Posted on 02/26/2007 7:15:39 AM PST by jmc1969
A number of families have fled the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, saying that if the government does not intervene, their city will end up like Kabul during the Taliban era.
The fleeing families say that extremists have renamed the city "the Islamic Emirate of Samarra, which is one of the emirates of the Islamic State of Iraq, declared by Al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers last year.
Abdul-Karim Sadi, 46, said: "We and our families have gradually fled our city leaving behind our possessions except for some money that will sustain us for a few months. The situation in Samarra and its suburbs has become intolerable because extremist groups have begun interfering in people's private lives to the point of interfering in private relationships between husbands and wives."
He pointed out that these groups "began arriving in Samarra specifically a year and a half ago. Most of their leaders hold Arab citizenships, including Syrians, Algerians, Egyptians, and Yemenis, along with some Iraqi tribesmen who assist them and offer them facilities. These groups have been given houses and farms to turn them into training camps. They will train the sons of the city who refuse to join them so that they will force them to join them in the future by threatening to kill their families if they refuse."
Raed al-Samarra'i, 33, Muhannad al-Samurai's eldest brother, said that members of the security and intelligence services of the former Iraqi regime and of the Baath Party have joined these extremist groups and work closely with them under a leader of an Arab nationality. He added: "Families that do not declare their allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq or to these groups and to those working with them face death, eviction, or the confiscation of their properties and estates." He noted that these groups impose "protection money on shop owners and professionals on the pretext of aiding resistance attacks against US and Iraqi security forces. They attack even citizens who refuse to declare allegiance to the Islamic Emirate."
Muhannad said that large areas of the farms around Samarra have been transformed into camps like those of Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. Arab fighters, who were trained in Afghanistan many years ago, supervise the new camps in Samarra. Other interlocutress agreed with Muhannad that the city of Samarra "is becoming like the Afghan cities of Qandahar and Kabul in the era of Taliban."
They said that these groups will rule the city publicly unless the Iraqi government intervenes strongly and ends the existence of these groups and their shelters and eliminates any person or party that offers them support."
There are rural parts of Samarra that the US doesn't spend too much time on, Swarmmer last year was an attempt to change that. I remember when we first started going after the terrorist camps in Dyala they built in terrorist training camps right into the woodword of some of the rural areas.
Your feedback is fine. But I question at this late time in the game why if camps are known why we are not making big holes in the ground. Then again, perhaps we wait to get a lot of them in a few places, then bingo.
They build these training facilities into the ground like rats just like they did in Diyala when the US hit an entrenched pocket of them a few months ago.
As long as we secure Baghdad we can deal with rats in time.
Why don't we have bombers taking out these training camps? Crimeny, no wonder we aren't winning this war. These animals present ripe targets and we don't pick them off. Amazing.
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