20 Dead in Fallujah Police Station Attack

Fox News ^ | Saturday, February 14, 2004

[Eagle Eye]

Tell him to get over to the MWR and email you.

[Owen]

Feb 14 and I believe we have only 6 combat deaths of US soldiers this month. Today is the 1/2way point for this month. At this rate the casualty number for Feb will plummet from previous. This trend is likely to continue.

[Chris Talk]

Why should such a place as Fallujah be allowed to continue to exist?

[blam]

"I worked with the Tiger Division around Qui Nhon in 67 and would not have believed some of the things they did unless I had seen them."

I was sitting two miles off-shore when they landed at Qui Nhon, when they made their amphibious landing there. Impressive.

[pickemuphere]

At this rate the casualty number for Feb will plummet from previous. This trend is likely to continue.

Your statement here is true but perhaps misleading. The insurgents have in fact killed a great number of our allies this month -- something like 500+ in the first two weeks alone.

I believe the purpose of these attacks is to draw our soldiers back out into the open where they are necessarily more vulnerable. Once that happens, we will again be the primary targets of attack.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Dog]

I heard a news update at the top of the noon hour...it seems 4 attackers are among the dead in this attack....they were carrying Lebanese passports.....this raid was staged by foreign attackers.

Who was being held in that jail??

[Angelus Errare]

The jail was holding suspected members of the al-Qaeda cell that had been detained in Fallujah to date. Lebanese passports probably mean that this was either Hezbollah or Asbat al-Ansar (Lebanese al-Qaeda branch), though the most terrifying scenario would be that the two staged a joint operation, a situation that is hopefully unlikely for a number of reasons (if al-Qaeda and Hezbollah were planning to go public with their alliance, they'd stage a much bigger attack than this).

From the looks of things, al-Qaeda has decided to shift the focus away from targeting Shi'ites (in deferrence to their Iranian hosts) to GIA-style massacres of as many Iraqi "collaborators" as they can kill. Zarqawi's stormtroopers have killed over 250 Iraqis working with the coalition in the last two weeks in successive suicide bombings across the country, which certainly suggests that a central strategy is in play here.

[Angelus Errare]

Put today's events together with these:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/7774417.htm

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/14/1058034936726.html

Was Hassan Ghul being held at that jail?

One other thing to note is that we had the Irbil bombings that killed a good chunk of the Kurdish leadership, 2 successive suicide bombings aimed at killing Iraqi police and military recruits, the failed assassination attempt on General Abizaid, and now this. Saddam's flunkies have been in schism since his capture, so it looks like al-Qaeda is trying to step up the attacks in order to gain influence over Iraq's anti-American Sunnis, who were about the only folks in the country who profited under Saddam.

[Dog]

There was nothing suicidial about this attack it was broad daylight..... running gun battles in two places in the city..... mounted on Jeeps.....mortars firing from four directions........took buildings room by room.......this was well planned.

Someone just raised the bar...

Why haven't we dealt with Falljiau(sp).

[ican'tbelieveit]

Yeah, really. Shouldn't leave us hanging. I do email him about once a week, but there are delays on the return.

We got a Christmas card that took a month to get here. That was funny.

We just pray every day that he gets home safely.

[blackie]

And these acts of cowardice will not succeed ~ Bump!

[leadpenny]

They were big guys. When they were in the field they were authorized double C-Rats. I was a huey driver and it seemed as though it was all we hauled out to them.

[Cap Huff]

I know that the place of Fallujah seems to suggest an Iraqi Baathist holdout source, but the evident coordination of the attack in some ways suggested otherwise. It is very interesting to see some concrete evidence that foreign fighters were involved.

[Dog]

After what happened today......how only before the Iraqi's get Zarqawi?

I say no more than two weeks before they will have hunted him down and killed him.

I'm amazed at the skill it took to pull this raid off.......they even had the New Iraqi Army uniforms on...to conceal their identity

[swarthyguy]

I doubt we would leave Gul under Iraki control.

Still this attack implies VERY good intel on part of the attackers. And in the attack on Abizaid, it's Strange there was no chopper cover etc.

[Cap Huff]

I sure hope you're right about the two weeks. That guy has to be taken, and I hope it is alive. He would be a real link, not only to what's been going on in Iraq (before and after the fall of Saddam), but also he has his tentacles deep into cells all over Europe.

I had not heard about the uniforms. Reminds me, it was quickly suggested that the attack when Gen Abizaid was there strongly suggested someone knew the itinerary. I remember him (or another general, I'm not sure) saying that it was just a random thing. I don't think so. The counter-intel guys must be going nuts right about now.

[Dog]

There has to be a mole.

This was to well planned .....they had inside intel.

[Angelus Errare]

My own suspicion is that Ghul was been either moved to Abu Ghraith where Saddam is being held or has else been shifted to Diego Garcia where all senior al-Qaeda leaders are held. I simply mentioned him being there as a possibility.

The Zarqawi letter mentioned that he has agents inside the major Iraqi cities, so my guess would be that this accounts for the intel that they've been able to gather. I might also want to add that the NYT reported that it was an Italian al-Qaeda cell member who carried out the assassination attempt on Wolfowitz back in October.

[Doe Eyes]

Looks like Fox News has fallen in with the Liberal press by referring to "freeing" of prisoners. They were escaping prisoners.