Falluja Jailbreak

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Sunday February 15, 2004 12:01

by James McKenna

jimmymac61 at hotmail dot com

four score and two out for stew

The latest spectacular daylight attacks on forces collaborating with the US-led coalition in Iraq signal a growing boldness on the part of the resistance to mount sustained and complex operations. The US army sat out the attacks in their barracks two miles away but sent planes to drop , "balloons".

On Saturday scores of gunmen carried out a closely coordinated attack on a police headquarters as well as on a compound for Iraqi Civil Defense and the mayor's office, in Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad.

The death toll has risen (Sunday) to 27 : 22 police, one civilian and four Resistance fighters. Police said that between 20 and 85 prisoners were freed as the Resistance fought their way from room to room inside the police station, firing machine guns and lobbing grenades.

Jonny Dymond of the BBC said this, "was the most audacious attack so far by militants in post-war Iraq". The same security compound in Falluja was attacked two days earlier during a visit by the top US commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid. A rocket tore through his car cutting both door arches. Earlier in the week two suicide bombings ,in the same town, killed over 100, mostly US collaborators.

Barbara Platt of the BBC said the daring and closely co-ordinated attacks show the US occupation forces are unable to protect those collaborating with them. More than 600 security and police forces have been killed by Resistance operations since April.

In an attempt to keep their casualties low the US Army is forced to sit out such attacks in barracks. Although only a couple of minutes drive away, the US occupiers chose to leave the Iraqi Police to their fate rather than risq their own lives. At one point during the hour long daylight attack the US Army called in a plane to drop ,"heat balloons to divert heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles". Except there were no aircraft being attacked nor were any anti-aircraft missiles being used! But it made a better picture on CNN of the "worlds-undisputed-sole-superpower" than "embedded" pictures of young soldiers in the US compound quaking in their boots and praying the Resistance were not coming their way .