This article is why I love AP, Reuters, and the other wire services. They report the facts, not the spin. There has been a lot of Fallujah this, Fallujah that. Well, pay attention to what's going on over the entire nation of Iraq. The airport has been closed "until further notice", there are curfews throughout the nation. In short, it's really getting worse, not better.
READ THIS ARTICLE. READ IT ALL. It's long, which is unusual for a wire. Here are some teasers:
Police in Mosul largely disappeared from the streets, residents reported, and gangs of armed men brandishing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers roamed the city, 225 miles north of Baghdad. Responding to the crisis, Iraqi authorities dismissed Mosul's police chief after local officials reported that officers were abandoning their stations to militants without firing a shot.Read the entire article. Get yourself informed about what's really going on.
Elsewhere, insurgents shot down a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, wounding three crew members, the military said. It was the third downed helicopter this week after two Marine Super Cobras succumbed to ground fire in the Fallujah operation.
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Militants also assassinated the head of the city's anti-crime task force, Brig. Gen. Mowaffaq Mohammed Dahham, and set fire to his home.
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In addition to firing the Mosul police chief, Iraqi authorities also dispatched four battalions of the Iraqi National Guard from garrisons along the Syrian and Iranian borders. Rob's note: I thought you had to close the border to prevent MORE insurgents from coming across the border?
Most of the reinforcements are ethnic Kurds who fought alongside American forces during the 2003 invasion -- a move which could inflame ethnic rivalries with Mosul's Sunni Arab population. Nevertheless, it appeared Iraqi authorities had no choice given the apparent failure of the city's police force to maintain order.
At a U.S. camp near Fallujah, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said U.S. and Iraqi forces now occupy about 80 percent of the city, and that clearing operations are continuing to find caches of weapons and ammunition. Army and Marine units moved to tighten their security cordon around Fallujah, backed by FA-18s and AC-130 gunships. Rob's note: FA-18's and AC-130s, that sounds like a hot war to me, not just a fight against a few holdout insurgents.
