[N8 v2.0]

Thousands of Troops Storm Fallujah
AP | Nov 8 | JIM KRANE

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Thousands of U.S. Marines and Army troops punched their way on Monday into two Fallujah neighborhoods where insurgents are considered the strongest, kicking off a massive assault that seeks to put an end to half a year of insurgent control of the Sunni Muslim city.

The troops, backed by the 1st Cavalry Division's tanks and armor, swarmed into the city's northwestern Jolan district, the warren-like historic heart of Fallujah.

At the same time, some 4,000 troops, backed by the 1st Cavalry Division's tanks and armor, went into the northeastern Askari district.

The prelude to the assault was a crushing air and artillery bombardment of the city that rose to a crescendo by Monday evening, with U.S. jets dropping bombs around the clock and big guns pounding the city every few minutes with high-explosive shells.

Read More: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041108/D867Q8O80.html

 

[Transcend]

go go marines!

Sort this country out.

 

[Transcend]

Apparently the troops are finally under orders that make sense:

If you take fire from a building, call in heavy fire and flatten it and move along. No more tiptoeing along and getting shot up for nothing.

Gen casey just said they will "inflict violence on the enemy and mercy on the innocent"

Finally doing what the marines were trained to do.

 

[BurlyShirley]

no crap! about time my boys get to kill something.

 

[N8 v2.0]

U.S. Commander in Iraq: Attack on Schedule
AP |Nov 8 | ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday that a U.S.-led effort to take control of the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah was proceeding on schedule with as many as 15,000 troops participating in the siege.

As the fighting raged in Iraq, Gen. George Casey said in a conference call with reporters at the Pentagon that the vast majority of civilians in the city of 300,000 people had left. Some insurgents managed to slip away, he said, while others "have moved in."

Casey described the Iraqi rebels as "an amorphous group of terrorists and insurgents" and said not one single group appeared to be in change.

"The Iraqi people are fighting to throw off the mantle of terror and intimidation so that they can elect their own government and get on with building a better life for all Iraqis," he said. "The elimination of Fallujah as a terrorist safe haven will go a long way toward those goals."

Casey said that U.S. troops had secured a hospital used as a staging area by Sunni insurgents and two bridges across the Euphrates River. One of the bridges was where Iraqis hung the charred bodies of at least two of four American contractors last March.

Casey refused to give a specific count or breakdown of the U.S. and Iraqi forces involved in the operation, but said 10,000 to 15,000 was "in the ballpark."

 

[MikeD]

Operation Phantom Fury?

Wow, sounds like someone was watching an episode of Gi Joe or something during the course-of-action development session...

Go Joe!

MD

 

[BurlyShirley]

Operation Phantom Fury?

Wow, sounds like someone was watching an episode of Gi Joe or something during the course-of-action development session...

Go Joe!

MD

They always give exercises and ops stupid ass names.

My two favorite were "Tandem Thrust" for obvious reasons

And " Croc '03" Which of course became "Croc o' sh!t" after just a day or two in the woods.

 

[Transcend]

Operation Phantom Fury?

Wow, sounds like someone was watching an episode of Gi Joe or something during the course-of-action development session...

Go Joe!

MD

Apparently the army agreed after the media folks made fun of it. They just changed the name to something like Operation Twilight Dawn, only in Iraqi.

 

[N8 v2.0]

They shoulda gone with Operation OWN3D..

 

[N8 v2.0]

US Marines of the 1st Division dressed as gladiators stage a chariot race reminiscent of the Charlton Heston movie-complete with confiscated Iraqi horses at their base outside Fallujah, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 6 , 2004. For U.S. Marines tapped to lead an expected attack on insurgent-held Fallujah, the bags have been packed, trucks have been loaded and final letters have been sent, leaving one final task - the 'Ben-Hur.'​

 

[N8 v2.0]

Map of the city of Fallujah...

 

[N8 v2.0]

 

[Transcend]

Map of the city of Fallujah...

sweet! i was looking for that thanks. Turns watching CNN into a sport and plotting jane arrafs travels fun.

 

[Changleen]

Good job it's not a pointless waste of human life or anything.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Good job it's not a pointless waste of human life or anything.

So your solution to Fallujah would be....

Having all US troops leave the country immediately in turmoil?

 

[Changleen]

So your solution to Fallujah would be....

Having all US troops leave the country immediately in turmoil?

Killing GW and parading his head round the city on a stick? That'd probably cheer everyone up.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Killing GW and parading his head round the city on a stick? That'd probably cheer everyone up.

I hope Australia joins us in invading New Zealand.

 

[Changleen]

We'd ****ing have your pansy asses. Can't even beat a few arabs with 40 year old rifles? Tossers.

 

[BurlyShirley]

We'd ****ing have your pansy asses. Can't even beat a few arabs with 40 year old rifles? Tossers.

Haaaahahahha. Yeah. Sure.

 

[MikeD]

We'd ****ing have your pansy asses. Can't even beat a few arabs with 40 year old rifles? Tossers.

Hey, some dudes with spears handed you your ass a while back...

 

[Changleen]

Hey, some dudes with spears handed you your ass a while back...

They did? Enlighten me...

 

[BurlyShirley]

One time in Hawaii I met these two girls and I was like, "You guys from Australia?" And they were like, "No, new zealand" and I go "Eww" and then they got all mad. They were ugly anyway. Little hobbit-like women. Shaped kind of like easter eggs with feet.

 

[MikeD]

They did? Enlighten me...

Ummm, the Maori didn't have the benefit of firearms, I thought...and forced the British to a stalemate, thus leading to the treaty of Waitangi and the establishment of New Zealand.

No?

MD

 

[Westy]

Mike,

This is no place for logic or facts.

 

[MikeD]

Well, he may have a point...been reading up a little more; my knowledge of the subject is pretty much purely based on a Kiwi pal's quick oral history of the country. However, I's just performing a good-natured counter-troll anyhow...

MD

 

[N8 v2.0]

PRAISE ALLA!!!!

.........!

 

[Changleen]

Ummm, the Maori didn't have the benefit of firearms, I thought...and forced the British to a stalemate, thus leading to the treaty of Waitangi and the establishment of New Zealand.

No?

MD

I wouldn't have called it 'stalemate' exactly... I think certain British officers were not too happy about genocide. We'd already killed way too many of them. They're only like 15% or so of the population today. Anyway, that was over 100 years ago and the Brits were leading and expeditionary force on the other side of the world.

 

[Changleen]

One time in Hawaii I met these two girls and I was like, "You guys from Australia?" And they were like, "No, new zealand" and I go "Eww" and then they got all mad. They were ugly anyway. Little hobbit-like women. Shaped kind of like easter eggs with feet.

I recon you got your old man out and they laughed at you. You've had a penis complex ever since. That's why you've got a rubber chicken as your avatar. 'Look at my penis and don't laugh'!

 

[Changleen]

Mike,

This is no place for logic or facts.

Damn right!

 

[Changleen]

I'm a pasty white 40 year old asshole who has homosexual fantasies about George Bush.

 

[BurlyShirley]

I recon you got your old man out and they laughed at you. You've had a penis complex ever since. That's why you've got a rubber chicken as your avatar. 'Look at my penis and don't laugh'!

Maybe that was it. Or maybe they were just a couple fat NZ uglies. Ive learned to tell NZ girls apart now without even hearing them talk. They generally stand about 5'2 or less. They have alot of moles. Many of the women-folk have short hair. They are a bit portly. Basically they look like smashed brits with better teeth.

Tell me Im wrong.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Now now... let's you not be the first one to perish under RideMonkey's new language rules...

Here's a link to the Rules Thread: http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/announcement.php?f=67

 

[Changleen]

Maybe that was it. Or maybe they were just a couple fat NZ uglies. Ive learned to tell NZ girls apart now without even hearing them talk. They generally stand about 5'2 or less. They have alot of moles. Many of the women-folk have short hair. They are a bit portly. Basically they look like smashed brits with better teeth.

Tell me Im wrong.

You're always wrong....

 

[N8 v2.0]

U.S. Forces Hold 70 Percent of Fallujah
Associated Press | Wednesday November 10,2004 | EDWARD HARRIS

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. forces bottled up insurgents in a narrow strip of Fallujah on Wednesday after a stunningly swift advance that seized control of 70 percent of the militant stronghold. Kidnappers abducted two members of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's family in Baghdad.

Iraqi troops, meanwhile, have found "hostage slaughter houses" in Fallujah, including CDs and records of people taken captive in the way of kidnappings and beheadings, an Iraqi military official said.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan, commander of Iraqi forces in the battle, said the houses were located in the northern part of Fallujah, where U.S. officials had expected to meet their toughest resistance.

"We have found hostage slaughter houses in Fallujah that were used by these people (kidnappers) and the black clothing that they used to wear to identify themselves, hundreds of CDs and whole records with names of hostages," the general told reporters at a military camp near Fallujah.

He was unsure if the hostage records included the names of missing British aide worker Margaret Hassan or missing French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.

The speed of the U.S. drive may indicate that most Sunni fighters and their leaders abandoned the city before the offensive and moved elsewhere to carry on the fight, officers said.

At a U.S. camp outside Fallujah, government spokesman Thair al-Naqeeb said "many armed groups" in the city had asked to surrender and that Iraqi authorities "will extend amnesty" to those who have not committed major crimes.

Meanwhile, a wave of insurgent violence in other parts of Iraq continued, with at least 18 people killed in fighting Wednesday, including an U.S. soldier and a foreign contractor. Authorities clamped an immediate curfew on the northern city of Mosul as U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen there. Fierce fighting also took place in Baghdad, to the south and in Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold where explosions shook the city as U.S. troops and gunmen battled near the main government building.

The insurgents have been seeking to open a "second front" to divert U.S. and Iraqi forces from the Fallujah offensive. The kidnapping of Allawi's cousin, Ghazi Allawi, and the cousin's daughter-in-law may be part of the campaign.

Armed men snatched the two from their home in Baghdad Tuesday night, al-Naqeeb said. The next day a militant group calling itself the Ansar al-Jihad threatened to behead the hostages within 48 hours unless the Fallujah siege was ended. The group's claim to be holding the captives could not be verified.

Still, U.S. and Iraqi troops were pushing ahead in Fallujah. Maj. Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said U.S. forces now control 70 percent of the city and had pushed insurgents into a narrow section flanking the main east-west highway bisecting the city.

He said troops would move on that strip of territory Wednesday. "The heart of the city is what's in focus now," he said.

At least 71 militants have been killed as of the beginning of the third day of intense urban combat, the military said. As of Tuesday night, 10 U.S. troops and two members of the Iraqi security forces had been killed. Marine reports Wednesday said 25 American troops and 16 Iraqi soldiers were wounded.

U.S. and Iraqi forces seized Fallujah's city hall compound before dawn after a gunbattle with insurgents who hit a U.S. tanks with anti-armor rockets. Iraqi soldiers swept into a police station in the compound and raised a flag above it.

Gunmen fired on troops from a mosque minaret, sparking a battle there, BBC's embedded correspondent Paul Wood reported. Marines said the insurgents waved a white flag at one stage but then opened fire, prompting the Marines to call in airstrikes, Wood said.

Tank gunners opened fire on insurgents in a nearby five-story apartment building, and flames shot from several windows of the building.

Residents reported heavy clashes and artillery shelling in the Jolan and Jumhuriya neighborhood, along the central highway.

Dead bodies lay on the streets of Jumhuriya, with dogs hovering around them, witnesses said. Residents said they were running out of food in a city that had its electricity cut two days ago.

Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, visited the battlefield Wednesday with an Iraqi general and said the insurgents in Fallujah are in disarray.

"We are very comfortable with where we are," he said.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Tuesday he believed the most wanted militant leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had escaped Fallujah. He predicted "several more days of tough urban fighting" in the city.

Most insurgents likely fled the city before the assault began so they could fight elswhere, officers said Wednesday. Iraqi and U.S. commanders had been warning for weeks that they invade Fallujah to re-establish government control.

"That's probably why we've been able to move as fast as we have," said one officer from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, who asked not to be named.

Fallujah's defenses have crumbled faster than U.S. commanders expected, With their command networks broken down, bands of three to five guerrillas were left fighting for self-preservation rather than as part of a larger force, officials said.

About 100 men, women and children made their way to American positions in the south of the city and gave themselves up Wednesday, an officer from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division said. The group was to be searched for weapons and questioned, and all military-age men would be detained, the officer said.

Most of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents are believed to have fled the city before the U.S. assault. Civilian casualties in the attack are not known, though U.S. commanders say they believe they are low.

The U.S. advance in Fallujah was more rapid than in an offensive in April, when insurgents fought a force of fewer than 2,000 Marines to a standstill in a three-week siege. It ended with the Americans handing over the city to a local force, which lost control to Islamic militants.

This time, the U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the battle, backed by tanks, artillery and attack aircraft.

If reports that most gunmen fled the city are true, it indicated that while the new offensive may cost the insurgency its strongest bastion, the fighters will seek to continue their campaign of violence elsewhere.

In Mosul, the curfew came after a series of clashes including two attacks against American military convoys, U.S. Capt. Angela Bowman said. A foreign contractor was killed in one of the attacks, Bowman said, without giving details.

Smoke was seen rising above the rooftops as residents reported fighting in western districts. Three Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi National Guard soldier were killed, hospital and security officials said.

In Baghdad — where Allawi this week imposed a nighttime curfew for the first time in a year — U.S. troops and masked fighters traded fire, wounding four bystanders. Six people were killed and four others wounded during clashes between U.S. soldiers and insurgents in Latifiyah, south of Baghdad.

A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Wednesday, and a bomb killed six Iraqi soldiers in northern Iraq. At least 13 Americans have been killed in attacks outside Fallujah since Monday.

Al-Naqeeb, the government spokesman, denounced the abduction of the prime minister's two family members.

Ghazi Allawi "is 75 years old. He has no political affiliation and is not holding a government post," al-Naqeeb said.

Ansar al-Jihad claimed in a Web posting to have carried out the kidnapping and threatened to behead the hostages within 48 hours unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted and prisoners were freed.

Ansar al-Jihad said it abducted three people — a cousin of Allawi, the cousin's wife and another relative. Initial police reports, later corrected by the government, had said three people were kidnapped.

 

[MikeD]

The speed of the U.S. drive may indicate that most Sunni fighters and their leaders abandoned the city before the offensive and moved elsewhere to carry on the fight, officers said.

WTF? When will we learn not to let this happen, on all scales (including national borders)?

We publicized the assault to get civilians to leave...why did we not set up a perimeter before publicizing it, and have the iraqi gov't search every person coming out of the city, thus catching the majority of insurgents trying to flee?

It's a rare opportunity to swat a handful of insurgent mosquitos in one blow...and we blow it.

MD

 

[Westy]

WTF? When will we learn not to let this happen, on all scales (including national borders)?

We publicized the assault to get civilians to leave...why did we not set up a perimeter before publicizing it, and have the iraqi gov't search every person coming out of the city, thus catching the majority of insurgents trying to flee?

It's a rare opportunity to swat a handful of insurgent mosquitos in one blow...and we blow it.

MD

How do you tell an insurgent from a regular citizen? They might be able to snag some foreign fighters who may not have good fake documents, but if people didn't carry their weapons man it would be tough.

 

[N8 v2.0]

WTF? When will we learn not to let this happen, on all scales (including national borders)?

We publicized the assault to get civilians to leave...why did we not set up a perimeter before publicizing it, and have the iraqi gov't search every person coming out of the city, thus catching the majority of insurgents trying to flee?

It's a rare opportunity to swat a handful of insurgent mosquitos in one blow...and we blow it.

MD

Note that it is probably not the DoD's assertion but the media's. Perhaps the resolve and number of fighters was vastly over estimated but it's better to error on the side of caution in a case like this.

 

[MikeD]

How do you tell an insurgent from a regular citizen? They might be able to snag some foreign fighters who may not have good fake documents, but if people didn't carry their weapons man it would be tough.

Damn good point, and one I've often heard the military articulate to the press. Once these guys drop their guns, they're just like everyone else.

Touche. I wasn't thinking. This was starting to look like a conventional op and I was thinking conventionally.

(and my point, again, that instead of getting into crappy situations and having to deal with them and complaining that it's the media's fault or the enemy's or whatever, it's much better to avoid either blundering into or being suckered into these situations altogether. Big-picturem politics, though, not with respect to the military fight in Fallujah.)

MD

 

[N8 v2.0]