Westerner beheaded on Mosul street as American forces lose control of key

Westerner beheaded on Mosul street as American forces lose control of key city

Westerner beheaded on Mosul street as American forces lose control of key city
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
18 December 2004


Gunmen raked a car with machine-gun fire in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, killing three foreigners and their driver. They then cut off the head of one of their victims.

The killings show that at the same time as the US was recapturing Fallujah in a heavily publicised assault it largely lost control of Mosul, Iraq's northern capital. Though US troops launched a counter-attack, their grip on the city remains tenuous. The four men who died yesterday were travelling in a white sedan when it was attacked with automatic weapons and set on fire at a traffic intersection in Mosul.

(snip)

Insurgents launched an uprising on 10 November, two days after the US Marines started their attack on Mosul, and stormed 10 police stations. Out of a local police force of 8,000, all but 1,000 have deserted and only 400 of those remaining are considered reliable.

(snip)

Unlike Fallujah, the guerrillas did not contest the recapture of Mosul by US and Iraqi forces in November. Leaflets were issued instructing fighters to hide their weapons and stay in the city. Since then 150 bodies have found, many of them members of the National Guard or other security forces. US forces in Iraq are being built up from 138,000 to 150,000 men and are already stretched trying to hold Sunni Muslim cities and towns around Baghdad. They were never able to surround Fallujah, even at the height of the battle last month, and many fighters escaped.

(snip)

There are more than 250,000 refugees who fled the city to seek shelter in Baghdad 35 miles away or the nearby city of Ramadi. Others are in camps on the city outskirts or in neighbouring villages. Fallujah has had no power or water since the US assault and these will take time to restore.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594312

I blame Bush for all of it - he went to war by choice and set in motion this whole cascade of terrible events.

On edit - For the record, they may have been mercs, although I suppose carrying weapons is pretty common by now.
"The men were carrying small automatic weapons, indicating that they may have been working for one of the private security companies in Iraq."

W will claim a victory for Republicanism and the Media will dutifully carry the victory meme to a placid public.

...if you'll pardon the expression.

For shame. That would be so.....incomplete.

Anybody like the scenario?

Insurgents (resistance fighters) move from city to city to remove U.S. influence. They move because they cannot combat the large troop deployments that are sent to quell an uprising. This process continues all throughout the country.

We needed more troops. We need to keep track of and stop foreign influence that sneaks across the border. We need to rebuild the country.

But we are not doing that.

Instead, we are slowly demolishing the place and leaving it a smoldering pile of ruins.

And as for the oil strategy, why do we think that Bush wanted to develop oil assets? Why would he work to put extra production on-line, thus lowering the cost of crude oil? After all, why make money at $35 a barrel when you can get $50?

The Bush plan is right on track, folks. Iraq is an excuse to stay in power, an excuse to raise oil prices, and an excuse to put forth all of the Orwellian police state measures that we are seeing now.

Don't ever think that Bush is failing in his own plan.
Accept that he is bringing the world to ruin in his quest for power and money.

Christian values my ass.
Fighting terrorists my ass.
They're in it for the money.
Criminals.

It is clear from reality that the neocons didn't really have a well-thought out plan; just an ideology coupled with a profound ignorance of non-western cultures and a mythical superpower at their disposal.

Yes, the war profiteers have advantaged themselves of the neocon fools but then they really don't give a shit how they make money. If they thought there was money to be made in supplying beheading knives they'd find a way to get the contract.

And yet, Americans largely think all is well, the Shrub is "king" and can do no wrong....And, those who have died increasingly seem to have died for naught. How horrible for the families (on both sides).

those who have suffered and those who will in the future have done so for a reason: to enrich the War Profiteers,the Oil companies and all connected to them.

one of the few that was relatively "undisturbed" in the beginning, reliably getting oil out of Iraq... well, doesn't that throw a monkeywrench into all of their plans. hmmm.... raises american war costs, raises gas costs... directly aims at making a pyrrhic victory of USA's efforts. these are clever people, they know exactly where to hit this administration, the pocket.