Bill
01-07-2008, 08:18 PM
You can't trust NBC for war news, generally - GE makes too much money off the war.
So when NBC tells you that the insurgents have switched to algerian tactics, that tells you something.
Not that it makes any difference.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/84810
The severed head of the Iraqi man rests on the counter of a bamboo stall. His hair is close-cropped, the mustache is trim, and there's a bullet wound in his right cheek.
A note placed alongside the head is handwritten in Arabic; it proclaims "Martyr from the CLC"—the acronym for the Concerned Local Citizens groups that have teamed up with American forces to fight insurgents. The American soldiers from Bravo Company who made the gruesome discovery have just come from another mission, one that involved rousing Iraqi farmer Basel Diab Muhammed in the wee hours Sunday and checking the shrapnel scars he sustained escaping from gunmen who kidnapped him a month ago. Now, as they look at the head, two Iraqi Army soldiers confirm that the victim was indeed a member of the CLC. Later a quick exam by a medic at the combat outpost indicates that the beheaded man had been in his late 20s or early 30s.
Both the kidnapping and the beheading signal a grim new strategy by Al Qaeda in Iraq: an attempt to intimidate the CLCs and the Iraqis who support them. On Monday a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in the Azamiyah area of northern Baghdad. As people were evacuating the wounded, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives just yards away, near a CLC office. Among the six reported killed in the attack was Riyadh al-Samarrai, head of a local CLC, who was apparently a target. The suicide bomber reportedly walked up to Samarrai and embraced him before setting off his explosives. "There's no question that the CLCs are the focus of their attacks now, even more than we are," says Capt. Travis Batty, 3rd Platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. "They know that these are the guys who can identify them. We could have Qaeda [cadres] walk right between our Strykers [armored personnel vehicles] on their way to do something bad and not know who they are. But the CLCs know them and point them out to us. That's why Al Qaeda in Iraq are going after them."
So when NBC tells you that the insurgents have switched to algerian tactics, that tells you something.
Not that it makes any difference.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/84810
The severed head of the Iraqi man rests on the counter of a bamboo stall. His hair is close-cropped, the mustache is trim, and there's a bullet wound in his right cheek.
A note placed alongside the head is handwritten in Arabic; it proclaims "Martyr from the CLC"—the acronym for the Concerned Local Citizens groups that have teamed up with American forces to fight insurgents. The American soldiers from Bravo Company who made the gruesome discovery have just come from another mission, one that involved rousing Iraqi farmer Basel Diab Muhammed in the wee hours Sunday and checking the shrapnel scars he sustained escaping from gunmen who kidnapped him a month ago. Now, as they look at the head, two Iraqi Army soldiers confirm that the victim was indeed a member of the CLC. Later a quick exam by a medic at the combat outpost indicates that the beheaded man had been in his late 20s or early 30s.
Both the kidnapping and the beheading signal a grim new strategy by Al Qaeda in Iraq: an attempt to intimidate the CLCs and the Iraqis who support them. On Monday a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in the Azamiyah area of northern Baghdad. As people were evacuating the wounded, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives just yards away, near a CLC office. Among the six reported killed in the attack was Riyadh al-Samarrai, head of a local CLC, who was apparently a target. The suicide bomber reportedly walked up to Samarrai and embraced him before setting off his explosives. "There's no question that the CLCs are the focus of their attacks now, even more than we are," says Capt. Travis Batty, 3rd Platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. "They know that these are the guys who can identify them. We could have Qaeda [cadres] walk right between our Strykers [armored personnel vehicles] on their way to do something bad and not know who they are. But the CLCs know them and point them out to us. That's why Al Qaeda in Iraq are going after them."