US Forces walk into Najaf death-trap

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Thursday August 12, 2004 18:09

by Hilaal

In the great US tradition of Custers last stand and the bay of pigs , the US army's 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit has driven into what will be for them another memorable US army humiliating defeat.

Mr. Sadr's guerrillas have battled the Iraqi police and American forces for more than a year. Throughout this period the US army has floated like a butterfly and stung like a gnat, thus avoiding heavy casualties.

Now, however, on orders from it's generals many hundreds of miles away in Doha and at the political behest of think-tanks many thousands of miles away in Florida and Washington and against the best advise of West Point trained military officers on the ground, they have committed themselves to the occupation of the old city of Najaf. Where they have no food, no water, no petrol and no beds.

Over the last week, most Shiites in Najaf have remained on the sidelines as American, British and their Iraqi confederates have fought Mr. Sadr's militia but this will soon change. The US and their Confederates were relatively safe on the edges of Najaf where they could skitter back to their base for munitions, food (TV dinners) and rest. They had Mr Sadr's Mahdi Army under observation in the centre of the old city and could fire at will, without care for civilians, at a relatively concentrated although fluid target. The Mahdi Army would be drawn out to try and locate and target the moving ring of US/Confederates, who in turn could call off operations and return to their base outside the town, at any time.

This situation is now completely reversed with the US and it's confederates moving inside the "Trench" prepared by the Mahdi Army, thus leaving themselves in the position of having to sit in fixed , central locations and having to run a dangerous gauntlet each time they want supplies. Under the supervision of an Iranian, the Siege of Najaf by the US has now become their own siege. Thier own dirt-nap. Driven by arrogance and over belief in their military capabilities, the US army has walked into a modern Little Big Horn. One that will unfold slowly.

It will be a slow death and a never forgotten humiliation for the US . Deceived by very poorly trained Shiite forces who posed for the TV cameras, the US imagines this is all they will face. The reality is that for years, as the people of Najaf watched their children dying in tens of thousands, as a result of US/UN imposed sanctions plans have been laid to trap the Americans behind a , "Trench", if ever they would elect a leader foolish enough to direct his army to follow them into the "desert" that is old Najaf. Plans that will become clearer as the weeks go by.
Iran , who has given it's best strategists, equipment and soldiers to this effort also has a long memory for the US and the million it murdered by proxy with it's former henchman Saddam Hussein. Is it surprising that their Iraqi Confederates are comprised of the worst rabble of Saddams army and police? The Shia remember them too and the massacres they carried out for Saddam and the US.

Traps like this lie all over Shiite Iraq and in the Sunni north for the visiting thieves, whose oil is running out . The forces of Al Qaeda also continue to carry out surgical strikes on US forces, it collaborating politicians, police , army and pipelines, where and when it wishes. To the people of Iraq who have seen 1,750,000 of it's people murdered by UN/US sanctions in the past ten years this is only what the US is due.

It seems the Iraqis are prepared to test the myth of Americas military supremacy. The thieves may have marched into Iraq as the worlds undisputed "No1 superpower" but they will leave much humbled and return to a country in economic ruins, on the brink of it's second civil war.

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Sweet Jaysus

by Phil Boylan

Thu Aug 12, 2004 22:52

Hillal, where do you come up with this shite. I mean yes the Americans are stuppid for going into Najaf and expecting to occupy in no time. Yes they will probably get their asses handed to them and will inevitably have to withdraw, much like they had to do in Vietnam, BUT, Iran.....Military Experts. No offence, but your average Iranian military expert knows NOTHING. they have not fought in an actual war in over 16 years, then they were fighting people much like themselves. They were fighting for their own run of the land. Now do you expect the Iraqis to accept any Iranian helpers. I mean maybe they will at the start, but as you have pointed out, Iraqis have a long memory, what about the missile swapping during the Iran-Iraq War. Of course the iraqis will just forget about that!!! The Iranian 'experts' have also had very little exposure to non-politically organised training. By living under an autocratic regime they have been forced to meld military thought to political thought, which always ends in shit.

Basically the Americans will get their asses kicked, and will probably strike back harder using Spectres and other wonderful pieces of mass destruction!

Hillal, please think before you type

najaf folly,jolly good old show....

by karen

Thu Aug 12, 2004 23:00

After crippling sanctions and constant bombing on a daily basis for over ten years (more like 12 or 13),
No medicine and the constant deliberate contamination using depeted uranium and other chemical munitions by both the british and U.S. governnments,whatever traps or errors the occupation forces end up in it is of course their own fault.
It seems unreasonable that an occupation force that has committed the crime of genocide for a decade or more is allowed to use corporate media and international finiancial institutions to evade justice.

The position that the U.S. forces finds itself now in in Najaf has happened before, Vietnam for instance.

This particular assault by the "coa;ition of the willing" has destabilized the whole of the middle east, not to mention the WHOLE WORLD. It is a form of madness to start the third world war based upon the dependancy of our so called civililzed society's addiction to a NON-SUSTAINABLE fuel source (OIL!).

Ther are other ways of running things and getting from A to B.The murder of innocent civillians and endangerment of the lives of all civillians in the coalition goverments countries is not acceptable.

This is what democracy looks like....

Iraq as the Twenty-first Battleground State (in us election)

by downer

Thu Aug 12, 2004 23:24

Extract:

"*This major offensive was probably motivated by the increasing possibility that the U.S. and its allies were losing all control over most of the major cities in Iraq. In the Sunni parts of the country, city after city has in fact adopted the "Falluja model" -- refusing to allow an American presence in its streets and establishing its own local government. As a recent Tomdispatch succinctly summarized the situation: "Think of Sunni Iraq -- and possibly parts of Shia Iraq as well -- as a 'nation' of city-state fiefdoms, each threatening to blink off [the U.S.] map of 'sovereignty,' despite our 140,000 troops and our huge bases in the country." The attack in Najaf is certainly an attempt to stem this tide before it engulfs the Shia areas of Iraq as well, and it validates historian Juan Cole's ironic description of Prime Minister Allawi as "really… just the mayor of downtown Baghdad."

"Irangate", Ollie North........do you remember?

Fri Aug 13, 2004 00:37

I suppose you don't remember when those inept Iranians took out the pride of US special forces in that OTHER great US army manoever? How much did the US end up paying for their "hostages" ? Was it in US dollars, arms or cocaine? Or did Col North ever disclose the full details?

The Iranians also withstood the combined forces of Saddam Hussein and his US/European backers in the 80's and as far as I can make out the US for all it's talk is still afraid to tackle Iran even though they thought Iraq was a three month job for 50,000 marines.

The Iranians are not high tech (they have more sense) with only around 500 tanks and only 185 combat aircrat but then there is no point in trying that type of warfare with the yanks, I guess. They rely, as they did against Iraq, for the defence of their country, on the courage of the average soldier and a massive reserve of willing shaheeds.

What is knocking the Americans and their collaborators to bits in Iraq is not tanks, combat aircraft or any of that other stuff the military children like to look at. It is AK47's, RPG's and improvised explosive devices, all of which they can produce in massive quantities.

Just as in Viet Nam, when the barefooted Viet Cong knocked the shit out of the Americans with all their gunships and war planes with a similar arsenal. Remember the tunnel rats? Have the marines found any tunnels in Najaf yet? Or have the tunnels found them?

You keep watching and we'll see who is full of what.

"Iranian Intel Officers Captured in Iraq "

Fri Aug 13, 2004 01:41

"Senior Iraqi intelligence officers believe an Islamic militant group which has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in Irbil and a spate of deadly attacks in Baghdad, Falluja and Mosul is receiving significant help from Syria and Iran. "

"The group is suspected of training suicide bombers and deploying them against US forces in Iraq and Iraqis considered to be collaborating with the US-led authorities. "

=========================

"US believes Iran is aiding Iraqi militias"
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff, 4/9/2004

WASHINGTON -- US intelligence officials believe that Iran's hard-line and fiercely independent security services are providing support -- either directly or through proxies -- to outlawed Iraqi militia forces loyal to Shi'a Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that have been clashing with the US-led coalition during the past week, current and former US government officials and analysts said yesterday.

"We know on the ground that there are many hundreds and probably thousands of Iranian intelligence agents spreading money to their favored forces," said Larry Diamond, who returned from Iraq on Saturday, where he served as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority. "There are multiple signs all over. Iran has been funding and arming several radical Islamic militias, not just Sadr's, with different elements of the Iranian power structure aiding different groups."

========================

"Iranian Intel Officers Captured in Iraq "
Tuesday, July 06, 2004

WASHINGTON — American and Iraqi joint patrols, along with U.S. Special Operations teams, captured two men with explosives in Baghdad on Monday who identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers.

Senior officials said it was previously believed that Iran had officers inside Iraq stirring up violence, but this is the first time that self-proclaimed Iranian intelligence agents have been captured within the country.

The arrest of the two Iranians suspected of attempting to carry out a vehicle bombing has focused new attention on how Tehran is trying to protect its interests in the country it fought for eight years in a devastating war.

So far, Iran is believed to have used money, not guns, to influence Iraq — particularly by spreading wealth among Shiite political factions — while avoiding a direct confrontation with its longtime rival the United States.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124835,00.html

=======================

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224075,00.html

"US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war "
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 25, 2004

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.

==========================

"Iran has well established espionage networks in Iraq "

http://jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=400&issue_id=2960&article_id=236739

========================

Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security [MOIS]
Vezarat-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Keshvar (VEVAK )
With a large budget and extensive organization, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security is of the most powerful ministries in the Iranian government. The ministry has traditionally operated under the guidance of the Velayat-e Faqih apparatus of Ali Khamenei.
Ministry of Security and Intelligence personnel are either attached as diplomats in Iranian embassies and consulate offices or as Ministry of Guidance and Propaganda representatives. Non-official covers include Iran Air [the official airline of Iran] or as students, merchants, mechanics, shopkeepers, bank clerks, as well as members of opposition groups. VEVAK has frequently relied on the foreign branches of Iranian state-controlled banks to place intelligence agents and to finance terrorist operations. In Germany, for instance, the most prominent is Bank Melli, which maintains branches in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf.

Mujahedin units supported by Iran have assisted in the training of selected Bosnian army elements since 1993. Although the numbers of Mujahedin operating in Bosnia remained a matter of speculation, most credible estimates indicate approximately 2,500 members were present by mid-1995.

It continued to be involved in the planning and execution of acts by its own agents and by surrogates such as Lebanese Hizballah

=====================

Iran has a special interest in Iraq

"Thousands of Shiites Headed For Najaf"-TASS

by Boris Rasputin

Fri Aug 13, 2004 07:36

"Karbala. Thousands of Shiites have headed from Karbala to Najaf to make a “live shield” and protect Muslim sanctuaries, announced ITAR- TASS. Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr’s supporters from Kut have also headed for Najaf. "

Iranian intelligence agents behind Najaf bombing

by Philibuster

Fri Aug 13, 2004 07:46

Iraqi security personnel have arrested 12 Iranian intelligence agents in Baghdad.

The Iranians were preparing to conduct bombing attacks in Baghdad, the Arabic newspaper Al-Ahd al-Jadid, or The New Era, reported Aug. 21, 2003.

Iranians also are suspected in an attempted bombing in the Iraqi city of Al-Najaf on Aug. 24. One intelligence official said there is a growing presence of Iranians in Iraq.

Ministry of Intelligence and Security operatives and members of the Jerusalem Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are among the suspects.

Wher do they all get this stuff Phil? Not from the sandbaggers down in the Curragh anyway?

Eight Iranian intelligence officers in Najaf

by Commandant Cramp

Fri Aug 13, 2004 07:52

June 29, 2004,

Iraqi authorities have rounded up eight Iranian intelligence officers in Najaf, and one other — a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guards — was caught while attempting to sabotage an oil pipeline.

As you see, the Iranians are frantically increasing their efforts to drive Coalition forces out of Iraq, to wreck the Iraqi economy — and especially to inflate oil prices, which the mullahs hope will bring down the Bush presidency — and to destabilize the fragile Karzai government in Afghanistan

Re. Commandent Crap

by Caobhin sna Cistean

Fri Aug 13, 2004 13:08

A link to the "National Review" to back up your reactionary shite? Jesus you throwbacks should at least make a pretence at objectivity instead of publicising your nasty ,simple minded, extreme-right wing websites.

Victory to the Iraqi resistance. Beidh ar la linn.

Yes

by Red Fish

Fri Aug 13, 2004 14:15

Hopefully the Yanks get beaten out of Iraq (with a big hole in their military) and then in a new and weak state Iranian Ayatollah’s can implement their ideas about revolution. Hopefully the Iraqi Christians continue to be targeted and killed by the religious right until every one dies on the sword or converts. Also evil alcohol sellers should be shot and their women raped, they seek to destroy the soul of Islam. This will bring on a civil war and those filthy Shia who blaspheme by worshipping icons in the name of Allah and the idiot Kurds can be cleansed. This will make a better world.

Yes indeed

by C sns C

Fri Aug 13, 2004 14:37

Funny how there was ZERO, I repeat ZERO Al-Qaida/Fundamentalism when your scumbag buddy Saddam was running Iraq. Then again the reason given for attacking Iraq was WMD wasn't it? Didn't notice Amerika entering Afghanistan beteen 1996-2001 when all of the savagery outlined above was taking place there, in fact they were invited over to Texas to talk oil. Your "sonsabitches" the ex-Soviet central Asian dictatorships, have filthy human rights records so I suppose they're next on the list for regime change?

So spare us your hypocrital,smart arsed-mockery of humanism you cheerleading jingoist .It is sychophants like yourself with your infantile "good Vs evil" take on the world who hold ultimate responsibity for this diaster .

You shall know a tree by its fruits

by Nordie

Fri Aug 13, 2004 18:41

and obviously only the most rotten harvest could come the evil orchard that makes up the Bush regime (and the Saddam regime also. He attracted the bastards like shite attracts flies).

I don't think America's going to let free elections be held in Iraq anyway because they're gonna have a pretty good idea of the outcome. But then again what choice do they have with the eyes of the world on Iraq? It seems their brutal tatics have just created millions more of the religious right in Iraq (and the Islamic world) and it'll turn even more Western hating than Iran or Saddams Iraq. Just shows how deep these neo-cons think about things like going to war and the consequences of it. All little things like that. If America goes its fucked and if it stays it fucked even more. Might as well pack up now lads.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/iraq.shtml

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10852.shtml

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10699.shtml

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10855.shtml

The worldview of reality

by Lone Gunman

Sat Aug 14, 2004 21:29

Is somthing else here. The criminal al sadar the fundamentalist dog,is cowering like a whipped cur in his mosque AKA a terrorist training camp.His forces are surrounded and outgunned by Uncle sams finest,and pretty soon he will be joining Saddam in a jail cell.Nope sorry lefties ,no massacare of marines and the usual left anti american wet dreams for you lot..
al sadar last was heard looking for peace as per usual.300plus bodycount of his thugs and goons.Sooner he is gone the better.As far as i am concerned if anyone shoots from a mosque.It is a ligit target.Level it and all in it.
they would do the same to us.why should we spare their holy sites??

Interesting

Sun Aug 15, 2004 15:36

Hilal, I presume you are talking about the Eagle Claw incident when you refer to the Americans getting beaten by the Iranians. Odd that as not on single american was killed by an Iranian person in that entire operation, what actually happened, if you read the reports and knew anything about the episode, was whilst trying to land helicopters in a sand storm, one of the helicopters crashed and killed 8 US personel. Now unless the almighty Ayatollah or one of his eejits has the ability to make sand storms spring up, then I don't see how America was beaten by Iran, they were beaten by OTT soldiering. Also, as for having to pay money for the return of Hostages, well I suppose in your idealistic worldview, no ransom, let em die with respect. I mean the reason Delta wasn't sent in to rescue the Hostages was Carter and Reagan both felt it was too risky with the limited Humint that they had.

As for Sadr and the Mosques. Its true Sadr once stated that NO UN people would ever set foot in Iraq whilst he had anything to do with it, but after a week of getting his best and brightest turned in sushi by American airpower and snipers, he has no said that he would be interested in UN troops policing Iraq. Strange if the Americans are being drawn into a bllodbath, surely they'd have lost a couple of guys by now.

If Sadr or any militants fire from a Mosque the Mosque is then a legitimate target, but of course Muslims get bent out of shape when you target their holy sites. I can see their POV, but they have to understand, by their own religious codes fighting inside a mosque or using it as a stand point is forbidden, so the lads they were protesting in aid of, are actually no better than the people they are protesting against!!!

More bombs for Iraq

by SAD

Tue Aug 17, 2004 07:28

The US military has delivered another large load of depleted uranium and other large bombs arcross Irish air space late last night.

Destination Iraq!

22.30hrs reached west coast of Ireland heading east. Loaded heavy transporter plane. Solid red light showing.

U.S. bombs Najaf - Tuesday

by Sad

Wed Aug 18, 2004 00:28

A U.S. warplane bombed near Najaf’s vast cemetery as fighting with Shiite militants intensified Tuesday

At least one plane dropped bombs in the area of the cemetery, where al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia has been battling U.S. forces. It was not clear whether the strike hit inside or near the sprawling necropolis.

Another bomber went over Ireland tonight at 22.50hrs.

Get something straight

by paul o toole

Fri Aug 20, 2004 02:01

Muqtada was called a 'shiia loyal to Sadam' by the us/global press last June when he started fighting. Then they discovered his pop was murdered by Sadam and they had to change the story so now he's an 'insurgent' or a 'radical'. No one ever says why he started fighting, concidering he had never fired a gun.... It was because Paul Bremner closed down his newspaper printing facility because something was written about him(Bremner) which he diddnt like,he arrested his staff (two people) , put them in Abu-Ghareb,and burned down his office. He just dosent buy these 'American values' of freedom and they have to make him for his own good

Propadanga

by toneore

Fri Aug 20, 2004 18:20

toneore at eircom dot net

Let me get this right - lunatic, repressive, fellow-traveller churchmen in ireland bad, but lunatic repressive, fellow-traveller churchmen in iraq good?
If you're so fond of Al-Sadr et al, why don't you emigrate to iraq?

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US Forces walk into Najaf death-trap

Comments (18 of 18)