Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Before the assault on Fallujah, U.S. officials described the city as a den of foreign terrorists, but its top commanders were an electrician and a mosque preacher -- both natives of the community and now on the run from American forces.

Religious fervor and hatred of Americans brought Omar Hadid and Abdullah al-Janabi together in a partnership that played a major role in transforming Fallujah from a sleepy Euphrates River backwater into a potent symbol of Arab nationalism.

Their rise to prominence provides insight into contemporary Iraq, where the U.S. presence sparked a religious backlash that gave radical Muslim leaders major roles in filling the void created by the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime and its replacement by a weak U.S.-backed government.

After U.S. Marines lifted the siege of Fallujah last April, central government control collapsed. That enabled men like Hadid, an electrician who lived with his mother, and al-Janabi, a local imam and member of an important local clan, to emerge as powerbrokers until the Marines took the city back this month.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-iraq-fugitive-leaders,0,38405.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Didn't they get the memo: We came to liberate you.

Only a douchebag would believe that nonsense. If it doesn't fit the ongoing analysis by Rumsy, Shrub, and Condi, it's a lie.

have no business trying to protect themselves from Dimson and his storm troopers.

D.N.O

Just ask any native American how we fleced them of everything, land, culture, and tribal kinship, so basically everything good and sacred. Capitalism & Greed, the American Way.

Thankfull..? I think not. Tomorrow is National ShameDay.


D.N.O

U.S. military and Iraqi officials have said that al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his foreign militant followers had controlled a large chunk of Falluja before the offensive that U.S. officials said killed 1,200 guerrillas.


Major Jim West, an intelligence officer, said it was difficult to determine if Zarqawi was in Falluja during the air and ground assault but added the Marines know the Jordanian militant was "in and out" of the city.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=4&u=/nm/20041124/wl_nm/iraq_falluja_weapons_dc