Posted on 02/14/2004 1:05:38 AM PST by yonif
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:38:59 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
You will feel better and be more reasonable.
Hopefully, we'll find out in the coming days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42714-2004Feb14.html
Within minutes, the fighters made their way to a detention area at the police station and freed prisoners. Witnesses said at least 50 were released, and the Iraqi Interior Ministry put the number at 87. Several witnesses said they saw detainees fleeing through the streets, some of them carrying blankets from their cells. Police and hospital employees said they believed most of the detainees were being held for criminal offenses and not for acts of resistance. Other officials suggested there could be foreigners among the prisoners.
"We've never seen anything like it," said Salem Fayedh, 51, a city employee who was near the scene. "We've seen bombs, grenades and land mines, but never someone fighting hand to hand. It was like a war between militias."
SNIP
In a city rife with rumors and conspiracy theories, some policemen said they believed the fighters were motivated by clan or tribal affiliations to free the prisoners. But most in this overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city blamed Iranian agents or the Badr Brigades, a militia long exiled in Iran that is controlled by Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
"It was the Badr Brigades. They just want to sow destruction," said Mohammed Jassim, 22, a police officer. "They killed Iraqi citizens. They're inhuman."
One officer, Jumaa Mohammed Darwish, said the fighters were shouting in an Arabic accent that didn't sound Iraqi. Another officer, Mohammed Khalil, said one of the dead fighters wore a black headband bearing the words "There is no god but God, the Forces of Hezbollah." Hezbollah, or Party of God, usually refers to Lebanon's most powerful Shiite organization but is used by Shiite groups elsewhere in the Arab world. There were also reports of a wounded assailant with a Lebanese passport.
Throughout the afternoon, rumors circulated at the hospital that grenades had been recovered inscribed "Oh, Hussein," a reference to Shiite Islam's most beloved saint, and that two of the dead fighters had been identified as Iranians.
It does. And bold. They rode into the city on big jeeps bristling with weapons, and attacked the station. This follows yesterday's raid, when they missed the US commander, but all the attackers got away. I bet they are ex-Iraqi army.
Or a very extended family, with some poarticularly loyal AND well-equipped cousins and in-laws.
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.
Concur. They had a real certain way of making certain that at least one of the guards in their two-man listening posts was awake. At least one such post a night would get a live grenade tossed into it by their sergeant or officer of the guard. So long as one was awake, grabbed the thing with two or three seconds left to go, and tossed it out into the barbed wire-covered killing zone they were watching, no problem. And if both were asleep, it wouldn't be a problem again.
-archy-/-
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