Rising armed resistance

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

LA Times, June 6, 2003
Iraqi Attacks Imperil U.S. Rule

A fatal ambush occurs hours after more forces arrive in Fallouja, a hot 
spot. Nationally, assaults on American troops tripled last month.

LA Times, June 6, 2003

By Michael Slackman, Times Staff Writer

FALLOUJA, Iraq -- In another sign of rising armed resistance to the 
U.S.-led occupation, one American soldier was killed and five others 
wounded early Thursday in an ambush just hours after the U.S. Army sent 
reinforcements here.

Though occupation authorities say they do not believe attacks are being 
organized on a national level, they acknowledge that strikes against 
U.S.-led forces have almost tripled — from 30 in April to 85 in May — 
and are planned, in most cases, they say, by remnants of Saddam 
Hussein's government.

This tense and increasingly volatile situation in central Iraq — with 
Fallouja as the primary hot spot — reflects a troublesome trend that 
threatens to undermine the U.S. occupation: Each time there is an attack 
on troops, the military steps up the kind of activities that many Iraqis 
say inspire them to resist. And each time the Iraqis resist, U.S. forces 
step up their enforcement efforts.

The situation is made all the more combustible by the 105- degree June 
heat and the realization on both sides that U.S. troops aren't leaving 
any time soon. It is evident in hot spots like Fallouja, but also in 
Baghdad, where many U.S. soldiers are tense and fearful that they are 
open targets.

"I have been here for two months. I am sick of this. I have no sympathy 
for these people," shouted a U.S. Army corporal working in Baghdad on 
Wednesday as she tried to organize a line of about 50 civilians visiting 
the command operations center to ask for help with jobs, visas and other 
personal matters.

As U.S. forces poured into the conservative, tradition-bound community 
of Fallouja this week with tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and 1,500 
additional troops — all in response to previous attacks on soldiers — 
locals promised to step up their armed resistance.

full: http://www.latimes.com/
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