← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Jack Cassidy
Thread ID: 15225 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2004-10-05
2004-10-05 14:47 | User Profile
[url="http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/age15.html"]http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/age15.html[/url]
[size=3]Iraqi President condemns US air assaults[/size]
Samarra, Iraq
The Iraqi provisional Government has condemned US air assaults as "collective punishment" as US forces claimed victory in an offensive against the rebel city of Samarra.
"Air strikes on cities are a very annoying issue and not acceptable in any way," Iraqi interim President Ghazi Yawar told al-Arabiya television network. "I consider it collective punishment."
Iraqi religious leaders also condemned the assault and warned that other towns in the restive Sunni triangle would not fall so easily.
Waving white flags, Iraqis fled Samarra at the weekend as US forces claimed victory over insurgents in the first step of an offensive aimed at taking control of rebel-held cities.
Iraq interim Government is hoping American and Iraqi forces will crush a bloody insurgency and take back all of the country before elections scheduled for January.
About 3000 US troops and 2000 Iraqi soldiers stormed Samarra, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, on Friday, determined to rid the city of its insurgent population.
In 36 hours of fighting in the city, the US military said it killed 125 guerillas and seized 88, and about 70 per cent of the city was under US-Iraqi control.
But the operation brought condemnation from residents about the cost in lives and suffering, and guerillas in the rebel-held city of Fallujah are expected to put up a tougher fight.
Residents said bodies were left in the streets, untended because of the fear of snipers.
Families tried to bury their dead, but the road to the cemetery was blocked off by US troops, witnesses said.
One man who said he escaped the city said a number of civilians had been killed.
The man who gave his name as Abu Qaqa told reporters in Baghdad he had seen stray dogs picking at corpses in the street.
Meanwhile, a hospital near Baghdad said it had received the unidentified bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, found by police. The man had been beheaded and the woman shot in the head.
In a statement, the US military said warplanes had conducted "another precision strike" in Fallujah, the latest in a long campaign of strikes targeted at Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his followers.
Some people unable to flee Samarra by road travelled on small boats along a river holding up white flags as helicopters hovered overhead.
An Iraqi Red Crescent spokeswoman, Firdoos al-Ubadi, said her group and other aid organisations had received a letter from Iraq's Human Rights Ministry describing the situation in Samarra as a tragedy and calling for emergency assistance.
÷ The Iraqi group that freed two Italian woman hostages is trying to "buy" Kenneth Bigley, the British kidnap victim, from his captors in the hope of releasing him for a substantial ransom, a Kuwaiti newspaper editor said on Sunday.
The news came from Jassim Bodai, editor of al-Rai al-Aam, which first reported that Italy had paid $US1 million ($A1.4 million) to secure the release of the Italian women aid workers, "the two Simonas", last week.
Copyright é 2004. The Age Company Ltd.
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2004-10-05 14:57 | User Profile
[url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6095119/"]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6095119/[/url]
U.S. warplanes pound vast Baghdad slum Car bomb explosion triggers deadly clashes in Ramadi
The Associated Press Updated: 8:23 a.m. ET Oct. 5, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. warplanes pounded the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City overnight after an American patrol came under gunfire, the military said Tuesday. In the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, a car bomb explosion was followed by clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents. An Associated Press photographer saw two dead bodies and four wounded Iraqis at the scene of the clashes in the al-Ziyout area of Ramadi, a rebel stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad.
Police Capt. Nassir Hassan said the explosion was a car bomb. U.S. soldiers and rebels exchanged gunfire following the blast. Dr. Diaââ¬â¢a al-Haity at the Ramadi General Hospital confirmed that two persons had died and four were injured in the fighting.
U.S. Marines, patrolling the city Monday, killed two insurgents and wounded a third while two civilians were also injured during the gun battle, a military spokesman said. Vehicle-borne Marines opened fire on three masked men seen planting a roadside explosive, and after killing two and wounding a third, they pursued three others who later managed to escape, said 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a spokesman for the Marines.
ââ¬ÅTwo civilians, a woman and a child, were injured in the initial exchange of fire between the Marines and the anti-Iraqi forces. It is unclear at this time how their injuries occurred,ââ¬Â Gilbert said.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have indicated that Ramadi, along with the nearby city of Fallujah, may have to be swept clear of rebels in order for January elections to take place everywhere in Iraq.
2004-10-05 15:02 | User Profile
I sure as hell hope the US military is having fun playing soldier, because I know my ass back here is in bigger danger each day these tough guys in heavy armor obliterate human beings in foreign cities where people have long memories and the rule of lex talionis.
2004-10-05 15:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]I sure as hell hope the US military is having fun playing soldier, because I know my ass back here is in bigger danger each day these tough guys in heavy armor obliterate human beings in foreign cities where people have long memories and the rule of lex talionis.[/QUOTE]
It'd be difficult to say it better in a single sentence....
2004-10-05 15:43 | User Profile
If there's an Almighty God in heaven, the USA will suffer the consequences of their barbarous murder of Iraqis.
PS I finally watched "Farenheit 9/11" and I almost teared up seeing the beginning of the US bombing campaign on Baghdad. The unholy destruction of the city and the unbelievable misery handed down to innocent Iraqis was too much for me to handle, and this was early on in the war! God knows what's happened to countless women and children and elderly in the past 1.5 years.....God be with them.
2004-10-05 16:29 | User Profile
The US will continue to make war on others till such a time that war comes to us,,,,like a big bully the US will continue to pick on others till someone knocks the socks out of them.