Iraq: "This Place Is Too Dangerous"; "It's Guerrilla Warfare"

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[From Rick Rozoff]

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1) Guerrilla Attacks On The Rise In Iraq
2) US Troops Attacked At Fallujah Power Station
3) Fallujah: Mayor's Office Attacked, Several More
Attacks On US Troops
4) Explosion Rocked Capital On Monday
5) Pentagon: US Raid Wounded Five Syrians, May Have
Occurred Inside Syrian Territory


http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030624.uiraq0624/BNStory/International/

The Globe And Mail (Canada)
June 24, 2003

Guerrilla attack on rise in Iraq
By MARK MacKINNON

-In Baghdad yesterday, foreign journalists watching a
rehearsal of Iraq's national orchestra said three U.S.
soldiers standing guard across the street were injured
when a grenade was lobbed at them.
"Get me out of here," said one female U.S. soldier
stationed in central Baghdad when told about the
latest grenade attack. "This place is too dangerous."




Baghdad ? Guerrilla strikes against United States
interests in Iraq have continued to escalate in recent
days, with economic sabotage on the rise and a new
type of combatant ? a 12-year-old-girl ? entering the
fray against the American army.

The girl, whose name was not released, reportedly
opened fire on patrolling U.S. soldiers in her
hometown of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Sunday. No one
was injured, but the shooting highlighted that even as
international leaders were meeting at a Dead Sea
resort to discuss the country's political way forward,
the security situation on the ground remains
unpredictable at best.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, a key oil
pipeline near the Syrian border was reportedly set
ablaze, marking the third such attack in 10 days.
There was also another grenade attack yesterday on
U.S. soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad.

Soldiers involved in the Ramadi incident reported
coming under small-arms fire that missed its target
and harmlessly hit the dirt around their patrol
vehicles. The troops spotted a young girl fleeing the
scene with an AK-47 assault rifle and followed her
home, where they found the weapon in a corner, wrapped
in a red dress.

"It's just weird. It's totally unconventional,"
Captain Burris Wollsieffer of the Third Armored
Cavalry Regiment said of the rising number of attacks.
"It's guerrilla warfare."

The tense situation was further complicated by a U.S.
admission that American forces had engaged in a gun
battle last week with Syrian border guards,
threatening to draw Iraq's neighbour into the
conflict. Defence Department officials in Washington
said several Syrian border guards were wounded when
U.S. Special Forces attacked a convoy of suspected
high-profile members of Saddam Hussein's toppled
government.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the attack occurred last Wednesday in a "fairly
remote" area near Iraq's western city of Qaim close to
the Syrian border and that "some Syrian guards were
injured."

U.S. officials did not say whether American forces,
acting on intelligence and backed by aircraft, crossed
into Syria and were vague on how Syrian guards were
involved. The convoy was apparently attempting to
escape into Syria, the officials said.

In Baghdad yesterday, foreign journalists watching a
rehearsal of Iraq's national orchestra said three U.S.
soldiers standing guard across the street were injured
when a grenade was lobbed at them.

"Get me out of here," said one female U.S. soldier
stationed in central Baghdad when told about the
latest grenade attack. "This place is too dangerous."

In an apparent effort to keep the unrest from growing
any wider, the head of Iraq's new U.S.-installed
administration, Paul Bremer, said yesterday that
former soldiers in the disbanded Iraqi army would soon
begin receiving monthly compensation payments of
between $50 and $150 (U.S.).

Mr. Bremer's administration put about 400,000 people
out of work with a stroke of the pen last month when
he declared the old army defunct. Some of the
ex-soldiers had warned of violence unless they started
receiving paycheques soon, and two were shot dead by
American soldiers last week when a rally to press that
demand turned violent.

An aide to Mr. Bremer, Walter Slocomb, told a press
conference that the "grotesquely" oversized old army
would be replaced over the next few years by a force
roughly one-tenth the size.

By the end of the day yesterday, even political allies
of the United States, such as the Pentagon-friendly
Iraqi National Congress, were calling for U.S. troops
to leave Iraq's cities.

In an interview, INC spokesman Entifadh Qanbar said
the move would not only ease tension, it would make
life safer for American soldiers.

"Right now, U.S. soldiers inside Iraqi cities are like
sitting ducks for terrorists," he said.
With reports from Associated Press and Reuters
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http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/dh/Qiraq-us-unrest-fallujah.RS53_DuO.html

US troops attacked at Fallujah power station

-US troops immediately fanned out around the al-Dubat
neighbourhood, with tanks and infantry opening fire.
One man, identified as Feras Fawzi al-Saab, 30, was
standing at the gate of his house when he was shot
dead, the reporter added. The man was decapitated by
the shots.


FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 24 (AFP) - Unknown assailants
launched rocket-propelled grenades overnight at US
troops guarding a power station in the flashpoint town
of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, an AFP correspondent
reported Tuesday.

One Iraqi man was killed by US tank fire during
subsequent searches.

A US military spokeswoman said she was unable to
confirm the incident.

The attack occurred at 1:15 am (2115 GMT Monday) at a
power distribution station, when an unknown number of
men fired two rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at the
US troops guarding the facility, the correspondent
witnessed.

There was no major damage caused to the power plant.

US troops immediately fanned out around the al-Dubat
neighbourhood, with tanks and infantry opening fire.

One man, identified as Feras Fawzi al-Saab, 30, was
standing at the gate of his house when he was shot
dead, the reporter added. The man was decapitated by
the shots.

US soldiers guarded the corpse, refusing to allow
residents to remove it, he added.

The conservative Sunni Muslim town has been a
flashpoint since US troops shot dead at least 16
Iraqis at a demonstration in late April.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25216-2003Jun24.html


Associated Press
June 24, 2003

Mayor's Office Attacked in Iraqi City
By CHRIS TOMLINSON

-Insurgents last week began targeting Iraqi civilians
thought to be too close to Americans - a new tactic in
their campaign to disrupt the U.S.-led occupation.
A U.S. Army Military Police officer was slightly
wounded late Monday in Khaldiyah, about 35 miles west
of Baghdad, when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled
grenade which struck a Humvee....
-Insurgents fired two more rocket-propelled grenades
at U.S. troops in Habaniyah, about three miles west of
Fallujah....
-U.S. special forces shot and captured several Syrian
border guards during a firefight that broke out as the
Americans attacked a convoy of suspected high-level
fugitives....



FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqi insurgents fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at the mayor's office in this
restive city west of Baghdad, the latest in a series
of attacks against people thought to be cooperating
with U.S. occupation forces.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said that Syrian border
guards detained during a firefight last week during an
operation to hunt down suspected members of Iraq's
ousted regime were still in U.S. custody.

U.S. troops shot and killed one of the assailants in
the attack on the mayor's office late Monday in
Fallujah, a town 35 miles west of Baghdad, U.S.
reports said. But local residents at the scene said
the man killed was not involved in the attack and was
caught in the crossfire.

Insurgents last week began targeting Iraqi civilians
thought to be too close to Americans - a new tactic in
their campaign to disrupt the U.S.-led occupation.

A U.S. Army Military Police officer was slightly
wounded late Monday in Khaldiyah, about 35 miles west
of Baghdad, when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled
grenade which struck a Humvee, said 1st Lt. Charles
Mulcahey, a platoon leader with the 115th Military
Police company.

An infantry platoon found no suspects or weapons after
combing the thick palm scrub alongside highway 10,
where the ambush took place.

Insurgents fired two more rocket-propelled grenades at
U.S. troops in Habaniyah, about three miles west of
Fallujah, but they exploded without causing injuries,
reports said.

Details continued to emerge Tuesday on a previously
undisclosed operation last week around the Iraqi town
of Qaim, near the border with Syria.

U.S. special forces shot and captured several Syrian
border guards during a firefight that broke out as the
Americans attacked a convoy of suspected high-level
fugitives linked to Saddam Hussein's government. They
were apparently trying to cross into Syria.

An undisclosed number of people were killed and
wounded in the incident, and American troops captured
about 20 people, most of whom have since been
released, a senior defense official said Monday. U.S.
investigators will conduct DNA testing to identify the
remains of those killed, defense officials said.

Three U.S. senators, in the first visit by elected
American officials to Iraq, predicted Monday that a
U.S. presence may be required in Iraq for as long as
five years.

"I don't think the American people fully appreciate
just how long we are going to be committed here and
what the overall cost will be," said Senator Joseph
Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee.

U.S. officials announced Monday that the defeated and
dissolved Iraqi army will be re-established within a
year. To start, the new army will consist of a token
force of one brigade of 12,000 men. It will grow to
40,000 in three years, a tenth of the size of the
Saddam Hussein-era military.

The U.S.-led occupation administration will pay a $50
to $150 monthly stipend to as many as 250,000 former
Iraqi soldiers. Officers of the rank of colonel or
higher and senior members of the Baath party would
receive nothing, said Walter Slocombe, a senior
adviser on security and defense for the governing
authority.

Former soldiers from the disbanded army have been
mounting increasingly vehement protests, demanding
pay.
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http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/co/Qiraq-baghdad-blast.RxLY_DuN.html

Explosion in central Baghdad

BAGHDAD, June 23 (AFP) - An explosion rocked a central
Baghdad neighborhood late Monday, without causing
casualties, witnesses told AFP.

Residents of Karrada Dakhel commercial street said the
explosion occurred in a large garbage bin which caught
fire.

Minutes after the explosion was heard, an AFP reporter
saw a blackened bin still smoldering near the pavement
along Karrada Dakhel where no US soldiers were seen.

Residents said the explosion caused no injuries.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known.

A US military spokesman said he was unaware of the
incident.
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http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/cn/Qiraq-saddam-us.RGeU_DuN.html



US convoy attack may have been inside Syria: Pentagon
Jim Mannion

-A US defense official who spoke on condition of
anonymity said five Syrian nationals were injured,
three of whom were treated for their injuries.
-"We attacked a convoy along a route. We thought it
might have been leadership. We didn't know who."
-Near daily hit-and-run attacks have claimed mounting
US casualties, prompting intensive US raids to crush
the resistance before it can take root.



WASHINGTON, June 23 (AFP) - A US attack last week on a
convoy believed to have been carrying Iraqi leaders
injured five Syrians and may have occurred on Syrian
territory, Pentagon officials said Monday.

CNN reported that Syrian border guards were engaged
during the incident Thursday, but Pentagon officials
would not identify the injured Syrians or confirm if
US forces clashed with Syrian forces on the border.

The attack aimed at suspected "leadership targets" in
the convoy, which was heading toward Syria, officials
said.

"There were a few Syrian nationals involved in the
incident," said Lieutenant Colonel Gary Keck, a
Pentagon spokesman. "A few may have been injured. We
are treating those."

A US defense official who spoke on condition of
anonymity said five Syrian nationals were injured,
three of whom were treated for their injuries.

"It is still to be determined which side of the
border" the convoy was on when it was hit, Keck said,
adding that the United States was working with the
Syrian government.

A defense official said 20 people were captured in the
attack, but most of them were released after it was
determined they were not a threat.

The attack has prompted reports that US officials
believed deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein or his
sons may have been in the convoy.

US forces were investigating, but Keck could not say
if any fugitive Iraqis were hit.

"We don't have specific details yet who was in the
convoy or the number of enemy forces," a US defense
official said.

"We do not have any confirmation of the identity of
any individuals who might have been killed. Site
exploitation continues, and routine DNA testing will
be done if appropriate based on all intelligence
gathering," the official said.

The White House would not say if Saddam or his sons
were believed to have been in the convoy.

"I can confirm for you that there were military
operations against leadership target or targets,"
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

"This should be seen in keeping with the ongoing
military effort in Iraq to bring justice to people who
we believe are associated with the regime or are
leaders in the regime," added the spokesman.

A US defense official with knowledge of the
intelligence that led to the strike, said reports that
Saddam or his sons were hit were "wishful thinking."

The US defense official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said he knew of no effort to collect DNA
samples at the site.

"We attacked a convoy along a route. We thought it
might have been leadership. We didn't know who," the
official said.

Hopes of capturing the ousted Iraqi leader have risen
since the detention one week ago of Saddam's closest
aide, Abid Hamid Mahmud in northern Iraq.

Mahmud, number four on the US list of 55 most wanted
Iraqis, has told his US captors that Saddam and his
sons survived the war, the official confirmed.

Mahmud said he fled with them to Syria, but they were
expelled following US pressure.

"That's what he said," said the official. "We don't
know if it's true."

Saddam and his sons were the targets of at least two
US air strikes during the war, but their fate is
unknown.

The failure to account for them has given Iraq's
former Baathists ruling party a rallying cry to resist
the US occupation, US commanders and administration
officials believe.

Near daily hit-and-run attacks have claimed mounting
US casualties, prompting intensive US raids to crush
the resistance before it can take root.

"I wouldn't underestimate the fear that Saddam still
shadows his people with," King Abdullah II of Jordan
told ABC television on Sunday. "There are a lot of
Iraqis out there that think that he might still be
alive, and might come back to haunt them."

But Abdullah played down the report that Saddam or his
sons were killed in the attack.

"It's like Elvis. There's a lot of sightings of him
all over the place," he said.

"You're getting so many stories, left, right, and
center. But I've heard so many stories in the past
several months," he said.
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