Falluja Battle Erupts, Unrest Spreads Elsewhere

FALLUJA (Reuters) - A battle erupted near a mosque in northwest Falluja Friday just hours after U.S. Marines said insurgents were now trapped in the south of the city.


Insurgents determined to show they are undeterred by the four-day-old offensive in Iraq (news - web sites)'s most rebellious city have hit back hard with attacks and bombings elsewhere, causing two days of bloody chaos in the northern city of Mosul.


Iraqi authorities struggling to contain the unrest roiling Sunni Muslim cities have imposed curfews on Baghdad, Mosul, Baiji, Ramadi and Falluja this week. A curfew has been in force in Samarra since U.S.-led forces stormed it last month.

~snip~

Heavy fighting resumed in Falluja's northwestern Jolan district, where resistance had dwindled in the previous 24 hours, a Reuters correspondent with Marines in the area said.


Gunmen emerged on a rooftop beside a mosque as Marine tanks headed for the area. Troops evacuated two U.S. casualties.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=4&u=/nm/20041112/wl_nm/iraq_dc

Yeah, sound like the military has captured Fallujah :eyes:

Earlier headlines:

With Fallujah almost under control, US troops sniff out die-hard rebels

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&ncid=1515&e=9&u=/afp/20041112/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_fallujah_041112115526

U.S. Forces Say Last Falluja Rebel Bastion to Fall

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=6&u=/nm/20041112/wl_nm/iraq_dc_876

US forces occupy almost all of Fallujah: marines

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&e=16&u=/afp/20041112/ts_afp/iraq_us_fallujah_control_041112100438

with conventional warfare?

They don't hold a territory. If you blow up the place they're staying, they just go someplace else and for every one you kill, you piss off people enough to create two more.

This isn't rocket science...

:(

every citizen of that city would kill every US soldier if they could.
And who could blame them?

I can't believe we are watching this slaughter....
and can't do anything to stop it.

the tactics of "the insurgents" sound pretty familiar to me. Deja Vu.

,...I feel sick,...

Al-Fallujah Resistance pledged to die for their faith and city.

In a dispatch posted at 2:45am Friday local time (1:45am
Mecca time) Abu Sa‘d ath-Thallami denied claims by
some news media that Resistance fighters had
been surrendering and laying down their
weapons.

Abu Sa‘d ath-Thallami told al-Jazeera TV by telephone that
the defenders of al-Fallujah had pledged to one another to die
in defense of their faith and city. Abu Sa‘d denied
American claims that Resistance fighters had been
using mosques as places from which to fire on the invaders
or to take cover. He said that the occupation forces
were inventing these lies as an excuse for blowing up
the mosques which are so important to the Muslims.

Abu Sa‘d said that the US forces were waging a dirty war
in al-Fallujah, striking the one remaining medical facility in
the city, claiming that Resistance fighters were
inside.

Resistance destroys 30 US tanks and captures two
intact. American invaders expelled from areas they earlier
took over.

Speaking by telephone to al-Jazeera satellite TV, Abu
Sa‘d ath-Thallami said that the Resistance had set 30
US vehicles ablaze and captured two others in the al-
Jawlan neighborhood, where two tanks had been encircled
and abandoned by their crews amidst a great many
other wrecked tanks. The young men of the Resistance, he
said, have seized those two tanks.

and all the hospitals, clinics.

You'd be a dead man walkin'.

The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in al-
Fallujah
confirmed that the doctors and nurses arrived near the
city
where they got out of their cars in order to slip into
al-
Fallujah individually so as to avoid being stopped
by
the American military.

The volunteers walked to a branch of the Euphrates
River,
and on crossing it were entering al-Fallujah when
US
snipers opened fire on them. Seventeen of the
doctors
and nurses were shot dead as they crossed the river,
which
is between 150 and 170 meters wide. The
survivors
continued across and made it to the defiant city, many
of
them wounded to varying degrees by the
American
gunfire.

And, for some R&R, to blow off a little steam:
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/14569_tiger.html

What the hell is wrong with our military????

OUR Generals are HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable"
Fadhil Badrani, Iraqi journalist in Falluja


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4005475.stm

US Corporal Will Porter said he
was charged with clearing
insurgents from one house at a
time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4005475.stm

"The US forces have asked us through loudspeakers to get out
of the houses and raise white flags. But all the city's areas
are under fierce bombings.

"We don't know what to do, stay in our place which is under
bombardment or get out and get shot," Ali said.

....
"I'm supposed to shoot into the houses before our troops go in."
Corporal Will Porter said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/49216922-DF38-4666-98A9-9F87DC75111F.htm

"We call on all organizations and the whole world to help us.

FALLUJA (Reuters) - U.S.-led troops battling to take control of Falluja ran into pockets of fierce resistance on Friday as aid agencies pressed for access to the Iraqi city to take food and water to civilians trapped inside.



Just hours after U.S. Marines said insurgents were penned into the south of Falluja, a battle erupted in the northwest of the city, a Reuters correspondent with Marines in the area said.


~snip~

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society urged U.S. forces and the Iraqi government to let it deliver food, medicine and water, describing conditions in Falluja as a disaster.

~snip~

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was deeply disturbed by a new directive from Iraqi authorities warning news organizations to stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Falluja.

"We are very troubled by this directive, which is an attempt to control news coverage through government coercion," the committee's executive director Ann Cooper said in a statement. "It damages the government's credibility in establishing a free and democratic society."


more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20041112/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Rate it everyone!

Stick to the government line in news coverage....Stick to the government line in news coverage.

This should send chills down all of our spines, including those of any pseudo-journalists who may have caught the report.

Does anyone not think that what's really going on in Fallujah is orders of magnitude worse than what is shown in the US? Are there any media reporters there who aren't supposed to be there, reporting what the administration wants them to report?

What is being hidden is not how hard and dangerous it is for our troops. What is being hidden is the total, brutal devastation of a city and its people. Iraqis will never forget this. This is history being made.

I'm sure the rest of Iraq knows more than we do about the Fallujah battle. What do they think of this? Are they rooting for the US? Are the Shiites really fine with what is happening to the Sunnis in Fallujah? Or, as we speak, are shiites, Kurds, and sunnis alike -- 23 million proud Iraq nationalists (minus 100,000 I guess) about to stand up and proclaim their anger at this occupation? Uprisings appear to be springing up in other cities tonight....will we be putting down these insurgencies now too?

The "government line" calls for us not to be thinking, worrying about how unbelievably bad things are there. We aren't supposed to be thinking that Muslims in other countries are paying attention. We aren't supposed to worry about what the rest of the world, including our allies, must think of this violence. We aren't supposed to remember that, 18 months ago, the thought that we would be laying seige to a city of 18 year old insurgents and civilians would have seemed incomprehensible.

We have changed. News coverage has changed. The government line has changed.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take my kids to softball practice then do some yard work and watch a football game. I'm not going to let fade in my thoughts what is happening to our troops and Iraqis in Fallujah.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

perhaps another word would be more appropriate..."insurgent", "rebel", "freedom fighter"....

Apparently the moderator did not understand the cynicism. I used the derogatory term common among our military to refer to arabs, which is a "sand n****r"

I didn't realize we had to be so politically correct. It seems the conservatives may be correct about their stereotype of liberals on this topic.