Friday Falluja update

Iraq rebels step up attacks
Chicago Tribune

As U.S.-led troops pressed their offensive Thursday in Fallujah, insurgents stepped up their counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, exploding a car bomb that killed 17 people and wounded 20 in Baghdad and storming six police stations in an audacious attack in the northern city of Mosul.

[...]

In response to the wave of rebel attacks across Iraq, the U.S. military has been forced to detach an armored battalion from the outskirts of Fallujah to Mosul, The New York Times reported. The troop movement has stripped about a third of the forces that had cordoned off Fallujah in an effort to catch insurgents attempting to flee, the Times said.

The violence in Mosul appeared to be part of a coordinated attack. Dozens of gunmen stormed six Iraqi police stations, looting them of weapons and ammunition and setting some of the buildings ablaze.

Battles in Mosul raged for hours between the insurgents and U.S.-led forces, and officials suggested that the city would be dangerous for some time. A Kurdish official suggested that some Iraqi police had been cooperating with the insurgents.

[...]

In Baghdad, the midday car bomb on bustling Sadoun Street killed 17 people, wounded 20, destroyed two buildings and at least 12 cars.

[...]

Also Thursday, a car bomb exploded near the headquarters of a leading Kurdish political party in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing one bystander and injuring four others.

[...]

According to The Washington Post, residents in southern Fallujah reported that the bodies of 20 foreign fighters were found outside a truck repair shop, and many had been killed by a gunshot to the head. Insurgents native to Fallujah said the foreigners were executed for deserting their positions when the U.S.-led assault began Monday.

[...]

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that many insurgents may have slipped away and blended into Iraqi society, only to wreak havoc elsewhere in the country.

"That's the nature of an insurgency," Myers said.

[...]

"It's not working at all for the insurgents. We're exactly on plan. The insurgents are paying a heavy price for their resistance."

Fallujah’s empty promise
MSNBC

As battles go, Fallujah has been a big disappointment to the U.S. military, which had wanted to draw the Iraqi insurgents into a cataclysmic mistake: a “fair” fight. Not that any officer relished the prospect of a Stalingrad- or Hue-like street-to-street, house-to-house blood-letting. But the alternative has even less to recommend it: a continuing series of roadside bombings and mortar and grenade ambushes that bleed American forces and frustrate efforts to secure Iraq ahead of January’s elections.

Unfortunately, from a military standpoint, the latter, less attractive option is the reality, and the choice was never the U.S. military’s to make. Iraq’s insurgents, with weeks to react as U.S. forces gathered and postured about what was about to happen in Fallujah, decided against turning it into al-Alamo. They saw the folly of taking on the Americans on their own terms, and they did what intelligent, determined guerrilla movements have always done in the face of overwhelming force: They faded away and lived to fight and kill and maim another day.

[...]

“In military terms, Fallujah is not going to be much of a plus at all,” says Bernard Trainor, a retired three-star Marine Corps general. “The downside is that we’ve knocked the hell out of this city, and the only insurgents we really got were the nut-cases and zealots the smart ones left behind — the guys who really want to die for Allah.”

U.S. assault on Fallujah turns south, repels insurgent push
USA Today

An Iraqi journalist in the city reported seeing burned U.S. vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper.

Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A U.S. tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were afraid to go there, he said.

"People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves."

Falluja Battle Erupts, Unrest Spreads Elsewhere
Reuters

A battle erupted near a mosque in northwest Falluja on 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'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.

U.S. Captain Angela Bowman described Mosul as calm overnight, with its three million residents under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, after Thursday's attacks on nine police stations.

An American soldier was killed in the Mosul fighting, the military said, and Bowman said U.S. planes staged air strikes on Thursday as U.S. and Iraqi forces sought to restore order.

[...]

"They can't go north because that's where we are. They can't go west because of the Euphrates river and they can't go east because we have a huge presence there. So they are cornered in the south," Marine Master Sergeant Roy Meek told Reuters.

Well, that "corner" seems to have grown to include some other cities now, including Mosul. Oh my. Three million. Falluja only ever started with half a million or less.

Violence in Falluja and elsewhere in Iraq has taken a toll on U.S. forces. Two planes ferried 102 seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq to the main U.S. military hospital in Germany on Thursday, joining 125 who arrived earlier in the week.

[...]

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

"We call on the Iraqi government and U.S. forces to allow us to do our humanitarian duty to the innocent people," said Red Crescent spokeswoman Firdoos al-Ubadi.

A U.S. military spokesman said the Red Crescent had permission to help the many civilians who have fled Falluja, but could not say if it had been granted access to the city itself.

I think you can safely call that a "no".

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Falluja on foot on Thursday morning and arrived with his wife and children in Habbaniya, about 12 miles to the west, at night.

He said families left in the city were in desperate need.

"There's no water. People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there's no proper food," he told aid workers in Habbaniya, which has become a refugee camp, with around 2,000 families sheltering there.

Aside from the heinous humanitarian issue here, those forces that were drawn off the "tight noose" U.S. forces had set up surrounding the city to prevent escapes is now proven to be letting escapes happen - if Rasoul is under the age of 50 or so, as no fighting age men were to be allowed to leave Falluja.

No matter how the media portray this offensive, it is obvious from reading between the lines of these reports that it has truly "gone south".

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, writing in Britain's Sun newspaper, said the Falluja offensive would improve security across Iraq and pave the way for elections due in January.

Under other circumstances, that would be funny.