| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
16 Nov 2004 03:54:30 AM |
| Object: |
Insurgent Attacks Spread In Iraq |
Mission Accomplished? You be the judge.
---
washingtonpost.com
Insurgent Attacks Spread In Iraq
'Hard Fighting' Expected In Mosul in Coming Days
By Karl Vick and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 15 -- Insurgent attacks spread Monday to another Sunni
Muslim city, Baqubah, and a nearby village, where bands of armed men
attacked two police stations simultaneously, the U.S. military said.
American forces used airstrikes to blunt the assault, the latest that
insurgents have launched in apparent response to the U.S. offensive in
Fallujah.
Two 500-pound bombs were dropped on insurgent positions after a two-hour
firefight in which guerrilla reinforcements arrived by bus, took
positions on a roof and blocked a road, according to the U.S. military.
Meanwhile, fighting continued in Mosul, a city of 1.8 million, where
large numbers of insurgents went on the offensive late last week. "I
expect the next few days will bring some hard fighting," said Brig. Gen.
Carter Ham, the senior U.S. commander in the area. "The situation in
Mosul is tense but not desperate."
U.S. forces last week stormed into Fallujah, which insurgents had
controlled since spring. American policymakers portrayed the operation
as a decisive move to clean out a major stronghold of foreign fighters
and Iraqis opposed to the country's interim government.
The insurgents have struck back hard in Fallujah and also turned up the
heat in many other cities dominated by Sunni Muslims, who were favored
over the majority Shiite Muslims by the government of former president
Saddam Hussein. Operating in unusually large groups, fighters have
attacked in Ramadi, to the west of Fallujah, and Samarra, Baiji, Tall
Afar, Hawija and Mosul to the north.
Their strategy was stated Monday in a new recording attributed to Abu
Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of a large insurgent group
affiliated with al Qaeda. If the U.S. military "finishes Fallujah, it
will move in your direction," the voice said to be Zarqawi's warned
followers. "Beware and deny it the chance to carry out this plan."
The speaker said that U.S. forces were overextended and would be unable
to respond everywhere. "Shower them with rockets and mortars and cut all
the supply routes," he said.
A senior Iraqi official said Monday that about half of Mosul's police
officers have returned to duty, reinforced by an armored U.S. battalion
and truckloads of Iraqi troops and police commandos. But sporadic
fighting continued in the city, and insurgents set on fire an oil
storage facility outside the city.
Interior Minister Falah Naqib grew emotional during a news conference in
Baghdad while describing the killing of a Mosul police officer.
"Yesterday in Mosul, they abducted a wounded member of the police from
the hospital," Naqib said. "They dismembered him.
"He was wounded," he repeated. "They dismembered him, and then his
remains were hanged in a public square until his fellow policemen were
able to secure his body.
Close to 1,000 members of the interim government's security forces have
died in the insurgency. Intimidation of those who remain is a prime goal
of the guerrillas. Naqib said that threats are directed not at recruits
but at their family members. Kidnappings of recruits are also on the rise.
Meanwhile, the office of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi confirmed
reports that two female relatives of Allawi's had been released by
kidnappers but that Allawi's elderly male cousin remains captive.
The badly mutilated body of a Western woman, assumed to be another
kidnapping victim, remained unidentified after being found on a Fallujah
street.
To the east, new fighting in Baqubah, long a flash point for attacks on
U.S. forces, began about 7 a.m. with simultaneous attacks on two police
stations, one in the city, the other in the nearby village of Buhriz.
Protected by dirt-filled fences to guard against car bombs, the stations
were targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, rifle fire and, at one
station, fire from a heavy machine gun, according to Army Capt. Bill
Coppernoll, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division.
Elements of the division responded and reported taking fire from
multiple spots, including a mosque. A search of the area around the
mosque produced three rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 29 grenades,
two mortar tubes, 10 mortar rounds and hundreds of rounds of ammunition
for AK-47s assault rifles, the military said in a statement.
Four American soldiers were wounded in the fighting. The military
reported that more than 20 insurgents were killed, and news services
said seven civilians and five police officers, including the police
chief of Buhriz, also died.
In a separate attack in Baghdad, seven civilians were killed and seven
wounded when a mortar round landed in the Dora neighborhood. At least
five suicide car bombers wounded at least nine U.S. troops elsewhere in
Iraq, the Associated Press reported.
.
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| User: "Harvey" |
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| Title: Re: Insurgent Attacks Spread In Iraq |
16 Nov 2004 08:46:00 AM |
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"PagCal" <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote in message
news:10pjjimqjvbvh68@corp.supernews.com...
Mission Accomplished? You be the judge.
---
washingtonpost.com
Insurgent Attacks Spread In Iraq
'Hard Fighting' Expected In Mosul in Coming Days
By Karl Vick and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 15 -- Insurgent attacks spread Monday to another Sunni
Muslim city, Baqubah, and a nearby village, where bands of armed men
attacked two police stations simultaneously, the U.S. military said.
American forces used airstrikes to blunt the assault, the latest that
insurgents have launched in apparent response to the U.S. offensive in
Fallujah.
Is this "just like Tet," too?
.
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