'Fallujah's flames rekindled', Authorities have controlled the media better than the violence.

[leftchick]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG18Ak01.html


By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail

FALLUJAH - Security has collapsed again in Fallujah, despite United States military claims.

Local militias supported by US forces claim to have "cleansed" the city, 70 kilometers to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city's chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba'i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.

Authorities may have controlled the media better than the violence.

"Assassinations never stopped in Fallujah, but the media seem unwilling to cover the actual situation here," a human-rights activist in Fallujah, speaking on terms of anonymity given the tense situation, told Inter Press Service (IPS). "The two bomb blasts that killed six policemen earlier this month and another two that killed three on the weekend seem to have terminated the silence."

People in Fallujah say they still suffer despite the relative improvement in the security situation. "Relative" is the key word because the improvement is measured against two massive US military operations in 2004 that killed thousands in the city, and displaced hundreds of thousands.

"Fallujah was slaughtered by the Americans when her people decided to fight, and then were suffocated when they decided to reduce the fighting against the occupiers," former intelligence officer Major Ahmed al-Alwani told IPS. "There was strong resistance against American occupation forces since May 2003, but it was the Americans who pointed their guns at the innocent civilians and their houses.

[Selatius]

1. The surge is working, damn it! Work more now! I need to win a fucking election!

I bet that's what McCain would be thinking.