'll have elections and where they can participate," Myers said.

The Pentagon's reporting of casualties since the Fallujah offensive began Monday has been slower and more incomplete than normal, in part because the military believes that detailed information is of potential value to the insurgent forces they are battling in the Sunni Arab city.

It is unclear how many of the nine reservists killed Monday were directly involved in the Fallujah fighting. Several clearly were not; Spc. Bryan L. Freeman, of the Army Reserve's 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion in Warwick, R.I., for example, died of wounds sustained in Baghdad. Two members of the Kansas Army National Guard were killed in a car bombing in Baghdad.

National Guard and Reserve troops have played a prominent role in Iraq from the start of combat in 2003, and their numbers have grown in recent months. They now make up more than 40 percent of the total U.S. force in Iraq. There is no information on how many are now in Fallujah.

Among the active-duty soldiers killed in Fallujah was Command Sgt. Maj. Steven W. Faulkenburg, 45, of Huntingburg, Ind. He was the senior noncommissioned officer in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. The Pentagon said he was struck by small arms fire Tuesday.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Fallujah Battle Beginning Of The End
Associated Press
November 12, 2004

LISBON, Portugal - Retired U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded last year's invasion of Iraq, said Thursday the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah would mark the beginning of the end of the war.

"Fallujah won't be easy and it's not the end of everything. It will mark the beginning of the end of the problems in Iraq," Franks told reporters after a conference on terrorism in Lisbon.

"Peace won't break out all over but Iraqis will recognize freedom is a good thing to have and the opportunity to be capitalist is a good thing to have," he added.

However, Franks predicted it would take up to three more years for the war to conclude.

"If you associate winning with the ability of the Iraqi people to control their own country and a have representative democracy, of course the war can be won," he told reporters.


"When we first got involved in this I said it should take three to five years. We're half way into that so one to three years should be involved, helping the Iraqis build their own capability."

Franks also said he believed national elections would go ahead in January despite the escalating violence in the country.

"What we are seeing right now is the creation of conditions for the elections which I think will happen in January," he said.

U.S. officials have been predicting for weeks that violence in Iraq would increase as elections drew closer. They believe the rebels' main goal is to prevent the elections.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

An Nasiriyah: Prototype for Fallujah?

By Richard S. Lowry

After twenty months of waiting, the city of Fallujah is finally under attack. General Richard Natonski's 1st Marine Division has finally surrounded the hornets nest and yesterday morning they moved to clear this Sunni Triangle city of the thugs, murderers, and terrorists who have threatened the stability of a new Iraq ever since Saddam's Statue was pulled down in Baghdad.

In April of 2003, elements of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division drove west to secure Fallujah. Soldiers of the 3 ID found a "Wild West" lawless city. They were stretched much too thin to apply the force necessary to establish law and order in this Saddam stronghold. So, they developed a fortress mentality and they moved into armed defensive positions in, and, around the city.

Soon, the Ghosts of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment were tasked with maintaining law and order in Fallujah. They too did not have the manpower to clear the city of its vermin. So they established a Fort Apache defense in the center of the city. They too were forced out of the area by repeated terrorist attacks.

Then the Marines moved in. They adopted a whole new philosophy of containment while they tried to negotiate with the city's local leadership. By last March, Americans were not venturing into the lawless city. Then four Americans were slaughtered on the western outskirts of town. In a scene reminiscent of Somalia, the Americans were dragged through the streets and their bodies were strung up from the western bridge.

American patience only goes so far. The Marines of the 1st Marine Division attacked Fallujah with a vengeance. But victory slipped through our hands when the fledgling Iraqi government tried to negotiate a peace.

Now, Major General Richard Natonski is leading the 1st Marine Division in an all out assault on Fallujah. Natonski, a veteran of Iraqi urban warfare has moved against the enemy, using tactics that members of his Camp Lejeune Marines developed in the battle for An Nasiriyah.

Natonski's Task Force Tarawa spent more than a week wresting control of the dusty desert city of An Nasiriyah from Saddam's fanatics. And, they succeeded by using techniques and tactics new to the Marine Corps.

Small sniper teams were more important to the victory than companies of Marine Infantry. Human Exploitation Teams were more effective than anti-armor teams. Interpreters were more valuable than grenadiers.

Lieutenant Colonel Brent Dunahoe's Betio Bastards cleared southern Nasiriyah using small unit urban tactics. Marines of the 3d Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment methodically cleared the south side of An Nasiriyah -- house-by-house and block-by-block. They moved forward cautiously -- first with sniper teams.

Dunahoe's snipers manned positions on rooftops that allowed them to see several blocks ahead. They did more watching than shooting. The Marine sentinels spent hours watching the city in their sites -- learning. They stayed until the got a feel for the city below. They learned which were the important buildings. They learned which were the homes of peaceful Iraqis. They learned where the dens of the enemy were.

Only after intelligent monitoring of his surroundings, did Dunahoe attack. First, he called in artillery and CAS on the enemy's strongholds and command centers. Then, under the watchful eyes of his snipers, he moved his infantry forward to occupy the area ahead.

Then, the snipers would move forward to their next vantage point to repeat the process all over again. Marine HET teams would quickly move to gather documentation and interview the law abiding Iraqis in the newly secured area. The Civil Affairs team would move in and assure the locals that the Marines were there to stay and that they were there to rid the city of the oppression that Saddam had imposed. Grateful Iraqis pointed out the houses and offices of Ba'ath Party officials and Saddam's thugs.

Armed with all of this new information, Dunahoe would attack the next district, focusing on enemy strongholds. These tactics limited the destruction and further won the local people's support.

Dunahoe's next bound would be even more successful as he defeated the enemy and slowly won the hearts and minds of Nasiriyah. On one of the battalion's last bounds, The Betio Bastards captured the headquarters of the Iraqi 11th Infantry Division. Nearby, there were warehouses filled to the rafters, some with weapons, and others with food. The Marines quickly distributed to food to the people of An Nasiriyah.

Hopefully, An Nasiriyah will become the prototype for the movement into Al Fallujah.

Richard S. Lowry is an author and military historian. Last year he published The Gulf War Chronicles which is a complete account of Operation Desert Storm. He is currently working on his next book, Marines in the Garden of Eden which will tell the story of The Battle of An Nasiriyah. Visit: www.gwchronicles.com.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Find Syrian Driver Missing in Iraq

Friday November 12, 2004 2:16 PM


AP Photo NY183

By EDWARD HARRIS

Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - A Syrian man found handcuffed in a house in Fallujah is the driver who was taken hostage with two French journalists by militants in August, U.S. military officials said Friday.

Mohammed al-Joundi, discovered late Thursday by U.S. Marines sweeping through the city, told military officials he had been separated from the journalists about a month ago, Marine Capt. Ed Bitanga said.

There have been no signs of journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, a U.S. military spokesman said. The trio disappeared Aug. 20 on a trip to the holy city of Najaf.

``We can confirm that the driver of the two French hostages has been rescued,'' the spokesman said.

A militant group calling itself ``the Islamic Army in Iraq'' claimed to hold the men and demanded that France revoke a new law banning Islamic head scarves from state schools.

The former hostage told officials the three were ambushed by men in two cars as they were heading to cover Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

At one point, al-Joundi was blindfolded and interrogated by his captors in a room where he saw a black flag with crossed swords, Bitanga said.

The driver also said he saw several other hostages being held, including two Czech nationals - one of whom was injured. He did not specify how many others he saw.

The hostage said he doesn't know what happened to the two Frenchmen after he was separated from them, Bitanga said.

The French government has made extensive efforts to obtain the release of Chesnot, 37, of Radio France Internationale, and Malbrunot, 41, of the daily newspaper Le Figaro.

On Wednesday, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he had ``reassuring'' news about the health of two French hostages in Iraq, saying he believed they were being held in the Sunni Triangle that runs north and west from Baghdad, where the insurgency is strongest. The area includes Fallujah.

The hostage told the military he was held until early this week, when his kidnappers released him a day before the invasion and told him to swim across the Euphrates River to escape. The hostage told military officials he could not swim so he stayed in the location until Marines found him.

On Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi forces found what commanders called a ``hostage slaughterhouse'' where foreign hostages were held and possibly killed by Sunni militants.

The small concrete house inside Fallujah's northern Jolan neighborhood had bloodstained mattresses and straw mats on the floor. Military officials said they found hostages' documents, CDs showing captives being killed and black clothing worn by militants in videos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4611352,00.html

Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 12, 2004

U.S. military: Fallujah men not allowed to leave city

By Jim Krane
Associated Press


NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq — Hundreds of men trying to flee the assault on Fallujah have been turned back by U.S. troops following orders to allow only women, children and the elderly to leave.
The military says it has received reports warning that insurgents will drop their weapons and mingle with refugees to avoid being killed or captured by advancing American troops.

As it believes many of Fallujah’s men are guerrilla fighters, it has instructed U.S. troops to turn back all males aged 15 to 55.

“We assume they’ll go home and just wait out the storm or find a place that’s safe,” one 1st Cavalry Division officer, who declined to be named, said Thursday.

Army Col. Michael Formica, who leads forces isolating Fallujah, admits the rule sounds “callous.” But he insists it’s is key to the mission’s success.

“Tell them ‘Stay in your houses, stay away from windows and stay off the roof and you’ll live through Fallujah,”’ Formica, of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade, told his battalion commanders in a radio conference call Wednesday night.

Many of Fallujah’s 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault, at which time 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed in militant stronghold.

Later Prime Minister Ayad Allawi imposed a 24-hour curfew on Fallujah and ordered roads in the area closed, providing the legal background for the U.S. blockade.

Troops have cut off all roads and bridges leading out of the city. Relatively few residents have sought to get through, but officers here say they fear a larger exodus.

On Wednesday, a crowd of 225 people surged south out of Fallujah toward the blocking positions of the Marines’ 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. The Marines let 25 women and children pass but separated the 200 military-age men and forced them to walk back into Fallujah.

“There is nothing that distinguishes an insurgent from a civilian,” the 1st Cavalry officer said. “If they’re not carrying a weapon, you can’t tell who’s who.”

Also Wednesday, troops halted two ambulances leaving Fallujah and found 57 refugees packed inside. Most were women and children who were allowed to leave. Smaller bands of refugees have also turned up at U.S. roadblocks, some allowed to pass and others turned back.

Single refugees have made their way out of the city by swimming across the broad Euphrates River or sneaking out across desert paths, military officials said.

On Wednesday and Thursday, American troops sunk boats being used to ferry people — and in some cases, rebel arms — across the river.

The ongoing U.S. advance is bottling up Fallujah’s insurgents — and others fleeing the fighting — in the southern section of the city, where U.S. forces were moving Thursday night.

Most of the remaining attacks by insurgents inside Fallujah have been on Marines blocking the roads and bridges leaving the city, reports show. Marines have returned fire killing numerous insurgents trying to escape, officers here said.

The military estimates 600 insurgents have already been killed, about half the total of guerrillas in the city.

Fallujah has been under relentless aerial and artillery bombardment and without electricity since Monday. Reports have said residents are running low on food. An officer here said it was likely that those who stay in their homes would live through the assault, but agreed the city was a risky and frightening place to live.

The U.S. military says it does all it can to prevent bombing buildings with civilians inside them.

Once the battle ends, military officials say all surviving military-age men can expect to be tested for explosive residue, catalogued, checked against insurgent databases and interrogated about ties with the guerrillas. U.S. and Iraqi troops are in the midst of searching homes, and plan to check every house in the city for weapons.



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Posted on Fri, Nov. 12, 2004





Hundreds gathered yesterday in Fresno to honor Marines Jeremiah Baro...

Associated Press


FRESNO, Calif. - Hundreds gathered yesterday in Fresno to honor Marines Jeremiah Baro and Jared Hubbard. Members of the armed forces, former high school classmates, friends and family packed the pews of Saint Anthony of Padua church. The childhood friends had enlisted together and died together in Iraq. The Marine snipers were buried side by side in Clovis with full military honors.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) - The Hetch Hetchy Valley has been under water for eight decades, serving as a reservoir for San Francisco's drinking water. Now officials in the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Parks and Recreation have promised to study the possibility of restoring the area. The restoration project could cost up to one-point-six (b) billion dollars.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - After a huge harvest, almond growers this year are getting ready to ship more than one billion pounds of nuts. The Almond Board of California reports growers had shipped 752 million pounds of nuts through the end of October. About 70 percent of the state's almonds will be shipped abroad to Europe and Asia.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) - The defense lawyer in Scott Peterson's murder trial displayed a replica of the boat prosecutors have argued Peterson used to dump his wife's body into San Francisco Bay. But the tactic seems to have backfired. The public began remembering Laci Peterson and leaving flowers and candles around the boat. Inside were coveralls stuffed with weights representing Laci Peterson's body, with concrete anchors tied to the arms and legs.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Flag-waving insurgents mean trouble for Marines



By Dexter Filkins
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

November 12, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Sitting on a third-story roof, Staff Sgt. Eric Brown, his lip bleeding, peered through the scope of his rifle into the haze as the sun was setting. Moments before, a lone bullet had whizzed past his face and smashed through a window behind him.

A black flag popped up above a water tower about 100 yards away, then a second flag above a rooftop. And the shots began, in a wave this time, as men bobbed and weaved through alleyways and sprinted across the street.

"He's in the road, he's in the road, shoot him!" Brown shouted. "Black shirt!" someone else yelled. "Due south!"

The flags are the insurgents' answer to two-way radios, their way of massing the troops and - in a tactic that goes back at least as far as Napoleon - concentrating fire on an enemy. Compared with radio waves, the flags have one distinct advantage: they are terrifying.

The insurgents are coordinating their attacks at a time when they have nowhere left to run. U.S. forces have pushed south of Highway 10, the boulevard that runs east to west and approximately bisects Fallujah.

U.S. intelligence officers believe that many of the insurgents have retreated as far as Shuhada, a relatively modern residential area that is the southernmost neighborhood in Fallujah.

But beyond Shuhada is only the open desert, patrolled by the U.S. Army. So the insurgents are turning and fighting. And at night, they are setting up ambushes in the moonless pitch blackness of Fallujah's labyrinthine streets.

Going straight up the center of the U.S. advance yesterday was Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Those Marines, including Brown and Williams, started their day by taking mortar rounds in a building they had captured at Highway 10 and Thurthar Street.

The building's windows were blown out. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed. The mortar shells drew closer and closer and then stopped, as if the insurgents were temporarily short of ammo. "I thought, 'This is it,'" said Senior Corpsman Kevin Markley.

At 2 p.m., the company walked 100 yards east along the highway, then turned south into the Sinai neighborhood, with its car garages and fix-it shops as well as concealed weapons caches and bomb-making factories.

Immediately, shooting broke out, pinning down the Marines for an hour. Finally they moved south to a mosque with the stub of a blasted minaret. An armored vehicle drove up from the rear and dropped its hatch. Out walked a group of blinking, disoriented Iraqi national guardsmen. They had been brought in only to search mosques.

The Marines went to the rooftop, saw the flags and got into a firefight. It was silenced when they called in a 500-pound bomb from above onto a house where some of the insurgents had concentrated. The strike was so close that the Marines had to leave the roof or risk being hit by shrapnel.

The Iraqi guardsmen left the mosque and trooped back into the vehicle, which drove off. Soon the Marines were headed south again, through a narrow alley between deserted houses.

"Enemy personnel approaching your position in white vehicle with RPGs," someone said over a radio, referring to rocket-propelled grenades. A few seconds later, the same voice said: "More enemy personnel approaching your position from the south."

The alley exploded with gunfire and RPG rounds. Somehow the company commander, Capt. Read Omohundro, got two tanks in place to fire down the alley. They let loose with a volley and a building crumbled.

Omohundro turned to a lieutenant and said, "Are they dead?"

"They must be, sir," came the reply.

But the insurgents had gotten off an RPG round and disabled one tank; the other tank mysteriously stopped working as well.

The company had moved 500 yards south. They regrouped in the blackness and pushed on at about 11:30 p.m. without the tanks, trying to keep up with the rest of the front, but after moving 25 feet they were attacked again in what appeared to be a well-organized ambush.

Two more tanks came in, but one had a problem with its global-positioning system unit. There was an hour's delay. The 50 or so men of the 1st Platoon, which had taken casualties, started bickering. Then they moved forward, behind the tanks.

At 1:30 a.m., now 700 yards south of Highway 10, they stopped and entered a house, intending to find a place to sleep. There was a huge boom inside. "Oh no! Oh no!" someone shouted. "My leg!" someone else screamed. "My leg!"

They looked further around the house and found tunnels underneath. They retreated and a tank fired rounds into the house, which caught fire.

They looked for another place to sleep.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 09, 2004

Report reveals problems with spare-parts exports

By Jason Sherman
Times staff writer


Investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have found a “systemic problem” in how the U.S. military handles the export of classified and controlled spare parts to foreign customers.
In a Nov. 9 report, “Foreign Military Sales: DOD Needs to Take Additional Actions to Prevent Unauthorized Shipments of Spare Parts,” the GAO found that spare parts containing sensitive technologies the U.S. military services did not want released were in fact being shipped to foreign countries as a part of larger blanket orders.

The GAO recommends the Pentagon develop specific plans to reject requisitions for classified and controlled parts included under blanket orders, a move the Pentagon agrees with, according to the report.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Four Pendleton Marines killed in Fallujah

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON ---- The ongoing assault on Fallujah has taken a heavy toll on the Camp Pendleton community, claiming the lives of at least four Marines from one Pendleton infantry battalion alone.

Military officials Thursday said Cpl. William James, 24, of Huntington Beach; Lance Cpl. Nicholas Larson, 19, of Wheaton, Ill.; Lance Cpl. Juan Segura, 26, of Homestead, Fla.; and Lance Cpl. Nathan Wood, 19, of Kirkland, Wash., were killed in battle on Tuesday.

All four men belonged to the Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, one of at least two local battalions that spearheaded the ground assault on Fallujah now entering its fifth day.


Officials did not release details on how they died, but a report on the Seattle Times' Web site Thursday said Wood was killed while clearing an apartment building in Fallujah.

All four men were due to come home by Christmas, according to family members of other Marines in the battalion.

According to Wood's uncle, Bill Olson, Woods had recently sent an e-mail to his parents telling them to keep their eyes peeled for news about a railway station in Fallujah, according to a report Thursday in the Seattle Times.

The railway station, which lies at the northern edge of the city between the Jolan and Askari neighborhoods, was one of the first sites taken by the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment on Monday.

"When we heard they had secured the station, we thought he was safe," Olson said, according to the report.

The next day, Wood was shot while his unit conducted a sweep through an apartment building.

"They thought they had taken the building ... but an insurgent in there fired on them," Olson said. "Nathan took a bullet to the head and one to the chest. He died instantly."

No information on how the other Marines died was available Thursday.

Military officials have said that at least 18 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in the assault on Fallujah that began late Sunday.

An estimated 600 insurgents were killed in a desperate stand against the overwhelming force of some 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops who participated in or supported the attack, officials have said.

After Army armored units smashed breach points through enemy defenses on Monday, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment fought mostly on foot through the northern neighborhood of Jolan, according to news reports this week.

Jolan, a chaotic warren of alleyways and mosques in northwest Fallujah bordered by the Euphrates River on the west, was considered by military commanders to be a rebel stronghold where insurgents have built defenses and rigged traps and bombs for months.

Another group of Pendleton-based infantrymen ---- 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment ---- also fought into Fallujah from the north. No casualties have been reported from that battalion.

Military officials announced the death of one other Pendleton-based Marine during the assault on Fallujah: Lance Cpl. Thomas J. Zapp, 20, of Houston, was killed in action Monday. He was assigned to Pendleton's 1st Force Service Support Group.

Deaths of other Marines from a Chicago-based reserve battalion, a Hawaii-based battalion and unit from Camp Lejeune have also been reported this week.

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at (760) 740-5442 or dmortenson@nctimes.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

US marines find underground prison, bodies in Fallujah


FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US marines uncovered an underground prison in Fallujah containing at least two bodies and two emaciated brothers who were still alive, an intelligence officer, who refused to be identified, told AFP.


The prison was discovered in a house in the Jolan neighbourhood, considered the insurgent nerve centre in the city. Marines were clearing the building after it was shelled by the US military when they were alerted by screaming.


At the back of the house, one of many they were shooting at with hundreds of rounds or firing at with mortars Friday, the troops opened a door and found a barred prison with three cells below.


An AFP reporter who entered the house saw two corpses covered in ash, and two men, who were apparently mentally handicapped and had yelled themselves hoarse, were led from the building by marines.


Inside, one of the bodies was riddled with bullet holes and had clearly been executed. The other may have been that of a man who died in shelling by US-led forces, the officer said.


"It looks like an execution chamber or something," one marine said.


US marines, backed by Iraqi troops, entered Fallujah late Monday to quell a growing insurgency so that elections planned for January can go ahead in increased safety and with wider participation.


While they swept through the majority Sunni Muslim city quickly at first, they have become bogged down by die-hard insurgents who would not surrender and have begun the painstaking and dangerous task of checking buildings one at a time.


The two apparently handicapped men, who gave their names as Hamis and Ahmed Azawi, were overwrought, exceedingly agitated and terribly emaciated.


Speaking to an AFP correspondent in Fallujah as he sat on the floor under a flashlight being fed by marines, Hamis Azawi said he had not eaten in six days.


"I hate my brother. He locked us up," he said, dressed in white, blood-flecked flannel.


When asked who this other brother was or who the men in the cells might have been he became overly agitated and incoherent.


Later when they were taken outside, one of the brothers ran off down the street screaming and was tackled and calmed by five marines.


More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq (news - web sites) since April by different militant groups and many have been beheaded. An unknown, but surely greater, number of Iraqis have also been terrorised in this way.






Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 11, 2004

Intelligence officers comb through ‘slaughterhouse’

Associated Press


NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. and Iraqi troops battling their way through Fallujah stumbled on a horrific find — a small, windowless room with blood-soaked mattresses and straw mats on the floor that U.S. commanders are calling a “hostage slaughterhouse.”
The small concrete house is believed to have been used by militants who captured and possibly killed hostages here.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, who is commanding the offensive to retake the rebel-held city, gave grim details of the “slaughter house” Thursday after paying a visit there.

“The room was small. There were no windows, just one door. Inside, the flag was on the wall. There were two thin mattresses and straw mats covered in blood,” he said. “There was also a wheelchair, which we believe was used to move the prisoners around in. We believe they were bound and moved around the complex in the wheelchair.”

Hanging on the wall of the small room was a black banner reading, “The Islamic Secret Army” with a logo showing a sword and a Kalashnikov rifle flanking a Koran.

That militant group has claimed responsibility in a number of kidnapping of foreigners — including the July abduction of seven employees — three Indians, three Kenyans, and an Egyptian — working for a Kuwaiti company operating in Iraq.

The group warned the company to stop its activities in Iraq. The hostages were later released after ransom was paid.

U.S. and Iraqi forces seized the abandoned concrete home in a small courtyard in the city’s northern Jolan district on Wednesday.

Shortly afterward, Iraqi commander Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan, announced some of the findings: hostages’ documents, CDs showing captives being killed and black clothing worn by militants in videos.

Natonski said U.S. troops also found a computer, computer disks, and a large arms cache in the home, which also included a living space and a kitchen.

“We are now currently exploiting the material that was found in the room to see and confirm whether this was in fact a room used for execution by the insurgents of innocent Iraqis and foreigners,” he said.

He did not give any details on the identities of the hostages thought to have been kept there.

Marine intelligence officers are combing through computer disks and other finds from the site, hoping to glean information on insurgents.

At least nine foreigners are still in kidnappers’ hands in Iraq, including British aid worker Margaret Hassan, French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot and an unidentified American worker for a Saudi company.



Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Marines blast and batter way across in Fallujah in hunt for insurgents
By Edward Harris, Associated Press, 11/12/2004 13:35

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FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) Trooping past bodies and abandoned weapons, U.S. Marines blasted their way through walls and hammered open doors Friday in the hunt for insurgents in Fallujah. On the Muslim holy day, no calls to prayer were heard in a town dubbed ''the city of mosques.''

As the main offensive pushed into the southern part of the city, Marines scoured a northern district looking for fighters hiding behind the front line.

''What we're doing now is killing any that snuck in behind us or we might have missed earlier. And blowing up weapons caches,'' said 2nd Lt. Adrian Pirvu, 22, of Dearborn, Mich., leading a patrol from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Explosions began rocking Fallujah at dawn and U.S. warplanes swooped out of the sky to blast targets with machine-gun fire. Howitzer and mortar shells slammed into the city, flinging chunks of shrapnel hundreds of yards.

''Damn, flying Harleys!'' one of the Marines quipped as one piece of steel whirred overhead.

Heavy gunfire could be heard across the city of low, yellow-brick buildings silhouetted by tall minarets from mosques. The few civilians in the streets were outnumbered by dogs and cats skittish from the sounds of combat.

Avoiding narrow alleys that can be turned into deathtraps by guerrillas, the Marines moved through the neighborhood by using plastic explosives and blasting cord to knock down doors and tear open walls connecting darkened homes. They also leaped from roof to roof, carrying a sledgehammer to break open locked, metal doors leading down into buildings.

In one house, they found two bodies in a room scattered with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The two men, limbs stiff in the rictus of death, apparently died in combat earlier in the week when the U.S. offensive pushed through.

''The terrorists, they deserve it,'' said Lance Cpl. Freddy Ramosavila, 22, of Commerce City, Colo. ''Better them than me. They're killing us, too.''

Marines said the fight had been easier, and faster, than they expected.

Officers estimated between 1,000 and 5,000 fighters were holed up in Fallujah when the attack began early Monday after a heavy artillery bombardment that collapsed some buildings and spattered shrapnel into others.

''I don't know if they ran, but you can see all the weapons on the ground,'' Cpl. Jeremy Mueller said, referring to the ammunition boxes, body armor, grenades and rifles lying in doorways on many streets.

''I guess they're pulling back into the center of the city, where they must have stockpiles. But they won't carry their guns, because they know if we see them, we'll shoot them,'' said the 23-year-old from Steelville, Ill.

As they moved from building to building, the Marines checked through cupboards and drawers, looking for weapons and ammunition, but more often coming across the mundane of daily life, including family photos and prayer beads.

Early Friday, a group of eight Iraqi civilians waved a green flag of surrender at the patrol, which herded the group together for transfer off the battlefield.

''We're not animals. When we come across innocents, we try to hook them up,'' said Pirvu, the commander.

They also captured a man in a white dishdasha robe who they said shot at them the previous evening.

Although U.S. commanders have warned that capturing Fallujah won't immediately break the resistance, they hope stepped-up offensives against insurgents will spread security and increase the chances for successful elections planned for January.

Pirvu's Marines see themselves as advancing democracy's cause, by delivering Fallujah back into the hands of Iraq's interim government.

''You can't have a democracy across the country but, OK, not this city and not this city. That's why we're taking the city,'' the lieutenant said. ''Imagine elections where you say, for example, Alabama can't vote?''




Ellie