Attack (on Rashid hotel) shows growing sophistication

Attack shows growing sophistication

Michael Howard in Baghdad
Monday October 27, 2003
The Guardian

The audacious attack on the Rashid hotel shows the "growing confidence, sophistication and creativity of anti-coalition militants in Iraq", an adviser on security matters to the US-led administration said yesterday.

"This attack was well-planned and executed. It seems that these guys, most of them former regime loyalists, are now networking with each other and perhaps outside agents, passing weapons and know-how," said the adviser. "They are operating in small groups, but you don't have to be big to be effective."

Most attacks happen in the Sunni-triangle region stretching north and west of Baghdad, he said, where pro-Saddam loyalists and anti-western Islamists are at their strongest. But recent weeks have seen coordinated attacks spread to the relatively tranquil north, to cities such as Kirkuk, Mosul and Irbil.

The ability of the Iraqi resistance to strike at will at the heart of the US-led administration in Baghdad is causing deep unease among American military commanders in Iraq, and political embarrassment for Bush administration officials who have repeatedly claimed that the coalition is winning the war against the guerrillas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1071818,00.html

take a trip to Baghdad and pronounce an end to major hostilities.

Army of one and all that. He can even take Karl to hold his hand when big gun go boom.

anti-coalition militants aka Pro Iraq Iraqis.

"tet"

I guess it was just a coincidence he happened to be there huh? If you have the equipment and can fire from several hundred feet away, it's a simple procedure to set up. It doesn't take weeks, you can pretty much choose your targets and respond to opportunity like this. I'm afraid that there is worse to come.

with three police stations and a Red Cross building hit today, all in different areas of the city, there was some extensive planning involved. Each station needs to be watched for days, charting personel and parking patterns &c. (There would be few future suicide bombers if each of these type of attacks, at least, were not properly planned because no one would want to give his of her life for long odds.) Then there would be coordination of the entire.

On another thread a few posted about the Friday mosque exhortation to terrorize is why we see so many attack at end of weekends and on Mondays, but to have at least 6 successful attacks in a 30 hour period, there would seem to have to be extensive (more than Friday-to-Monday) planning.

I guess the way I look at it is that the plan was a contingency waiting for the moment of maximum impact to be used. Wolfowitz is trying to downplay the event.

and planning: