New plan to cut off Ramadi rebels

[DoYouEverWonder]

18 June 2006

US and Iraqi troops have surrounded parts of the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi in an effort to cut supply lines to insurgents within the city.

Military officials want to gain control of the key entrances to Ramadi, but say there are no plans to launch a full-scale assault on the city.

Residents in Ramadi have been urged not to leave their homes.

The city has become a key centre of the Iraqi insurgency, with much of Ramadi no-go areas for US troops.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5091792.stm

Another military action against a civilian population by the Occupying Power. Chalk up a few more war crimes for GWB.

[rodeodance]

1. and the people in the middle confined to their own houses for weeks on

end.

[leftchick]

2. Now they are telling them to stay?

which is it?

<snip>

“Fears of an imminent offensive by the US troops massed around the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi intensified Saturday, with residents pouring out of the city to escape what they describe as a mounting humanitarian crisis”, the June 11 Los Angeles Times reported.

US troops had “cordoned off” the city of 400,000, located 110 kilometres west of Baghdad, by June 10, residents and Iraqi officials told the LA Times. US air strikes on residential areas were escalating, and US troops took to the streets on June 10 with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Captain Tahseen Dulaimi said.

“US military officials refused to confirm or deny reports that a Ramadi offensive was underway”, the LA Times reported.

“The situation is catastrophic”, said Sheik Fassal Gaood, the former governor of Anbar province, whose capital is Ramadi. Correspondents in Ramadi for Islam Memo, a Saudi Arabia-based Islamist website, reported on June 6 that the US military had cut off all electricity to the city as well as drinking water, and had closed all the petrol stations.

“Residents have been particularly unnerved by the recent arrival of 1500 US troops sent to reinforce the US troops already stationed in the city”, the LA Times reported, adding: “Street battles between troops and insurgents have been raging for months, but the troops’ deployment left residents bracing for a mass offensive to take the town back from insurgents.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/672/672p16b.htm

[daleo]

10. Maybe anyone who didn't leave at first is now considered a terrorist?

I think a tactic like this has been used before. The two U.S. soldiers being held may have something to do with it. They could be a bargaining chip as far as assaulting the city goes.

I am just speculating.

[izzie]

3. We sure do not do this stuff well.

And I think this is going to be how wars are fought for some time. It is like the people and the army are in two different worlds. I wonder if the Iraq government does anything like our founding fathers did to sway the thoughts of the people. Like the Federalist papers? Even the Chinese had a plan on how to keep the Vietnam people with them and stuck to it. The France wrote about it when they were losing their war. It is hard to understand why these small groups know more than a great power than can not seem to get its act together.

[Moderator]

4. Kick

[AnOhioan]

5. U.S. forces block roads in insurgent-held city

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops set up outposts Sunday in southern parts of Ramadi as part of an operation to establish Iraqi army bases in the country’s largest Sunni Arab city and wrest it away from months of insurgent control.

U.S. commanders stressed that the operation was not a large-scale assault on the city but rather an “isolation” tactic to prevent insurgents from receiving supplies or reinforcements from outside. Arab television networks and some Western outlets have reported on an impending attack on the city.

The overnight operation involved thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops who trickled out of area bases and began erecting two outposts where Iraqi soldiers are expected to begin patrolling a southern neighborhood known as the Second Officer’s Quarter.

The area of about 10,000 people, a cluster of homes once set aside for Baath Party officials and Iraqi soldiers in an artillery brigade, has rarely seen U.S. or Iraqi troops.

More at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13398011/

[Mikimouse]

6. Fallujah redux...n/t

[Roland99]

7. Rarely seen US or Iraqi troops?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1404421

[bahrbearian]

8. "not a large-scale assault on the city but rather an “isolation" "

Fallujah without the Phosphorous

[Mikimouse]

9. Without the phosphorous........yet...n/t