[A-List] Iraq: the resistance continues

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Grenade attack kills American soldier and injures five

Rory McCarthy
Friday June 6, 2003
The Guardian

An American soldier was killed and five were injured yesterday when they
were attacked in Falluja, an area of growing resistance to the US military
presence.

The soldier, from the 101st Airborne Division, was killed in the early hours
when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a military checkpoint outside a
police station. The wounded soldiers were evacuated to a nearby field
hospital.

"They [had] finished a dismounted patrol and were preparing to leave when
they were engaged," said Lieutenant Colonel Toby Green of the 3rd Armoured
Cavalry, which has been in charge of security in the town but is being
replaced by a force of at least 1,500 from the 3rd Infantry Division, the
unit which seized Baghdad in April.

Yesterday the troops were setting up bases outside town. Their role is to
saturate Falluja to tackle the resistance. Two soldiers were killed and nine
were injured there last week.

Falluja is a town of Sunni Muslims, the people who prospered under Saddam
Hussein's regime, and many have voiced their anger at the US presence in
Iraq. American generals say the resistance is not centrally organised.

Col Green said: "The safety and security of the town needs to improve if any
kind of rebuilding process is going to continue and accelerate."