Posted on 05/29/2006 8:12:13 PM PDT by jmc1969
The U.S. military said it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency.
The insurgents have assassinated 11 tribal leaders in the Ramadi area since the end of last year, when Sunni sheiks in the city began open cooperation with the U.S. military.
The insurgent attacks since then have all but frozen the cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders and U.S. forces in Ramadi, local leaders say.
"We hope to get rid of al-Qaeda, which is a huge burden on the city. Unfortunately, Zarqawi's fist is stronger than the Americans'," said one Sunni sheik, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of insurgent retaliation.
In Ramadi, "Zarqawi is the one who is in control," the sheik said, speaking to a Washington Post special correspondent in Ramadi. "He kills anyone who goes in and out of the U.S. base. We have stopped meetings with the Americans, because, frankly speaking, we have lost confidence in the U.S. side, as they can't protect us."
Another sheik, Bashir Abdul Qadir al-Kubaisi of the Kubaisat tribe in Ramadi, expressed similar views. "Today, there is no tribal sheik or a citizen who dares to go to the city hall or the U.S. base, because Zarqawi issued a statement ordering his men to kill anyone seen leaving the base or city hall," he said.
"We are very upset. But being upset is better than mourning the death of a sheik or tribal leader," Kubaisi said. "Zarqawi has imposed himself on us. We started thinking of appeasing Zarqawi and his group, because rejecting them means death."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
we need to carpet bomb ramadi and wipe it off the map. We would kill a lot of terrorist. We dont have the spine for this though, unfortunately.
Comments?
seal off the province TOTALLY using every available coalition asset, then start a thorough, 100% search of every village and every house and every alley, one at a time. restrict movement to and from homes and villages during this time. detain every suspicious male and give them oodles of human pyramid treatment.
the resulting intelligence information (and perhaps capture of zarqawi himself) would be worth the expense.
we won't do that.
we should cordon the city off, and tell the iraqi forces to prepare to go door to door. that aspect of the fight there now, belongs to them. we can't do another fallujah door to door operation, in ramadi.
Why don't we just warn them so they can go to cover or evade our troops efforts? Safer that way for our casualty counts.
Oh never mind we just did that. How stupid.
Aw come on, you aren't trying to say the US Military is active not reactive? < /sarc >
We most certainly can if we decide we need to - And will do it right along side our ally units - Fallujah was a huge success - Ramadi has been a long time in the making for being dealt with - And our forces most certainly will be right in the lead (side by side) with Iraqi units during the next phase there -
I hear ya! -
I know that this is the Compost but where are the insurgents getting their support from in the Anbar province?
Much of it comes from
430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
This article is correct at this point in time that Zarqawi's power permates Anbar. He gets his support from having an almost limitless supply of money coming in from Gulf Oil barrons, Iran, and Syria which he uses to maintain a terrorist army of thousands of unemployed young men from Anbar as well as many extrmists from nearby countries.
The Generals need to kick some major butt, I hope they have been corralling them into Ramadi for the kill. If not, some military heads need to roll.
"Nuts" doesn't work when you intend to live, and hope that your family does too, and you have been infiltrated by an enemy that believes in cold-blooded murder at the drop of a hat and doesn't mind dying in the process.
Like it or not, we are fighting this war on the terrorists terms....and there isn't much we can do about that until the our Iraqi allies are willing and able to infiltrate al-Qaeda-In-Iraq and roll heads.
The military does, it's the wussies in DC that don't.
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