U.S. Troops Target Iraqi Insurgents Two Soldiers Killed in Separate Attacks; Leading Guerilla Arrested TIKRIT, Iraq (Nov. 17) - In a show of force backed by tanks and mortars, U.S. forces assaulted dozens of suspected guerrilla positions in Saddam Hussein's hometown before dawn Monday, killing six alleged insurgents and capturing others, officials said. U.S. forces fired a satellite-guided missile carrying a 500-pound warhead at a suspected insurgent sanctuary 10 miles south of Tikrit - the second use in as many days of the powerful weapon amid a U.S. drive to intimidate the resistance. Also, Two U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in attacks Monday north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The soldiers died in separate attacks near the town of Balad, 60 miles north of Baghdad. And in Baghdad, troops mounted their biggest-ever hunt for weapons and explosives in a middle-class Baghdad area, angering residents who said their small arms were needed to protect themselves in the crime-plagued capital.   The military also announced that soldiers in the city of Ramadi west of Baghdad arrested an organizer of the Fedayeen guerrillas responsible for bomb attacks and ambushes on U.S. forces. The suspect, Kazim Mohammed Faris, was a ''high value target,'' a military statement said. Faced with a deteriorating security situation, the military in past days has reacted with massive show of force in central and northern Iraq. At the same time, the U.S.-led coalition has bowed to demands from Iraqi politicians and agreed to speed the transfer of power. The new formula, announced Saturday by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, calls for a provisional, sovereign government to be established by June. However, France's foreign minister said in an interview published Monday in the French daily Le Croix that the plan still moves too slowly. Dominique de Villepin urged the Americans to have a provisional government in place by the end of 2003. In Tikrit, U.S. forces carried out more than 38 attacks from Sunday night to early Monday, destroying 15 suspected safehouses, three training camps and 14 mortar firing points, said Lt. Col. William MacDonald, a spokesman of the 4th Infantry Division.     ''Clearly, we're sending the message that we do have the ability to run operations across a wide area,'' said MacDonald. ''We have overwhelming combat power that we will utilize in order to go after groups and individuals who have been conducting anti-coalition activities.'' In Samara, three Iraqis who fired on American soldiers were killed in an ensuing clash Sunday night. In Muqdadiyah, two Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade on U.S. soldiers on combat patrol aboard a Bradley fighting vehicle. The soldiers returned fire and killed the two, Macdonald said. While troops have been targeting suspected insurgent targets, U.S. forces have also carried out dozens of raids aimed at apprehending suspects and seizing weapons and bomb-making materials. One such ''cordon-and-search'' raid early Monday in Baghdad's middle-class Azamiyah district netted 21 suspects along with 30 Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifles, about a dozen shotguns and 10 handguns. Most suspects had violated a coalition rule allowing only one weapon - a single AK-47 - per house. Some 2,000 troops of the 1st Armored Division - backed by tanks, armored vehicles and low-flying helicopters took part in the nighttime raid, sealing off a 20-block area and searching every single building inside it. Residents of the neighborhood next to the Tigris River were furious over the sweep. They said those arrested included men who had revolvers or bird guns that could not have presented a serious threat to the security of the occupying forces. ''Of course everybody has weapons,'' said Samir al-Hadith, an engineer who works in Saudi Arabia and had returned to Baghdad to check on his home. ''There are so many thieves nowadays. we have to defend our families.'' ''Under Saddam Hussein there was much more security and we could own guns,'' he said. Zuheir Ali, 26, was detained after troops found a snub-nose .38 Smith & Wesson revolver in his house along with an AK-47. They left the automatic rifle but confiscated the handgun.   ''I don't understand this, we're not criminals, we only want to defend our homes from looters,'' Ali said. Journalists accompanying the troops during the bitterly cold night were offered hot tea by several of the residents. ''But no tea for the soldiers,'' said Lamya Shaheen Ahmed who stood on the sidewalk with her mother and two sisters after troops had gone through their house. In Tikrit, hundreds of U.S. troops in tanks and assault vehicles marched through the crowded downtown area Monday in a show of force intended to deliver a stern warning. ''They need to understand that it's more than just Humvees that will be used against the resistance and we will crush the resistance,'' said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, a battalion commander in the 4th Infantry Division. Tikrit, about 120 miles north of Baghdad, is part of a region north and west of Baghdad dominated by Sunni Muslims and regarded as a hotbed of anti-American sentiment. Meanwhile, a tape purportedly made by Saddam Hussein urged the rebels to escalate attacks against the occupation and ''agents brought by foreign armies'' - an apparent reference to Iraqis supporting the coalition. The CIA said it would review the tape, aired on Al-Arabiya television, for its authenticity. ''The evil ones now find themselves in crisis and this is God's will for them,'' the speaker on the tape said. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer dismissed the message. ''This is a voice from the wilderness here. This is a man who's followed by a small band of murderers, and they have no vision for the future of Iraq,'' Bremer told NBC's ''Today'' Monday. Saddam ''is around and we need to capture him or kill him, but he has no future here.'' 11-17-03 1153EST Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

120mm SP mortar of a 4th ID battalion fires in support of last nights raids.


NVD catches cool fireball effect from 4th ID M109A6 Palidan firing in support of last nights raids.


GI's investigate remains of "house" hit by 500lb JDAM. I don't think your normal Iraqi house has a basement with a 3ft reinforced concrete roof beneath it, like is showing in that hole, do they?

About fucking time. Should have been done several months ago. How about kicking it up another notch or two on the whoop-ass scale?



BTW, why can't WE have one REAL AK47 in our households? WAAAHHH!!!

Wow!  6 whole insurgents?

Meanwhile, our Kilo India Alpha surpasses 415 and 9000 Whiskey India Alpha.

We need to bring back the body count.  Stack the dead up in front of the camera's it's more important how many WE kill, other than how many of us are killed....

Mortar Combat!!!

sorry, warcraft 3 flashbacks..

:D

Quoted: Wow!  6 whole insurgents? Meanwhile, our Kilo India Alpha surpasses 415 and 9000 Whiskey India Alpha. We need to bring back the body count.  Stack the dead up in front of the camera's it's more important how many WE kill, other than how many of us are killed....

For a few replies there, it looked like I was the only one not satisfied with the 6 dead enemy guys.

Good grief, kill 600/day and things will get better over there real quick.  Pull back all the camera crews and daisy cutter the damn place.

please tell me why tikrit has not been leveled. Why are we allowing US SOLDIERS to be killed by the trash that infests that area.

Give the population 2 hours to clear the area and level the freaking place. If the next town pulls this shit do it again. Break their damn will to fight.

mike

Ya, for every one we kill, 3 pissed off relatives take his place!!

Just  saw on the news, 10-14 year old Iraqi children, wanting to join the resistence. Just like the palis....

For the numbers, in the first 2 years of the Vietnam War.....234 KIA.  First 8 months of this War, 415+!

I'm not down with this little Iraqi war in the first place.  All the oil in Iraq ain't worth 1 single GI KIA, not a single drop of oil.  But it seems the Bush Adminstration has put a price on our soldiers.  All this talk about "BRING IT ON" is BULLSHIT.  If we're there to win, we should win BIGTIME....not this pussyfooting around in big, fat, slow convoys.

I don't see little drunkie Barbara or Jenna fighting in Iraq, why should any of OUR kids be there?  If those two girls had been the first to cross the line of departure, I would have alittle (not alot) more respect for Bush and his little Neo-Con horde.

NOW, we are going to let the UN be in command of our troops?  Whoopee!  That's a whole nother load of BS right there!

Quoted: please tell me why tikrit has not been leveled. Why are we allowing US SOLDIERS to be killed by the trash that infests that area. Give the population 2 hours to clear the area and level the freaking place. If the next town pulls this shit do it again. Break their damn will to fight. mike

Because, we are there to "WIN HEARTS AND MINDS" not WIN A WAR!  If Iraqi's are so used to the brutal treatment by Saddam, why should we treat them like poor, misunderstood cretins?  They have no concept of a "SHOW OF FORCE."  All they will understand is the IRON FIST.  I don't advocate wonton killing of civilians but what good does it do to bomb unoccupied buildings where resistance fighters USED to be?  Why isn't our intelligence good enough to put a 2000lb JDAM right into a building where a big meeting of ring leaders or fighters are hiding out?

We killed 6 of them today, they killed 2 of ours.  Seems to me like THEY are winning!  We don't get bodycounts of enemy KIA, for all the American Public knows, we've gotten fuck all....wow, 6 today?  When has there ever been a count of how many of them we've gotten in all these firefights that involve all the ambushes on our guys?  Seriously, this onsies, twosies crap is BULLSHIT.

please everyone enough sharpshooting on iraq. the reason our military commanders havent taken draconian action in the triangle is that their political masters at state and in the administartion wont suport such action. as far as winning the hearts and minds? an arab with a heart and a working mind is a rare thing. if we wont victory we should simply realize arabs are not our freinds, and will never be our freinds. all arab nations contain opresed ethnic or religous minoritites, since they have failed in their self apointed role as dictators of their respsctive countries we should transfer power in the arab world in general and the sunni triangle in particular to the local people who know them so well. everything from tikrit north should be patroled/controlled by the puk/kdp split it east west down route 2 everything from the northern bagdad suburbs should be given to the majority shia population, from the west bank of the tigirs right up to tikrit, the sunni arabs get to keep their triangle and its good farming land, they can power their heaters and airconditioners with all the oil that is left in the triangle, anyway thats jusst my two cents.

My goodness, one of MY threads has actually picked up a troll.

I'm new to this whole discusion board thing. whats a troll ? if I boiled over about Iraq sorry I just think we are using our soldiers (like me and my freinds) when we could use our allies. seriously whats a troll?

Quoted: My goodness, one of MY threads has actually picked up a troll.

Maybe two!!!

I'm new to this whole discusion board thing. whats a troll ? if I boiled over about Iraq sorry I just think we are using our soldiers (like me and my freinds) when we could use our allies. seriously whats a troll?

Quoted: I'm new to this whole discusion board thing. whats a troll ? if I boiled over about Iraq sorry I just think we are using our soldiers (like me and my freinds) when we could use our allies. seriously whats a troll?

Its not you

Yea they allowed the Afgans the same thing. The bad thing is when you take a rifle from a good guy  and he gets pissed and becomes a bad guy. but then again it gets the weapons away from the bad guys also. The never ending question... who keeps weapons and who gets them taken away. but its always good to hear about some dead fuc*ing Iraqi'r
  FREE

Quoted: Wow, the Coalition rules permit them a single AK-47 per household! That is really swell! That should be sufficient to hold off the goblins while your neighbors came to your aid! Eric The(Impressed)Hun

However, France's foreign minister said in an interview published Monday in the French daily Le Croix that the plan still moves too slowly. Dominique de Villepin urged the Americans to have a provisional government in place by the end of 2003


I beg your pardon?
France said something? Did anyone give a shit? What does what france said have to with this? Am I missing something?

let me amend my prevous post. in order to satisfy the resonable and sophisticated demands of the french we should move the kurds all the way down to baghdad (along with all the military hardware that they captured. leave the shie where they are and let nature take its course, the french can then begin negotiating the repayment of all the money saddam owes to the various french companies that dealt with saddam
p.s. a french company sold the mukhabarat an industrial tree shreeder that was used in tal afal to shred humans. the french of course thought their was nothing strange about the iraqi goverment buying a tree shredder for use in a desert.