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Iraqi President:Air strikes are a very annoying, Unacceptable & a collective punishment.

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fanoose

posted on Oct, 4 2004 @ 06:58 AM
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* Note: Bold Sentences/Words are personal Comments.




    SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqis walk with a white flag while leaving the restive northern city of Samarra October 3, 2004. Waving white flags, Iraqis fled the city of Samarra on river boats as U.S. forces claimed victory over insurgents in the first step of an offensive aimed at taking control of rebel-held cities. Photo by Akram Saleh/Reuters link

    The operation in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, brought condemnation from residents about the cost in lives and suffering, and guerrillas in the fiercest rebel-held city of Falluja are expected to put up a tougher fight.




    An Iraqi family sit amid the rubble outside their home in the northern city of Samarra, October 3, 2004. U.S.-led forces backed by warplanes tightened their grip on the rebel stronghold of Samarra Saturday, saying they had killed 125 rebels in one of the largest offensives since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Photo by Reuters link

    "Precision Strikes" Or "collective punishment"
    The U.S. strategy of "precision strikes" also came in for criticism from Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar who described the air assaults as collective punishment.

    "Air strikes on cities are a very annoying issue and not acceptable in any way. I consider it collective punishment," Yawar told Al Arabiya television network.

    Firdoos al-Ubadi, an Iraqi Red Crescent spokesman, said her group and other aid organizations had received a letter from Iraq's Human Rights Ministry describing the situation in Samarra as a tragedy and calling for emergency assistance.


    Corpses
    In Samarra, aid organizations said they were concerned about a lack of water and power and the fate of hundreds of families forced to flee. One man who said he escaped the city on Sunday said a number of civilians had been killed.

    The man who gave his name as Abu Qa'qa told reporters in Baghdad he had seen stray dogs picking at corpses in the street. He said he had seen several incidents of civilians being killed. "I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman," he said.


    Big Fat Liar!
    Iraq's interior minister, who visited Samarra on Saturday, said no civilians had been killed in the day-and-a-half blitz, a statement that angered some residents who said they had lost family members, including children, in the fighting.


    Other Developments:
  • Residents said bodies were left in the streets, untended due to the fear of snipers.
  • Families tried to bury their dead on Sunday, but the road to the cemetery was blocked off by U.S. troops, witnesses said.
  • Some people unable to flee the city by road traveled on small boats along a river holding up white flags as helicopters hovered overhead.
  • "The situation is very bad. No one can move, even ambulances can't move the wounded. All roads are blocked. If one road was open half of Samarra would have fled," said Khalil al-Samiraei.
  • While the city was calmer, a Reuters photographer saw several burned out cars and pools of dried blood on street corners. Dozens of houses were reduced to rubble.
  • The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross, said it was trying to deliver food, water and first aid to needy civilians, and said it feared for the fate of at least 500 families forced to flee to areas north of Samarra.


    For (more) Read the article by Reuters
    Page-1 | Page-2 | Page-3


Gazrok

posted on Oct, 4 2004 @ 07:17 AM
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Perhaps providing the environment for insurgents to hole up, isn't such a good idea??? You think? Perhaps they are realizing this now....???

Obviously for the insurgents to entrench here, they had to enjoy some level of popular support from the residents... In guerilla warfare, the guerillas are cowards...wolves hiding amongst sheep. In such cases, inevitably you lose some sheep in killing the wolves. It's unfortunate, but inescapable...

Not to mention, there is no qualifier to any of the above statements. For example, no mention is made as to what the rubble outside the family's home is...(perhaps it was a neighboring home harboring insurgents?) If not, why not state what the rubble is then? Same with the bodies. Perhaps they are bodies of insurgents? Even the bodies of women or children are suspect, as terrorists and insurgents have used such participants in the past.


Of course the roads were blocked...It's hard to root out the bad from the good with a constant stream of people leaving....
Likewise for the bodies... Guerilla tactics of using bodies as bait by snipers is pretty widespread throughout the history of warfare...it is an equally cowardly act, perhaps even moreso, than terrorism itself, and shows an appalling disrespect for both the living, and the dead...


fanoose

posted on Oct, 4 2004 @ 02:53 PM
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    I'm sure you don't mean by cowards, those who fly thousand of feets above throwing bombs on everything moving, thats why people started to walk with a white flag. right?

    Anyway the article is about 3 points actually:

    1- "Precision Strikes" Or "collective punishment"
    Even the puppet government admitted that Air strikes are Unacceptable and a mass murdering tool.

    2- Corpses
    Dogs eating the body of a woman, People can't bury the dead.

    3- Big Fat Liar!
    "Iraq's interior minister, who visited Samarra on Saturday, said no civilians had been killed in the day-and-a-half blitz, a statement that angered some residents who said they had lost family members, including children, in the fighting."



[edit on 4-10-2004 by fanoose]


fanoose

posted on Oct, 4 2004 @ 02:54 PM
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    The Americans insisted that the estimated 125 people killed in the storming of the city were all insurgents. Doctors and local people reported women, children and the elderly among the dead, and that bodies were still being brought into hospitals.

    There also appeared to have been discord over the military action between members of the US-sponsored Iraqi interim government. The Interior Minister, Falah Naqib, echoed the American line that no civilians had been killed and only "bad guys and terrorists" had suffered. It was, he said, a "great day for Samarra". But the Human Rights Ministry, in a letter to the Iraqi Red Crescent, described what happened in the city as a "tragedy" and called for urgent emergency assistance.

    Local people in Samarra claimed that many of the 1,000 insurgents the Americans were targeting had escaped before the attack, and civilians had borne the brunt of the casualties. Of 70 bodies brought into Samarra General Hospital, 23 were children and 18 women, said Abdul-Nasser Hamed Yassin, a hospital administrator. There were also 23 women among the 160 wounded.

    Families trying to bury the dead found the road to the cemetery had been blocked by American soldiers. One man, Abu Qa'qa, claimed he had seen dogs picking at corpses in the street. Abdel Latif Hadi, 45, said: "The people who were hurt most are normal people who have nothing to do with anything." Another resident, Mohammed Ali Amin, said: "There were American snipers on rooftops who were shooting people trying to get to their homes. Even at the hospital the Americans arrested injured boys of 15 saying they were insurgents."

    CNN television was told by one man that his sister-in-law and her six daughters were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an US air strike. Aid organisations said there was acute concern about continuing lack of water and electricity in Samarra and the difficulties faced by people attempting to seek medical treatment. More than 500 families had fled the city.

    -- independent.co.uk




    Of the 70 dead brought to Samarra General Hospital since fighting erupted, 23 were children and 18 were women, hospital official Abdul-Nasser Hamed Yassin said. Another 160 wounded people also were treated.

    "The people who were hurt most are normal people who have nothing to do with anything," said Abdel Latif Hadi, 45.

    The city hospital said two people were killed and 12 were wounded in the airstrikes. Two more people, a man and his wife, were killed and two others were wounded when a tank fired on a house, Dr. Rafe al-Issawi said.

    Residents said U.S. troops built temporary checkpoints across two entrances into the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, regarded by the U.S. military as the "toughest nut to crack" in Iraq.

    "We're very worried that Fallujah might be next after Samarra," Fallujah resident Saad Majid, 40, said. "I have children. I'm very worried about them. We don't sleep all night because of the strikes."

    Many took advantage of the calm to collect and bury the dead. Iraqi national guardsmen helped hospital workers put bodies into pickup trucks for transport to the cemetery. Ambulances picked up more bodies strewn in the street and orchards, and more corpses were believed to be inside collapsed buildings.

    -- abcnews.go.com
    -- asia1.com.sg




    A US military commander said Sunday he estimated that 10 percent of the dead were civilians while local hospital officials said that percentage may be much higher.

    Despite the bloodshed and destruction, Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said the mission was the most successful to date, and hinted at more action to regain control of no-go areas ahead of the January 2005 elections.

    But a leading Sunni Muslim religious group blasted the Samarra operation calling it a "massacre" and warned the interim government that its US-influenced strategy will plunge the country into more chaos.

    "Who is going to respect elections paved by the blood of Iraqis and built on their skulls?" asked Sheikh Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi, spokesman for the respected Committee of Muslim Scholars, during a press conference at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque.

    -- news.yahoo.com
    -- spacewar.com



fanoose

posted on Oct, 4 2004 @ 02:55 PM
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    Click on any photo to view it in larger size




    Mourning in Samarra : A boy and a man sitting outside the local hospital in Samarra mourn the death of a relative, who was killed during battle between US soldiers and insurgents. (AFP/Jewel Samad)


    U.S. Army soldiers search ruins in the ancient section of Samarra, Iraq , Monday, Oct. 4, 2004, on the fourth day of a major U.S. and Iraqi military incursion into the city. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)


    An Iraqi woman cries after her sister and aunt were killed during clashes in the northern city of Samarra October 3, 2004. U.S.-led forces tightened their grip on the rebel-held city Samarra on Sunday in the first step of a campaign to take back all of Iraq but ignited complaints about the cost in lives and suffering. REUTERS/Akram Saleh


    An unidentified mother looks after her injured child at a hospital in Tikrit, Iraq , Saturday Oct. 2, 2004. The child was reportedly injured in the U.S. offensive on Samarra and was evacuated to Tikrit. (AP Photo/ Hameed Rashid)


    An unidentified youth receives treatment at a hospital in Tikrit, Iraq , Saturday Oct. 2, 2004 after he was reportedly injured in the U.S. offensive on Samarra and then evacuated to Tikrit. (AP Photo/Hameed Rashid)


    Umm Salaam cries as she is denied access to her home and family at a U.S. checkpoint outside Samarra, Iraq , Saturday Oct. 2, 2004. More than 100 guerrillas were killed and 37 captured on the first day of the operation to rid the city of Samarra of insurgents, on Friday. (AP Photo/Asaad Mohessin)


    An Iraqi man waves a white flag as a U.S. Army patrol passes in Samarra, Iraq , Saturday, Oct. 2, 2004. Sporadic fighting continued on the second day of a major U.S. military incursion into the city. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)


    Iraqi men inspect a destroyed house, following a U.S. army bombardment in the town of Falluja, September 25, 2004. U.S. and Iraqi forces will retake rebel-held cities, including Falluja, Ramadi, some parts of Baghdad and the town of Samarra, in October, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan said on Sept. 29. (Mohammed Khodor/Reuters)




    More photos:
    A destroyed house
    A destroyed house following an overnight US air strike on the city of Samarra.(AFP/File/Dia Hamid)

    Iraqis look at a destroyed house
    Iraqis look at a destroyed house following an overnight US air strike on the city of Samarra. At least 90 people were killed and 180 wounded as US troops and Iraqi forces charged into Samarra in a first effort to reclaim troublespots before Iraq 's planned elections, while a shocked nation buried 34 children killed by car bombs.(AFP/File/Dia Hamid)

    An Iraqi policeman holds back mourning relatives and friends
    An Iraqi policeman holds back mourning relatives and friends during the funeral of a policeman who was killed in yesterday's tribal clashes, in the southern Iraqi town of Basra. US and Iraqi forces claimed that one of the largest post-war military offensives in Iraq had largely subdued the rebel city of Samarra, while a fresh strike on the hotspot of Fallujah killed seven Iraqis.(AFP/Essam AL-Sudani)

    Iraqi Sunni Muslims perform Friday noon prayer
    Iraqi Sunni Muslims perform Friday noon prayer at Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad. At least 100 people were killed and 180 wounded as US and Iraqi troops stormed the rebel-held city of Samarra.(AFP)




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