Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Battle of Falluja under way
Fierce fighting is raging in Falluja after interim PM Iyad Allawi gave US-led forces the go-ahead for a full-scale attack on the besieged Iraqi city.
US warplanes staged ferocious strikes on targets in the city on Monday afternoon.
Aircraft struck about eight times in 20 minutes, sending huge plumes of smoke billowing up from the north-west of the city, where US-led forces are about to launch an offensive.
US warplanes staged ferocious strikes on targets in the city on Monday afternoon.
Aircraft struck about eight times in 20 minutes, sending huge plumes of smoke billowing up from the north-west of the city, where US-led forces are about to launch an offensive.
Medical sources told Aljazeera that 12 people had been killed and double that number injured during clashes between fighters and US forces.
Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera the clashes were the most violent the city has witnessed since April 2003.
"US tanks, armoured vehicles, F16 and C130 fighters are taking part in the attack on Falluja," al-Dulaimi said.
"Violent clashes are now going on in the western areas of the city. US forces are backed by tanks and helicopters", he added.
"Clashes have also erupted in Julan neighbourhood. Resistance in these areas is fierce," he said. "The city's defenders are responding to the US attacks with everything at their disposal."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA2FE7D7-FA3C-473B-B094-AC7AF29E392B.htm
As the US-led troops move forward into the western outskirts of the city, they are coming under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire from insurgents inside Falluja.
Armed men in black uniforms have been seen taking up positions inside the city.
Two US marines were killed in the area when their bulldozer overturned, but there are no other confirmed reports of casualties.
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be in the city, has urged resistance against the US-led attack and said victory will come "in a matter of days".
In other developments:
* In Ramadi, another town where there has been strong resistance to the US-led troops, suicide attackers are reported to have attacked US forces during clashes
* Heavy gunfire is reported in Baghdad during clashes between US troops and insurgents
* European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana says there is little prospect of Iraq holding national elections in January as planned because of the deteriorating security situation.
Mr Allawi said 38 people were captured, including four foreign fighters, during the Monday morning raid on Falluja's hospital.
On Sunday, Mr Allawi declared a 60-day state of emergency across the country in response to the escalation of violence by militants.
More than 60 people have died in two days of co-ordinated attacks by insurgents in an apparent response to the US military preparations around Falluja.
The BBC's Quil Lawrence, with US forces near Falluja, said troops with night vision seized the two bridges, which are main routes west out of the city.
One of the bridges was the site of the killing of four US contractors that sparked the first attempt to retake Falluja in April.
US planes and artillery have been battering what they call insurgent positions for the past few weeks to make entry into the city easier.
Our correspondent says the marines believe Falluja will be their biggest engagement since Hue, the Vietnamese city they captured in 1968, losing 142 men and killing thousands of the enemy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3992263.stm
Several hundred Iraqi troops were sent into Fallujah's main hospital after US forces sealed off the area. The troops detained about 50 men of military age inside the hospital, but about half were later released.
Iraqi doctors said 10 people were killed and 11 others injured during overnight clashes. Two US marines were killed in the assault.
Dr Salih al-Issawi, the head of the hospital, said he had asked US officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the US military.
During the siege of Falluja last April, the hospital was a main source of reports about civilian casualties that US officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outrage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive.
There is little guarantee that the fresh assault will calm the insurgency.
The Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar, has spoken out publicly against the operation.
A similar attack last month on Samarra, another rebel stronghold north of Baghdad, was hailed a success. But insurgents promptly flooded back into the city.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1346088,00.html
Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera the clashes were the most violent the city has witnessed since April 2003.
"US tanks, armoured vehicles, F16 and C130 fighters are taking part in the attack on Falluja," al-Dulaimi said.
"Violent clashes are now going on in the western areas of the city. US forces are backed by tanks and helicopters", he added.
"Clashes have also erupted in Julan neighbourhood. Resistance in these areas is fierce," he said. "The city's defenders are responding to the US attacks with everything at their disposal."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA2FE7D7-FA3C-473B-B094-AC7AF29E392B.htm
As the US-led troops move forward into the western outskirts of the city, they are coming under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire from insurgents inside Falluja.
Armed men in black uniforms have been seen taking up positions inside the city.
Two US marines were killed in the area when their bulldozer overturned, but there are no other confirmed reports of casualties.
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be in the city, has urged resistance against the US-led attack and said victory will come "in a matter of days".
In other developments:
* In Ramadi, another town where there has been strong resistance to the US-led troops, suicide attackers are reported to have attacked US forces during clashes
* Heavy gunfire is reported in Baghdad during clashes between US troops and insurgents
* European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana says there is little prospect of Iraq holding national elections in January as planned because of the deteriorating security situation.
Mr Allawi said 38 people were captured, including four foreign fighters, during the Monday morning raid on Falluja's hospital.
On Sunday, Mr Allawi declared a 60-day state of emergency across the country in response to the escalation of violence by militants.
More than 60 people have died in two days of co-ordinated attacks by insurgents in an apparent response to the US military preparations around Falluja.
The BBC's Quil Lawrence, with US forces near Falluja, said troops with night vision seized the two bridges, which are main routes west out of the city.
One of the bridges was the site of the killing of four US contractors that sparked the first attempt to retake Falluja in April.
US planes and artillery have been battering what they call insurgent positions for the past few weeks to make entry into the city easier.
Our correspondent says the marines believe Falluja will be their biggest engagement since Hue, the Vietnamese city they captured in 1968, losing 142 men and killing thousands of the enemy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3992263.stm
Several hundred Iraqi troops were sent into Fallujah's main hospital after US forces sealed off the area. The troops detained about 50 men of military age inside the hospital, but about half were later released.
Iraqi doctors said 10 people were killed and 11 others injured during overnight clashes. Two US marines were killed in the assault.
Dr Salih al-Issawi, the head of the hospital, said he had asked US officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the US military.
During the siege of Falluja last April, the hospital was a main source of reports about civilian casualties that US officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outrage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive.
There is little guarantee that the fresh assault will calm the insurgency.
The Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar, has spoken out publicly against the operation.
A similar attack last month on Samarra, another rebel stronghold north of Baghdad, was hailed a success. But insurgents promptly flooded back into the city.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1346088,00.html
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
FALLUJAH, Iraq, November 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US and Iraqi troops backed by warplanes stormed Fallujah early Monday, November8 , seizing the main hospital and killing at least nine people, as ground fire lit up the skies marking the start of a massive offensive to occupy the restive city.
US marines also took control of two bridges in the southwest of Fallujah, spanning the Euphrates, while a large, white observation balloon was seen hovering above, Agence France-Press (AFP) reported.
Iraqi Special Forces stormed the city’s hospital at about2 : 00am (2300 GMT Sunday) without firing a shot, blindfolding some people and kicking down some doors.
Marine escorts accompanied the soldiers from Iraq's36 th Commando Battalion in armored vehicles and secured the area.
They met little resistance except for a roadside bomb that exploded close to a US military vehicle wounding a marine.
Not Strategic
Witnesses told IslamOnline.net that the two bridges and areas surrounding the hospital were not strategic for resistance fighters.
They said it is part of a US propaganda to lift up the spirits of the invading troops, adding that US forces warned hospital staff over loudspeakers not to leave the building.
Hospital director Dr. Salih al-Issawi told AFP that US troops refused to allow him and others to go into the centre of Fallujah to help out at a medical facility that had been set up there.
Some 20 , 000US and Iraqi troops had been gathering around the city, west of Baghdad, awaiting interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s green light.
Allawi on Sunday declared a state of emergency across the country, expect for the Kurdish-run north, giving his government sweeping powers.
Read More
http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2004-11/08/article02.shtml
US marines also took control of two bridges in the southwest of Fallujah, spanning the Euphrates, while a large, white observation balloon was seen hovering above, Agence France-Press (AFP) reported.
Iraqi Special Forces stormed the city’s hospital at about2 : 00am (2300 GMT Sunday) without firing a shot, blindfolding some people and kicking down some doors.
Marine escorts accompanied the soldiers from Iraq's36 th Commando Battalion in armored vehicles and secured the area.
They met little resistance except for a roadside bomb that exploded close to a US military vehicle wounding a marine.
Not Strategic
Witnesses told IslamOnline.net that the two bridges and areas surrounding the hospital were not strategic for resistance fighters.
They said it is part of a US propaganda to lift up the spirits of the invading troops, adding that US forces warned hospital staff over loudspeakers not to leave the building.
Hospital director Dr. Salih al-Issawi told AFP that US troops refused to allow him and others to go into the centre of Fallujah to help out at a medical facility that had been set up there.
Some 20 , 000US and Iraqi troops had been gathering around the city, west of Baghdad, awaiting interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s green light.
Allawi on Sunday declared a state of emergency across the country, expect for the Kurdish-run north, giving his government sweeping powers.
Read More
http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2004-11/08/article02.shtml
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq Nov 8, 2004 — Thousands of U.S. Marines and Army troops punched their way on Monday into two Fallujah neighborhoods where insurgents are considered the strongest, kicking off a massive assault that seeks to put an end to half a year of insurgent control of the Sunni Muslim city.
The troops, backed by the 1st Cavalry Division's tanks and armor, swarmed into the city's northwestern Jolan district, the warren-like historic heart of Fallujah.
At the same time, some 4,000 troops went into the northeastern Askari district.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=235691
The troops, backed by the 1st Cavalry Division's tanks and armor, swarmed into the city's northwestern Jolan district, the warren-like historic heart of Fallujah.
At the same time, some 4,000 troops went into the northeastern Askari district.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=235691
not yet opened a second front?
US troops have begun a drive into western sections of the rebel-held city of Fallujah on Sunday night, securing a hospital and major bridges in what appeared to be the initial phase of an all-out assault to retake the city and crush the insurgency that has controlled it since April.
The push into Fallujah began just hours after Prime Minister Iyad Allawi imposed a 60-day state of emergency in most of the country to confront a fresh wave of bombings and ambushes sweeping Iraq.
Facing a decisive battle in Fallujah where they are severely outgunned and outmanned, insurgents have engineered a torrent of attacks across central and western Iraq in the last two days, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores more.
The state of emergency declaration sets the stage for the establishment of curfews and other martial law measures aimed at reining in the violence.
Airstrikes, pounding from artillery positions and heavy gunfire accompanied the push into the city, carried out by Marines, US soldiers and Iraqi commandos. However, late Sunday night there was no public indication that Allawi had given the go-ahead for the long-awaited major offensive to begin.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=41286
The push into Fallujah began just hours after Prime Minister Iyad Allawi imposed a 60-day state of emergency in most of the country to confront a fresh wave of bombings and ambushes sweeping Iraq.
Facing a decisive battle in Fallujah where they are severely outgunned and outmanned, insurgents have engineered a torrent of attacks across central and western Iraq in the last two days, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores more.
The state of emergency declaration sets the stage for the establishment of curfews and other martial law measures aimed at reining in the violence.
Airstrikes, pounding from artillery positions and heavy gunfire accompanied the push into the city, carried out by Marines, US soldiers and Iraqi commandos. However, late Sunday night there was no public indication that Allawi had given the go-ahead for the long-awaited major offensive to begin.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=41286
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. tanks and armored vehicles were seen moving Monday night toward northern Fallujah supported by artillery and aircraft, residents of the city said by telephone.
Insurgents responded by firing mortar rounds and automatic weapons, the residents said.
It was unclear whether the movement signaled the start of a major attack against insurgent positions, which are believed strongest in northern parts of the city.
Near Fallujah, meanwhile, American troops fought their way into the western outskirts of the city on Monday, seizing a hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River in the first stage of a major assault on the insurgent stronghold.
The U.S. military reported its first casualties of the offensive - two Marines killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates. A military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across Fallujah in the opening round of attacks.
Separately, militants attacked a Catholic church in southern Baghdad, setting it ablaze, according to police and eyewitnesses.
A huge explosion at the church in the southern Doura neighborhood left about 20 people injured, said a policeman who declined to give his name.
Eyewitness Mohammed Aziz said that strong explosions rocked the area.
More
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33947-2004Nov8.html
Insurgents responded by firing mortar rounds and automatic weapons, the residents said.
It was unclear whether the movement signaled the start of a major attack against insurgent positions, which are believed strongest in northern parts of the city.
Near Fallujah, meanwhile, American troops fought their way into the western outskirts of the city on Monday, seizing a hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River in the first stage of a major assault on the insurgent stronghold.
The U.S. military reported its first casualties of the offensive - two Marines killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates. A military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across Fallujah in the opening round of attacks.
Separately, militants attacked a Catholic church in southern Baghdad, setting it ablaze, according to police and eyewitnesses.
A huge explosion at the church in the southern Doura neighborhood left about 20 people injured, said a policeman who declined to give his name.
Eyewitness Mohammed Aziz said that strong explosions rocked the area.
More
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33947-2004Nov8.html
BAGHDAD (Agencies): Thousands of US troops, backed by armor and a stunning air barrage, attacked Sunni insurgents' toughest strongholds in Fallujah on Monday, launching a long-awaited offensive aimed at putting an end to guerrilla control of the Sunni Muslim city. After nightfall, US troops advanced slowly on the northwestern Jolan neighborhood, a warren of alleyways where Sunni militant fighters have dug in. Artillery, tanks and warplanes pounded the district's northern edge, softening the defenses and attempting to set off any bombs and boobytraps before troops moved in.
At the same time, another force pushed into the northeastern Askari district, the first large-scale assault into the insurgent-held area of the city, the military said. US tanks and Humvees from the1 st Infantry Division could be seen inside Askari. Marines were visible on rooftops inside Jolan. This reporter, located at a US camp near the city, saw orange explosions lighting up the district's palm trees, minarets and dusty roofs, and a fire burning on the city's edge. Some5 , 000US Marines and soldiers were massed in the desert on Fallujah's northern edge participating in the assault. Iraqi troops deployed with them took over a nearby train station after the Americans fired on it to drive off fighters.
The top US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, predicted a "major confrontation" on the streets of Fallujah in the operation he said was called "al-Fajr," Arabic for "dawn." He told reporters in Washington on Monday that up to15 , 000US troops along with Iraqi forces were encircling the city. Two Marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates near Fallujah earlier Monday. A military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across Fallujah in bombardment and skirmishes before the main assault began. A doctor at a clinic in Fallujah, Mohammed Amer, reported 15 people were killed. Seventeen others, including a 5-year-old girl and a10 -year-old boy, were wounded he said.
Curfew
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he gave the green light for troops to launch the long-awaited offensive against Fallujah, aimed at re-establishing government control before elections set for January. He also announced a round-the-clock curfew in Fallujah and another nearby insurgent stronghold, Ramadi, flexing emergency powers he was granted the day before. "The people of Fallujah have been taken hostage ... and you need to free them from their grip," he told Iraqi soldiers who swarmed around him during a visit to the main US base outside Fallujah just before the attack began. "May they go to hell!" the soldiers shouted, and Allawi replied: "To hell they will go."
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said coalition soldiers were "assisting Iraqi forces" in the Fallujah offensive. "Iraqi security forces, supported by the coalition and by the Iraqi people, are committed to returning stability and removing the threat of terrorism and insurgency from Iraq," he said. The skies above Fallujah burned red late Monday as artillery, war planes and tanks pounded the Iraqi rebel bastion with a barrage of firepower at the start of an operation to retake the city. Following a day of heavy shelling and missiles, US Marines and soldiers stormed the northern entrance to the city west of Baghdad as plane and tank fire lit up the night sky as Operation Phantom Fury got underway.
A unit of Marines penetrated the insurgent heartland of the city barely an hour after the offensive started, bursting into the notorious Jolan district in the northwest with a blistering volley of heavy gunfire. Iraqi forces took over the Fallujah train station late Monday, one of their objectives as US and Iraqi troops launched a major attack to seize the city from Sunni Muslim militants. One company from the Iraqi National Guard moved into the station, located on the northern outskirts of the city, after US troops secured the area on the opening night of the assault. A heavy barrage of machine gun fire left train cars on the tracks riddled with holes. Nearby, rows of US tanks and armored vehicles fanned out.
Jihad
A statement in the name of al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called on Muslims on Monday to take up arms against their US enemy. "Oh people, the war has begun and the call for jihad has been made," said the Zarqawi statement posted on an Arabic Internet web site often used by Islamists. "Despite all the agonies that we are suffering, by God, the enemies will only see things that will harm them," he said. "Let us resist them with all our might and let us spend all that is precious in fighting them. Be patient, it is only a matter of days before victory will come with the help of God."
The US military says1 ,000 to6 , 000fighters - Saddam Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic militants led by Zarqawi - are holed up in the town's alleyways and on rooftops. "Why don't you seize the opportunity so that you will be spared the pain of the grave? You should know that martyrs are considered alive in heaven," Zarqawi's statement said. He condemned Muslim scholars, accusing them of abandoning the militants and "surrendering their land to Jews and crusaders and their tails - the infidel rulers." "Allah has entrusted you to defend Muslims and preserve its sharia (law)," the statement said. "You decided to rest instead of standing in the name of God, leaving the mujahideen to face the most powerful force on earth."
Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the cold-blooded weekend execution of 21 Iraqi police officers, in an Internet statement Monday. "The lions of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers (Iraq) attacked a group of apostates in the valiant town of Haditha," said the statement. "The lions attacked a police station in the town, killing all those who were there, numbering 21 including their chief... and taking arms and other items," said the statement signed by the "Armed wing of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers." In another statement on an Islamist website, the group claimed an anti-US attack Monday on the main Baghdad airport road.
"A lion of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers rammed into a convoy of GMC-type vehicles belonging to the CIA on the Baghdad airport road," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified. Two cars were destroyed in an explosion on the road from central Baghdad to the airport, an AFP correspondent in the Iraqi capital said. A powerful Sunni Muslim group urged Iraqi security forces on Monday not to fight with US troops in Fallujah. "We call on the Iraqi forces, the National Guard and others who are mostly Muslims ... to beware of making the grave mistake of invading Iraqi cities under the banner of forces who respect no religion or human rights," Iraq's Muslim Clerics Association said in a statement.
"Beware of being deceived that you are fighting terrorists from outside the country, because by God you are fighting the townspeople and targeting its men, women and children and history will record every drop of blood you spill in oppressing the people of your nation," it said. Prime Minister Allawi on Monday dismissed a call by Saudi clerics for resistance against US forces in Iraq, and a leading Iraqi newspaper accused the religious figures of inciting terrorism.
Criticized
Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal on Monday criticized 26 prominent Saudi religious scholars for urging Iraqis to support militants waging holy war against the US-led coalition forces. "These 26 men do not represent the overwhelming majority of Saudi Arabian people, the government or the council of Senior Ulema (senior scholars) who have repeatedly condemned terrorism in Iraq and throughout the world," al-Faisal said, in his government's first reaction to the scholars' letter to the Iraqi people.
"They are a tiny extremist minority who have put this letter out in deliberate defiance of much more authoritative edicts calling for peace and stability in the region and urging the Iraqi people to unite behind their government," said al-Faisal. "The US forces are still destroying towns on the heads of their people and killing women and children. What's going on in Iraq is a result of the big crime of America's occupation of Iraq," Sheik Awad Al-Qarni, one of the scholars, told Al-Arabiya TV.
Militants detonated car bombs in quick succession Monday near two churches in southern Baghdad after sundown, killing at least three people and injuring 52 others, according to the US military and police. The first blast exploded near St Georges Church in the southern Doura neighborhood at about6 : 25pm ( 1525GMT), the US military said.
Agreed
Meanwhile in Cairo, envoys have agreed on a compromise text to be submitted to an Iraq conference in Egypt later this month after three days of wrangling pitting France against the United States, a diplomat who took part in the discussions told AFP Monday. The new draft refers to the US-led troop presence in Iraq as "temporary" but falls short of French calls for a timetable for its withdrawal, the diplomat said. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from Nov22 - 23is to bring together Iraq's interim government with officials from neighbouring countries, the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
The preparatory discussions between ambassadors of the participating countries proved intense with one session lasting five hours and continuing late into the night, the diplomat said. France had already abandoned earlier calls for all Iraqi factions which renounced violence to be invited to the gathering, after it was agreed that a separate meeting would be held for them ahead of elections planned for January. With a major assault on the Iraqi rebel enclave of Fallujah imminent, US delegates also insisted on the removal of any condemnation of violence against civilians, the diplomat said.
The compromise text calls only for "restraint" to be exercised. After talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit Monday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he expected the conference to give "clear international backing for the transfer of sovereignty to an elected government and the process of political stabilisation in Iraq." Iraq will hold elections in January, despite European Foreign Minister Javier Solana's statement putting the deadline in doubt, the White House said Monday. "We fully expect it will happen in January," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters, as US and Iraqi troops launched an offensive on Fallujah, to rid it of rebels.
"The situation from the point of view of security does not give much of a hope that that will be realized," Solana told reporters in The Hague, referring to January's planned election. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday pledged to "hold firm" in Iraq and and said the massive US-led assault against insurgents in Fallujah was necessary to ensure elections could go ahead in the country. Blair said that if the Sunni Muslim city remained outside the control of Iraq's interim government, elections scheduled for January next year could be damaged.
"Defeat of terrorism in Iraq is defeat for this new and virulent form of global terrorism everywhere," Blair told the House of Commons. "A democratic Iraq is the last thing the terrorists want to see. It is precisely for that reason, because victory for the terrorists would damage security round the world including here in Britain, that we have to hold firm, be resolute and see this through, including in Fallujah." "The action by allied and Iraqi forces underway in Fallujah would cease now, immediately, if the terrorists and insurgents who are using Fallujah as a base for terrorism would lay down their weapons and agree to participate in the elections."
Killed
The Ministry of Defense said Monday a soldier from the Black Watch regiment was killed in an incident that appeared to involve a roadside bomb. Two other soldiers were injured. The Black Watch regiment was moved last week from relatively peaceful southern Iraq to a US-controlled, high-risk area near Baghdad. The ministry said the incident happened within the battle group's area of operations and north of their temporary base, Camp Dogwood, which is 48 kilometers ( 30miles) southwest of Baghdad.
The ministry said the injuries sustained by one of the soldiers were possibly serious. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that nearly 60 Turkish nationals had been killed in neighbouring Iraq and urged the United States to work for stability in the war-torn country, his office said. Erdogan brought up the issue of increasing attacks on Turkish truck drivers in Iraq in a telephone call to US President George W. Bush to congratulate him on his re-election, a statement from his press office said. In Warsaw, Poland's foreign minister said Monday the government was optimistic about freeing a Polish woman held hostage by militants in Iraq.
"We are working very actively," Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz told TVN24. "I deeply believe it will all end well." Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a54 -year-old woman with Polish and Iraqi citizenship was abducted from her apartment in Baghdad last month. She later appeared in a video aired by Al-Jazeera television pleading for her life, and asking Poland to pull its soldiers out of Iraq. Philippines Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo appeared on Al-Jazeera Arabic television to appeal to kidnappers to release a Filipino accountant held hostage in Iraq, the foreign department said Monday.
Romulo appeared on Al-Jazeera hours after the Qatar-based TV news channel retracted its report that the hostage Roberto Tarongoy had been freed, department spokesman Gilbert Asuque said. The station said only a Nepalese captive was freed.
Oppose
In Tokyo, a majority of Japanese people oppose extending the deployment of troops in Iraq, but the killing of a hostage in the country has done no further damage to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's standing, an opinion poll showed Monday. The survey by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper found 51 per cent opposed keeping soldiers in Iraq past Dec 14when their mission expires, nearly double the 27 per cent who are in favor. The beheading last month of Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda in Iraq after Koizumi rejected the kidnappers' demands to withdraw troops has fuelled debate about whether the soldiers should stay in Iraq.
Three hundred Georgian troops left for Iraq, nearly doubling the former Soviet republic's contingent there, as Tbilisi said it would soon dispatch another 500 soldiers. The 300 men left by plane from a military base in Georgia for Kuwait for deployment in Iraq, where they will replace the 157 Georgian soldiers now serving in the US-led coalition force. The two units from a batallion trained by US instructors are to undergo two weeks' more preparation at a US military base in Kuwait before starting a six-month mission in Baquba,70 kilometres ( 44miles) north-east of Baghdad.
Georgian Defence Minister Georgi Baramidze accompanied the troops to Kuwait and told journalists before the departure that the soldiers would gain "tremendous military experience" in Iraq. Poland is committed to keeping its troops in Iraq, but is actively looking for ways to reduce its presence there and hopes that the re-elected US administration is clearer in voicing its ambitions for Iraq in the future, Poland's parliament speaker said Monday. "We will continue our mission in Iraq with our American friends, but I hope President (George W.) Bush will better clarify US goals there," Jozef Oleksy said during a visit to Tallinn.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=3527&cat=a
At the same time, another force pushed into the northeastern Askari district, the first large-scale assault into the insurgent-held area of the city, the military said. US tanks and Humvees from the1 st Infantry Division could be seen inside Askari. Marines were visible on rooftops inside Jolan. This reporter, located at a US camp near the city, saw orange explosions lighting up the district's palm trees, minarets and dusty roofs, and a fire burning on the city's edge. Some5 , 000US Marines and soldiers were massed in the desert on Fallujah's northern edge participating in the assault. Iraqi troops deployed with them took over a nearby train station after the Americans fired on it to drive off fighters.
The top US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, predicted a "major confrontation" on the streets of Fallujah in the operation he said was called "al-Fajr," Arabic for "dawn." He told reporters in Washington on Monday that up to15 , 000US troops along with Iraqi forces were encircling the city. Two Marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates near Fallujah earlier Monday. A military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across Fallujah in bombardment and skirmishes before the main assault began. A doctor at a clinic in Fallujah, Mohammed Amer, reported 15 people were killed. Seventeen others, including a 5-year-old girl and a10 -year-old boy, were wounded he said.
Curfew
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he gave the green light for troops to launch the long-awaited offensive against Fallujah, aimed at re-establishing government control before elections set for January. He also announced a round-the-clock curfew in Fallujah and another nearby insurgent stronghold, Ramadi, flexing emergency powers he was granted the day before. "The people of Fallujah have been taken hostage ... and you need to free them from their grip," he told Iraqi soldiers who swarmed around him during a visit to the main US base outside Fallujah just before the attack began. "May they go to hell!" the soldiers shouted, and Allawi replied: "To hell they will go."
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said coalition soldiers were "assisting Iraqi forces" in the Fallujah offensive. "Iraqi security forces, supported by the coalition and by the Iraqi people, are committed to returning stability and removing the threat of terrorism and insurgency from Iraq," he said. The skies above Fallujah burned red late Monday as artillery, war planes and tanks pounded the Iraqi rebel bastion with a barrage of firepower at the start of an operation to retake the city. Following a day of heavy shelling and missiles, US Marines and soldiers stormed the northern entrance to the city west of Baghdad as plane and tank fire lit up the night sky as Operation Phantom Fury got underway.
A unit of Marines penetrated the insurgent heartland of the city barely an hour after the offensive started, bursting into the notorious Jolan district in the northwest with a blistering volley of heavy gunfire. Iraqi forces took over the Fallujah train station late Monday, one of their objectives as US and Iraqi troops launched a major attack to seize the city from Sunni Muslim militants. One company from the Iraqi National Guard moved into the station, located on the northern outskirts of the city, after US troops secured the area on the opening night of the assault. A heavy barrage of machine gun fire left train cars on the tracks riddled with holes. Nearby, rows of US tanks and armored vehicles fanned out.
Jihad
A statement in the name of al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called on Muslims on Monday to take up arms against their US enemy. "Oh people, the war has begun and the call for jihad has been made," said the Zarqawi statement posted on an Arabic Internet web site often used by Islamists. "Despite all the agonies that we are suffering, by God, the enemies will only see things that will harm them," he said. "Let us resist them with all our might and let us spend all that is precious in fighting them. Be patient, it is only a matter of days before victory will come with the help of God."
The US military says1 ,000 to6 , 000fighters - Saddam Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic militants led by Zarqawi - are holed up in the town's alleyways and on rooftops. "Why don't you seize the opportunity so that you will be spared the pain of the grave? You should know that martyrs are considered alive in heaven," Zarqawi's statement said. He condemned Muslim scholars, accusing them of abandoning the militants and "surrendering their land to Jews and crusaders and their tails - the infidel rulers." "Allah has entrusted you to defend Muslims and preserve its sharia (law)," the statement said. "You decided to rest instead of standing in the name of God, leaving the mujahideen to face the most powerful force on earth."
Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the cold-blooded weekend execution of 21 Iraqi police officers, in an Internet statement Monday. "The lions of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers (Iraq) attacked a group of apostates in the valiant town of Haditha," said the statement. "The lions attacked a police station in the town, killing all those who were there, numbering 21 including their chief... and taking arms and other items," said the statement signed by the "Armed wing of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers." In another statement on an Islamist website, the group claimed an anti-US attack Monday on the main Baghdad airport road.
"A lion of al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers rammed into a convoy of GMC-type vehicles belonging to the CIA on the Baghdad airport road," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified. Two cars were destroyed in an explosion on the road from central Baghdad to the airport, an AFP correspondent in the Iraqi capital said. A powerful Sunni Muslim group urged Iraqi security forces on Monday not to fight with US troops in Fallujah. "We call on the Iraqi forces, the National Guard and others who are mostly Muslims ... to beware of making the grave mistake of invading Iraqi cities under the banner of forces who respect no religion or human rights," Iraq's Muslim Clerics Association said in a statement.
"Beware of being deceived that you are fighting terrorists from outside the country, because by God you are fighting the townspeople and targeting its men, women and children and history will record every drop of blood you spill in oppressing the people of your nation," it said. Prime Minister Allawi on Monday dismissed a call by Saudi clerics for resistance against US forces in Iraq, and a leading Iraqi newspaper accused the religious figures of inciting terrorism.
Criticized
Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal on Monday criticized 26 prominent Saudi religious scholars for urging Iraqis to support militants waging holy war against the US-led coalition forces. "These 26 men do not represent the overwhelming majority of Saudi Arabian people, the government or the council of Senior Ulema (senior scholars) who have repeatedly condemned terrorism in Iraq and throughout the world," al-Faisal said, in his government's first reaction to the scholars' letter to the Iraqi people.
"They are a tiny extremist minority who have put this letter out in deliberate defiance of much more authoritative edicts calling for peace and stability in the region and urging the Iraqi people to unite behind their government," said al-Faisal. "The US forces are still destroying towns on the heads of their people and killing women and children. What's going on in Iraq is a result of the big crime of America's occupation of Iraq," Sheik Awad Al-Qarni, one of the scholars, told Al-Arabiya TV.
Militants detonated car bombs in quick succession Monday near two churches in southern Baghdad after sundown, killing at least three people and injuring 52 others, according to the US military and police. The first blast exploded near St Georges Church in the southern Doura neighborhood at about6 : 25pm ( 1525GMT), the US military said.
Agreed
Meanwhile in Cairo, envoys have agreed on a compromise text to be submitted to an Iraq conference in Egypt later this month after three days of wrangling pitting France against the United States, a diplomat who took part in the discussions told AFP Monday. The new draft refers to the US-led troop presence in Iraq as "temporary" but falls short of French calls for a timetable for its withdrawal, the diplomat said. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from Nov22 - 23is to bring together Iraq's interim government with officials from neighbouring countries, the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
The preparatory discussions between ambassadors of the participating countries proved intense with one session lasting five hours and continuing late into the night, the diplomat said. France had already abandoned earlier calls for all Iraqi factions which renounced violence to be invited to the gathering, after it was agreed that a separate meeting would be held for them ahead of elections planned for January. With a major assault on the Iraqi rebel enclave of Fallujah imminent, US delegates also insisted on the removal of any condemnation of violence against civilians, the diplomat said.
The compromise text calls only for "restraint" to be exercised. After talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit Monday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he expected the conference to give "clear international backing for the transfer of sovereignty to an elected government and the process of political stabilisation in Iraq." Iraq will hold elections in January, despite European Foreign Minister Javier Solana's statement putting the deadline in doubt, the White House said Monday. "We fully expect it will happen in January," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters, as US and Iraqi troops launched an offensive on Fallujah, to rid it of rebels.
"The situation from the point of view of security does not give much of a hope that that will be realized," Solana told reporters in The Hague, referring to January's planned election. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday pledged to "hold firm" in Iraq and and said the massive US-led assault against insurgents in Fallujah was necessary to ensure elections could go ahead in the country. Blair said that if the Sunni Muslim city remained outside the control of Iraq's interim government, elections scheduled for January next year could be damaged.
"Defeat of terrorism in Iraq is defeat for this new and virulent form of global terrorism everywhere," Blair told the House of Commons. "A democratic Iraq is the last thing the terrorists want to see. It is precisely for that reason, because victory for the terrorists would damage security round the world including here in Britain, that we have to hold firm, be resolute and see this through, including in Fallujah." "The action by allied and Iraqi forces underway in Fallujah would cease now, immediately, if the terrorists and insurgents who are using Fallujah as a base for terrorism would lay down their weapons and agree to participate in the elections."
Killed
The Ministry of Defense said Monday a soldier from the Black Watch regiment was killed in an incident that appeared to involve a roadside bomb. Two other soldiers were injured. The Black Watch regiment was moved last week from relatively peaceful southern Iraq to a US-controlled, high-risk area near Baghdad. The ministry said the incident happened within the battle group's area of operations and north of their temporary base, Camp Dogwood, which is 48 kilometers ( 30miles) southwest of Baghdad.
The ministry said the injuries sustained by one of the soldiers were possibly serious. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that nearly 60 Turkish nationals had been killed in neighbouring Iraq and urged the United States to work for stability in the war-torn country, his office said. Erdogan brought up the issue of increasing attacks on Turkish truck drivers in Iraq in a telephone call to US President George W. Bush to congratulate him on his re-election, a statement from his press office said. In Warsaw, Poland's foreign minister said Monday the government was optimistic about freeing a Polish woman held hostage by militants in Iraq.
"We are working very actively," Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz told TVN24. "I deeply believe it will all end well." Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a54 -year-old woman with Polish and Iraqi citizenship was abducted from her apartment in Baghdad last month. She later appeared in a video aired by Al-Jazeera television pleading for her life, and asking Poland to pull its soldiers out of Iraq. Philippines Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo appeared on Al-Jazeera Arabic television to appeal to kidnappers to release a Filipino accountant held hostage in Iraq, the foreign department said Monday.
Romulo appeared on Al-Jazeera hours after the Qatar-based TV news channel retracted its report that the hostage Roberto Tarongoy had been freed, department spokesman Gilbert Asuque said. The station said only a Nepalese captive was freed.
Oppose
In Tokyo, a majority of Japanese people oppose extending the deployment of troops in Iraq, but the killing of a hostage in the country has done no further damage to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's standing, an opinion poll showed Monday. The survey by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper found 51 per cent opposed keeping soldiers in Iraq past Dec 14when their mission expires, nearly double the 27 per cent who are in favor. The beheading last month of Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda in Iraq after Koizumi rejected the kidnappers' demands to withdraw troops has fuelled debate about whether the soldiers should stay in Iraq.
Three hundred Georgian troops left for Iraq, nearly doubling the former Soviet republic's contingent there, as Tbilisi said it would soon dispatch another 500 soldiers. The 300 men left by plane from a military base in Georgia for Kuwait for deployment in Iraq, where they will replace the 157 Georgian soldiers now serving in the US-led coalition force. The two units from a batallion trained by US instructors are to undergo two weeks' more preparation at a US military base in Kuwait before starting a six-month mission in Baquba,70 kilometres ( 44miles) north-east of Baghdad.
Georgian Defence Minister Georgi Baramidze accompanied the troops to Kuwait and told journalists before the departure that the soldiers would gain "tremendous military experience" in Iraq. Poland is committed to keeping its troops in Iraq, but is actively looking for ways to reduce its presence there and hopes that the re-elected US administration is clearer in voicing its ambitions for Iraq in the future, Poland's parliament speaker said Monday. "We will continue our mission in Iraq with our American friends, but I hope President (George W.) Bush will better clarify US goals there," Jozef Oleksy said during a visit to Tallinn.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=3527&cat=a
THE CURSE IS AS FOLLOWS. READ IT CLEARLY
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
THE CURSE IS AS FOLLOWS. READ IT CLEARLY
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
THE CURSE IS AS FOLLOWS. READ IT CLEARLY
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
ALL RESPONSABLE FOR THIS CRIME.... FROM GLOBAL BANKERS TO U.S. POLITICIANS...DOWN TO THE
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDERS AND SOLDIERS........ .......WILL CRY OUT IN SORROW ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BARE THE BURDON OF THIER SINS AGAINST THE LITTLE ONES. THEY WILL LIVE THE REST OF THEIR LIVES SEEKING TO DESTROY THE MEMORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE... BUT WILL NEVER FIND REST IN THIS LIFE. and once they die..They will live in hell until they have re-lived the terror , the fear , ( of mamas papas and children huddled in houses together before death strikes )and ALL of the suffering which they have inflicted....through the eyes, minds, and hearts of every one of their victoms, including the suffering loss of the living.. who's loved ones have been maimed, or killed, and every ramification of this MURDEROUS BEAST.
THEN YOU WILL COWER ON YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR MERCY...BUT YOU WILL FIND NONE...UNTIL EVERY PENNY HAS BEEN PAYED. -AMEN
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$220.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network