In Fallujah's wake, marines go west (new insurgent tactics)

http://www.gogreenbay.com/page.html?article=130183

After five hours of shivering quietly in the desert outside Hit, where sulphur seeps from the ground and almost nothing grows, Bravo Company marines got the word - "good to go" - and began to creep into the sleeping city.

They were primed for strong resistance. But the marines of the First Battalion of the 23rd Regiment entered Hit (pronounced Heat) almost unopposed and filtered toward the neighborhood around the Mubarak mosque at 2 a.m., kicking down doors of homes in search of weapons and setting up a command post to coordinate operations to clear out the city's fighters.

Three weeks after Iraq's elections, US forces are still leading the fight in Anbar, the most dangerous of the country's 18 provinces. Marines have launched operations in at least three other provincial cities in operation "River Blitz."

Targeting hardscrabble cities like Hit, Ramadi, and Baghdadi, they are looking for foreign insurgent fighters and known insurgent hotbeds. But resistance has been light, far different from the November assault on Fallujah where dug-in mujahideen fought pitched battles with marines and died in the hundreds.

While that has been welcome news to the grunts of Bravo, a group of reservists primarily from Texas and Louisiana who have fought their way up and down the Euphrates since August, it appears to represent a shift in insurgent tactics.

for strict Saudi Arabian ideas to move into the country.

WTF?

Where do these Bozos pick up this shite?

Examples, History, anything to back this up?

This is the Cradle of Civilization.

What's really happenin'-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1262561

When you're doing this much bombinhg from the air,
you're not in control of anything.

A U.S. AV-8B II Harrier from the 'Tomcats' of Marine
Attack Squadron 311 out of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma,
Ariz., rests on the flightline in al-Asad airbasen near
Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in this photograph released
on February 24, 2005. The 'Tomcats' have logged more
than 3,000 combat flight hours in a mere three-month period
and in support for military operations in the al-
Anbar province.U.S. forces used warplanes and an AC-
130 gunship as they stepped up operations against
insurgents in the restive western Anbar province, the U.S.
military said on Thursday.
REUTERS/DOD

Many, many thanx to leftchick :)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=35&u=/nm/20050224/ts_nm/iraq_anbar_dc_1

HAQLANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - "If there are no Mujahideen here, then who the hell is shooting at us?" asked Marine Major Richard Seagrist, referring to insurgents.

U.S. marines punched into this town in restive Anbar province on Wednesday and have stayed on, aiming to confront the guerrillas they think use it to smuggle weapons and fighters in from Syria, 60 miles to the west.

<snip>

An F-18 jet dropped two 500 lb bombs on Muj Island in response, but the marines bedded down on Wednesday expecting a counter-attack on their temporary base, in a school on the edge of town.

In the end they slept in peace, although the night was not without incident.

"They've cut the water off. That really isn't playing fair," said First Sergeant Erl Fortson, inspecting the school's by now very clogged toilet

Said the First Sergeant backed up by history's greatest war machine, an overfunded behemoth that roams the earth, acting with impunity in any manner it sees fit against persons who can't effectively fire back and can't get away, all the while paying the merest lip service to the conventions of the civilized world.

on PBS's "Frontline" they showed the troops leveling a grove in Baghdad because it was supposedly being used by insurgents for cover.
In Anbar they won't hesitate.

.....and we wonder why the world hates us.

The keep saying this, but they offer no proof. I would guess that Syria isn't a driving force, but clearly the US has to blame somebody at this point.


"That really isn't playing fair" Is anything fair about this occupation?

when their doors were kicked down at 2 a.m. while they were sleeping.


...But the marines...entered Hit...almost unopposed and filtered toward the neighborhood around the Mubarak mosque at 2 a.m., kicking down doors of homes in search of weapons...