Posted on 11/08/2004 8:39:55 AM PST by epluribus_2
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - More than 4,000 U.S. Marines and Army troops punched their way into northeastern Fallujah on Monday, kicking off a massive assault dubbed Operation Phantom Fury that seeks to put an end to half a year of insurgent control of the Sunni Muslim city.
The prelude to the assault on the Askari neighborhood was a crushing air and artillery bombardment of the city that rose to a crescendo by Monday evening, with U.S. strike jets dropping bombs around the clock and big guns pounding the city every few minutes with high-explosive shells.
Meanwhile, insurgents in Baghdad and nearby Ramadi tried to keep up the pressure on the coalition forces with new attacks, including one on a Catholic church in the capital.
Earlier Monday U.S. troops had fought their way into the city's western outskirts, seizing two bridges over the Euphrates River and helping Iraqi soldiers take the city's main hospital in the first stage of a major assault on the insurgent stronghold.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Pat Robertson on FOX doing serious backpeddaling on his "mispeaking" about Bush and no casualties. He has been shamed IMHO.
...lets not forget all our jet and chopper pilots providing air cover.......
...audio is not great and Penhaul has an english accent I pray that is correct.
Marine GySgt Terrance Fogarty was interviwed in Fallujah, and his dad just got the phone call from the CBS correspondant, Spitzer?
It should be on TV tonight on CBS. He was involved in the liberation and takeover of the hospital with all the civilian casualties the media loves to show...unless they are terrorist casualities.
It was a joint SF/USMC operation. SF Operators went in the building. Marine Snipers got the Iraqis who tried to run outside.
Cornered rats fight. Coward rats flee...and get shot down like the terrorist scum they are!
Semper Fi!
I am in the same apartment building as his Dad.
Kewel!
Ffreeeeeeeeeeddddom !
Amen
It's a start...
From Brett Baier at the Pentagon: Tanks assaulting from both the north and south. Expecting an update in 40 minutes from Gen. George Casey. Marines now taking out IED's and other booby traps. Tanks have entered one section of the City center.
FNC has Scott McClellan from the WH on taking questions
WE NEED A FALLUJAH CAM !
WE NEED A FALLUJAH CAM !
The Ghost who Walks....
From the AP:
[snip] ... Before the main assault, Allawi visited the main U.S. base outside Fallujah to rally Iraqi troops.
"The people of Fallujah have been taken hostage ... and you need to free them from their grip," he told the soldiers at the camp, who swarmed around him when he arrived. "Your job is to arrest the killers but if you kill them, then so be it."
"May they go to hell!" the soldiers shouted, and Allawi replied: "To hell they will go."
[snip]
More screenshots, please, for those of us stuck in an office.
Glad Allawi is on our side. I pray the Iraqi troops are too.
If anyone hears any news about blackhawks, please ping me....Im trying to determine if the rest of my hubby's BN is involved in this OP
ROFLMAO!!! Great name...
And my thoughts are with our boys over there today - stomach has been in a knot since I heard it got the go signal.
LQ
Whatever we are paying these people could be increased ten fold and it would still be an insult.
God bless the United States Marine Corps.
Agreed. But you're leaving out some of the best ones from WW2:
Before "Torch" was called "Torch", it was a British operation codenamed "Gymnast". Some others:
"Lightfoot" - British El Alamein operation
"Retribution" - used twice, once by the Germans in Yugoslavia and then by the British in opposition to German evacuation of Tunis
"Sledgehammer" - plan for attack on Cherbourg, 1942
"Supercharge" - post-Alamein operations, 1942
"Vulcan" - joint Tunisian operation, 1942
"Cannibal" - British capture of Akyab
"Corkscrew" - British capture of Pantelleria
"Avalanche" - Salerno landings, 1944
"Hercules" - capture of Rhodes, 1944
"Dracula" - British capture of Rangoon, 1944
And, of course "Overlord" and "Barbarossa", but perhaps my favorite was the code name for the Allied occupation of Germany, Operation "Eclipse".
Anyway, the assault is on. Prayers for our troops.
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