ChrisF202

http://my.aol.com/news/news_story.ps...31629000107793

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi teenagers dragged the bloody bodies of two American soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday, witnesses said, describing a burst of savagery in a city once safe for Americans. Another soldier was killed by a bomb and a U.S.-allied police chief was assassinated.

The U.S.-led coalition also said it grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame.

Nevertheless, American officers insisted they were making progress in bringing stability to Iraq, and the U.S.-appointed Governing Council named an ambassador to Washington - an Iraqi-American woman who spent the last decade lobbying U.S. lawmakers to promote democracy in her homeland.

Witnesses to the Mosul attack said gunmen shot two soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. The 101st Airborne Division said the soldiers were driving to another garrison.

About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the soldiers' bodies out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said.

``They lifted a block and hit them with it on the face,'' Younis Mahmoud, 19, said.

Another teenager, Bahaa Jassim, said some looted the vehicle of weapons, CDs and a backpack.

``They remained there for over an hour without the Americans knowing anything about it,'' he said. ``I ... went and told other troops.''

Television video showed the soldiers' bodies splayed on the ground as U.S. troops secured the area. One victim's foot appeared to have been severed.

The frenzy recalled the October 1993 scene in Somalia, when locals dragged the bodies of Marines killed in fighting with warlords through the streets.

In Baqouba, just north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a 4th Infantry Division convoy passed, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said.

In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt confirmed the Mosul deaths but refused to provide details.

``We're not going to get ghoulish about it,'' he said.

The savagery of the attack was unusual for Mosul, once touted as a success story in sharp contrast to the anti-American violence seen in Sunni Muslim areas north and west of Baghdad.

In recent weeks, however, attacks against U.S. troops have increased in Mosul, raising concerns the insurgency is spreading.

Simultaneously, attacks have accelerated against Iraqis considered to be supporting Americans - such as policemen and politicians working for the interim Iraqi administration.

On Sunday, gunmen killed the Iraqi police chief of Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and his bodyguard and driver, American and Iraqi officials said. No further details were released.

The assassination occurred one day after suicide bombers struck two police stations northeast of Baghdad within 30 minutes, killing at least 14 people. Gunmen on Saturday also killed an Iraqi police colonel protecting oil installations in Mosul.

Elsewhere, Iraqi police said six U.S. Apache helicopter gunships blasted marshland after insurgents fired four rocket-propelled grenades at the American military garrison at the city's northern end. One Iraqi passer-by was killed in the air attack, police said.

In Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded at an oil compound, injuring three American civilian contractors from the U.S. firm Kellogg Brown & Root. The three suffered facial cuts from flying glass, U.S. Lt. Col. Matt Croke said.

KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, also has a significant presence at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which was rocketed by insurgents Friday, wounding one civilian.

``We all know that Americans are being threatened,'' Croke said.

Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad that witnesses saw two surface-to-air missiles fired Saturday at a cargo plane operated by the Belgium-based package service DHL as it left for Bahrain.

The plane was the first civilian airliner hit by insurgents, who have shot down several military helicopters with shoulder-fired rockets.

DHL and Royal Jordanian, the only commercial passenger airline flying into Baghdad, immediately suspended flights on orders of the coalition authority.

Despite the ongoing violence, U.S. officials insisted the occupation was going well.

``If you look at the accomplishments of the coalition since March of this year, it has been enormous,'' Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Tikrit.

Pace is touring Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said veteran Washington lobbyist Rend Rahim Francke was appointed Iraq's ambassador to the United States. Francke, an Iraq native who has spent most of her life abroad, led the Iraq Foundation, a Washington-based pro-democracy group, and has helped plan Iraq's transition from Saddam Hussein's rule.

The appointment will renew the diplomatic ties between Washington and Baghdad severed in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait.




Nov 23 2003 4:28PM

s_qwert63

What is so barbaric in cutting someones throat?
In war anything goes.

In Chechnya, Arab and Afghan mercenaries used to cut off heads of the POW's and stick them on poles, put them on roadsides and pavements.
So did Ahmen Shah Massud, heads of captured Soviet soldiers were exhibited on poles around the Pandjir valley.

Lunatock

Suddenly your not speaking out against that. Only when someone says Russia is just as nasty as the rebel fighters in Chechnya?

s_qwert63

Give me an example of how the Russians have caught a prisoner, cut off his head, taped it on camera and sent it to his relatives and friends.

Lunatock

They don't do that exactly. rather, they just like to drop Prisoners out of Helicopters.

Not to mention not being discreet enough about robbing Chechen Villages and towns, raping and murdering Chechen Civilians. Not unlike the Russian sponsered Serbs.

ChrisF202

Yeah, the Russians dont exaclly follow all the rules of humanity in warafare, in WW2 they were known to send conscript battalions into minefields to "clear the way" for veteran units.

Officer of Engineers

Not exactly true. WWII Red Army's way to clear minefields is a liberal usage of artillery. The 1st echelon was always the less experienced units. Their job is to find the enemy and fix him in place. It's up to the decisive force echelon to perform the envelopment.

It's the correct usage of troops who knows how to manouver and those who don't.

If you don't know how to manouver. Run up front until you find someone shooting at you. Stop and shoot at him. Don't need too much training nor experience for that.

For the guys who knows how to duck and move, you use them to get around the bad guy to cut him off.

__________________
Chimo

s_qwert63

I read that in 1945, when Rokossovky's troops engaged a crack SS division on the outskirts of Berlin, they started pushing them back. But the SS pinned down 2 reginments of Soviet infantry with artillery and mortar fire and themselves pulled back through pre-planned routes across a minefield.
Once the German artillery and mortar positions have been destroyed by counterfire, the Soviet Polkovnik (Colonel) ordered his reginment to chase after the SS troops.
So they charged across a minefield, suffering heavy casualities, but have caught the SS troops offguard, and destroyed them.
If the engineers would have been called in to de-mine the field, it would have given the SS valuable time to prepare and occupy defensive positions in the suburbs of Berlin. The Soviet reginment would have suffered heavier casualities as a result.

Ray

I am not concerned with history. Hitler can't be brought back and hanged.

I want to know from informed people, are the Iraqis that fustrated or angry as to carry out such stuff?

If so, why?

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

s_qwert63

This is my personal opinion, but I think in the Middle East it is quite normal to do such things to infidels.
The reason why Arab mercenaries and Cechen rebels cut off their victims heads is because the latter are infidel.

PiggyWiggy

Qwert is right.

I have seen people selling tickets for these kind of events, where others are lynched and killed.

Its the middle east, not europe, traditions vary.

And, there are no rules in warfare, the protocol is just something used a long time ago, now, its anything goes to win.

Praxus

They have to fight like this because they want to scare soldiers because they are and overall incompatent military force. Considering the fact that over 80% of the roadside bombs get dismantled before they are detonated and very few of them actually cause casulties. This on top of the fact that what people are calling a "Guerillia War" is nothing but a bunch of Terrorist attacts with little or no military objective.

PiggyWiggy

uh huh.

this tactic is kicking american ass.

and i believe that is why you are pissed.

i just hope my friend is doing alright over there...

Lunatock

Just because America isn't saying they are killing lots of Arab Terrorists, doesn't mean they aren't.

Your attitude sure doesn't seem too selfish Piggy Wiggly. Oh, America is losing in Iraq.

Because Russia does a sub par job fighting against rag tag Muslims?, am I right?

If anyones pissed, it's the pro-communist Russians that are mad we rolled Iraq in three weeks, Afghanistan in at least a month.

Leader

You got any proof for that? You and squirter seemed too be convinced they American public opinion is going to cave. Well if Bush gets reelected next year, which it looks like he will, then we are not running from Iraq no matter what. Despite your belief that the whole Iraqi populace is against us, it's not true. By any objective standard America is winning the war. Unless of course you think that it was by design that Saddam would let us run over his military like so much road kill in order to trap us in to rebuilding his whole country. In which case, the plan is right on track.

__________________