Fallujah truce shaken by heavy fighting; Italian hostage executed

[Hoss68]

Jason Keyser and Lourdes Navarro, Associated Press
April 15, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- U.S. warplanes strafed gunmen in Fallujah on Wednesday, and more than 100 guerrillas with rocket-propelled grenades pounded a lone Marine armored vehicle lost in the streets - a sign of heavy battles to come if Marines resume a full assault on this besieged city.With a truce crumbling and President Bush calling for a key U.N. role to keep the country's political transition moving amid the violence, a top U.N. envoy proposed an Iraqi caretaker government in a formula that abandons a U.S.-favored plan.

Meanwhile, Iraqi militants executed one of four Italian hostages, the Italian government confirmed. Earlier Wednesday, Al-Jazeera reported it had video of the killing but did not broadcast it because it is too graphic; the network did show footage of the four hostages sitting on the ground, holding up their passports and surrounded by armed men.

With at least 22 foreigners kidnapped and 87 U.S. troops killed halfway into April, the unprecedented violence has largely eclipsed the political process. Negotiations were being held on both fronts - at Fallujah in central Iraq and at Najaf in the south - but the U.S. military has warned it will launch new assaults if talks do not bear fruit.

In the south, the country's top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, persuaded radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to drop defiant negotiating demands - including that U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities. An Iranian envoy was also getting involved in the mediation with al-Sadr, an aide to the cleric said.

Still, al-Sadr militiamen appeared to be preparing for a fight, moving into buildings and onto rooftops on Najaf's outskirts, said Col. Dana J.H. Pittard, head of the 2,500 U.S. troops amassed outside the city, ready to move in against al-Sadr.

``Najaf is a holy place,'' said Kaysal Hazali, spokesman for al-Sadr. ``If they attack it, God knows the results: It is not going to be good for the occupation.''

The U.N. envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said respected Iraqis should lead a caretaker government - with a prime minister, president and two vice presidents to run the country after the handover of power by the Americans on June 30 and until national elections in January. He did not say who would select them.

Under the Brahimi plan, the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council would be dissolved June 30, rather than expanded to form an assembly as called for in an earlier proposal U.S. administrators promoted.

However, the formula would also give Washington a way to dissolve the fractious and unpopular 25-member council.

The White House thanked Brahimi for his plan, but it wasn't clear whether U.S. officials would embrace it.

``We appreciated the United Nations' help in moving forward on our strategy to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people by June 30,'' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

In Fallujah, Marines and insurgents were fortifying their positions in preparation for more fighting.

In abandoned homes a few blocks into the city, Marines punched bricks out of walls to make holes through which to fire, and knocked down walls between rooftop terraces to allow movement from house to house without descending to the street. They spread shards of glass across doorsteps to hear the boot of an approaching insurgent.

Insurgents were also organizing. Gunmen were believed to be digging tunnels under the houses they hold to allow them to move without being targeted by Marine snipers, Marines said.

A 4-day-old truce was crumbling amid nightly battles in which gunmen in larger groups have been attacking U.S. troops with increasing sophistication. Wednesday night the fighting began again, with AC-130 gunships over the city battering targets below.

The top Marine commander in the Fallujah area suggested time for negotiations was running out before U.S. forces call off their halt in offensive operations.

``I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long,'' said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division. ``It's hard to have a cease-fire when they maneuver against us, they fire at us.''

Tuesday night, insurgents launched near simultaneous attacks on several positions of a company of Marines controlling a few blocks in the northeastern edge of the city. In one attack, the gunmen sent up flares to light up the American position, then unleashed heavy, continuous gunfire, Marines said.

In another intense battle that lasted nearly five hours the same night, one of two armored vehicles sent to resupply a front-line Marine position got lost during an ambush and ended up nearly half a mile inside the southern part of city.

The vehicle, with 20 Marines inside, came under an even larger ambush. At least 100 gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades, hitting it at least 10 times, knocking out its communications and its engine and paralyzing it.

``They've been preparing for this the whole time. ... We definitely stumbled into the wasp nest,'' said Captain Jason Smith, who was at the position meant to be resupplied.

The Marines in the armored vehicle fled into a nearby building, where they waited to be rescued. They threw back grenades that insurgents tossed over the wall and listened to gunmen whisper outside.

A rescue force, backed by four tanks, wandered the streets in search of the beleaguered vehicle, finally finding it by following a plume of black smoke. ``We were firing in a 360-degree radius,'' said Lt. Joshua Glover, part of the team that reached the vehicle. While F-15 warplanes strafed the area for cover, the stricken armored vehicle was hooked to a tank and dragged away.

Elsewhere in the city, gunmen wore police flak jackets looted from Iraqi police stores.

``We fought for every one of these streets,'' Col. B.P. McCoy, 41, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment said during a dangerous, zigzagging trot through a northern neighborhood to inspect Marine positions. The streets were empty. A few scorched cars littered roads.

In southern Iraq, U.S. troops scoured the area around Najaf, combing through mangroves, villages and the desert in search of al-Sadr's militiamen.

A U.S. attack on Najaf, the holiest Shiite city, would likely outrage Iraq's Shiite majority, a community that - aside from al-Sadr's militia - has so far shunned anti-U.S. violence.

To help combat the surge in bloodshed, about 21,000 American soldiers in Iraq who were to return this month to their home bases in Louisiana and Germany will have their tours extended at least three months, U.S. defense officials said Wednesday.

The decision breaks the Army's promise to soldiers and their families that assignments in Iraq would be limited to 12 months. The affected soldiers already have been in Iraq for a year.

Meanwhile, Russia announced that it will evacuate its citizens from Iraq following the wave of kidnappings.

A kidnapped French journalist was freed, but there were reports that two Japanese were abducted - in addition to three Japanese already held captive by gunmen threatening to kill them.

U.S. officials and the top U.S contractor in Iraq, Halliburton, were trying to determine whether four bodies found belonged to seven Americans missing since gunmen attacked their convoy outside Baghdad on Friday.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined comment on reports that the bodies were mutilated, saying only that it may be several days before the remains can be identified.

[cb88]

I'm sorry, there is only one thing these A-holes will understand. I think it's time to let them find out for themselves there is not 12 virgins waiting for them.

[AndJusticeForAll]

How did they execute him?

[Hoss68]

Originally Posted by AndJusticeForAll

How did they execute him?

I'll see if I can find out, but we may not want to know...