Home > Marines surprised by insurgent’s preparation for attack

Marines surprised by insurgent’s preparation for attack

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 11 May 2005
23 comments

Wars and conflicts International USA

James Janega - Chicago Tribune May 9, 2005

AL QAIM, Iraq - The Marines who swept into the Euphrates River town of Ubaydi confronted an enemy they had not expected to find - and one that attacked in surprising ways.

As they pushed from house to house in early fighting, trying to flush out the insurgents who had attacked their column with mortar fire, the Marines ran into sandbagged emplacements behind garden walls. Commanders said Marines also found a house where insurgents were crouching in the basement, firing rifles and machine guns upward through holes at ankle height in the ground-floor walls, aiming at spots that the Marines’ body armor did not cover.

The shock was that the enemy was not supposed to be in Ubaydi at all. Instead, American intelligence indicated that the insurgency had massed on the other side of the river. Marine commanders expressed surprise Monday not only at the insurgents’ presence but also the extent of their preparations, as if they expected the Marines to come.

"That is the great question," said Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, responsible for this rugged corner of Anbar province near the Syrian border. American officials describe the region, known as the Jazirah Desert, as a haven for foreign fighters who shuttle across the porous Syrian border, using the broken terrain for cover.

Three Marine companies and supporting armored vehicles crossed to the north side of the Euphrates River early Monday, using rafts and a newly constructed pontoon bridge. From there they were expected to roll west toward the border, raiding isolated villages where insurgents are believed to cache weapons and fighters. The offensive, planned for weeks, is expected to stretch on for several days.

"We’re north of the river (and) we’re moving everywhere we want to go," Davis said late Monday. "Resistance is predictably low, but I do not expect it to stay that way."

In recent weeks, intelligence suggested that insurgents were using the area to build car bombs that later would be used in attacks in Baghdad and other cities. More than 300 Iraqis have been killed in insurgent attacks in the past two weeks, following the formation of a Shiite-dominated government.

A senior military official in Washington told The Associated Press that the Marines were targeting followers of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been linked to many of the most violent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The offensive that began Sunday is described as one of the largest involving U.S. troops since the assault on Fallujah last fall. It involves more than 1,000 Marines and Army personnel, backed by helicopters and jet fighters.

With the Marines pressing the assault, new details emerged about the pitched battles that took place Sunday in Ubaydi, a town perched on the tip of a bend in the Euphrates, about 12 miles east of the Syrian border. As Army engineers worked to build the pontoon bridge, waiting Marines came under mortar fire from a town they had assumed was free of the enemy.

After calling in air strikes from prowling fighter jets and helicopter gunships, the Marines entered the town in armored personnel carriers and light armored vehicles. At times the fighting was door to door as Marines sifted through areas where resistance was stiffest.

According to commanders, Marines entered walled-off front yards in a row of white townhouses in the town’s southwest corner to find a scene reminiscent of the fighting in Fallujah: sandbagged firing positions next to the front doors. They suspected the area had been used for mortar attacks.

Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines said his troops had found a house on the north side of town where insurgents apparently lay in ambush. Holes low in the walls allowed insurgents hiding in the basement to fire up at the Marines as they entered.

After retreating, Marines in Lawson’s company called in artillery and heavy machine guns to rake the house. As sporadic fighting continued Monday morning, they brought in tanks and leveled it, Davis said.

Though military commanders in Baghdad announced that 100 insurgent fighters were killed in the early fighting, along with three Marines, Davis’ figures were lower. He said "a couple of dozen" insurgents had been killed in Ubaydi, about 10 at another river crossing near Al Qaim, and several who were killed by air strikes north of the river.

Other commanders said they had recovered few bodies but had seen blood trails that suggested insurgents were dragging away wounded or dead fighters.

The number of insurgents in the region is "in the hundreds," Davis said. "How many hundreds is tough to tell."

But more surprising, he said, was the insurgents’ preparation and tactical prowess, a development that he said reinforced intelligence that many of the insurgents have been trained by outsiders.

Davis described sophisticated attacks in which the detonation of a roadside bomb would be quickly followed by accurate mortar or rocket fire, then machine-gun fire as Marines raced to the area.

"They clearly have trained people," he said. "It looks rehearsed."

Marines who had captured an existing bridge over the Euphrates north of Al Qaim came under attack early Monday by several insurgents, Davis said. An air assault killed about 10 of them, who were wearing flak jackets_which American officials generally take as a sign that the fighters were not local Iraqis.

As the fighting raged Sunday in Ubaydi and other towns along the Euphrates, a platoon of Marines watched from cliffs near the Syrian border, hoping to call in air strikes on any fighters who tried to slip across, commanders said.

The commanders reported that the Marines saw truckloads of men speeding toward remote houses in the region, leaping off the trucks and racing inside.

They came out carrying armloads of rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, loaded them onto their trucks and headed back east, toward the fighting.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/world/11605487.htm

Last updated 10/05/2005

Forum posts

  • Those of us that can recall the history lessons regarding the American Revolutionary War for independence from England will see the identical parallels in the battle waged in Iraq, but the Americans are now playing the part of the well trained and well equiped British military invaders, while the Iraqis are the rag tag freedom fighters scrambling around to ambush the foreigners in a hit and run fashion out numbered and out gunned the true underdogs that will win because that is what is right. People are the same all over the world and they don’t change over time. The Iraqis are fighting an occupation on their territory, to save their homeland. We will never be able to get them to submit, they will retaliate to the last man/woman in a war that the U.S. can not win only contain like in Vietnam.

    • You’ve hit the nail right on the head. Of course, since the American "leaders" seem to be so proud of their ignorance, they are proving the old saw: those who are ignorant of their history are condemned to repeat it. Vietnam II: The Horror Continues. And W is already planning the next movie in Iran. How long before there is another American Revolution?

    • If the "freedom fighters," as you call them, really want the U.S. to leave, all they have to do is stop blowing things up, killing, and kidnapping people. The military doesn’t need the cost and trouble of this occupation; they will leave as soon as they are able.

      The way these militants are choosing to "fight the occupation" (really, they are forcing it to continue) is pointless and stupid, and only prolongs the inevitable. The U.S. has already won: saddam is gone, there is a new government in place, and sooner or later we will be able to leave. Iraq is not like Vietnam, because there is no opposition government opposing us as North Vietnam did; only a small but dangerous group of terrorists (many of whom are foreigners---these are not native Iraqis "defending the homeland," or whatever you are suggesting).

      cs30109

    • How old are you 12. You sound like a very immature uninformed person who chooses to believe every lie put out to you through the propaganda ministry. You are so far behind in having any truth that I won’t even try to get you up to speed, keep living in your dream world, Bush needs company.

    • Yanks in tanks= 0.
      Vandals in sandals=1.

    • Contrary to what you may believe, there are many intelligent people who do not agree with your views. You did not respond to a single statement I made, so should I conclude that you are unable to? Please, feel free to correct my poor, misguided notions.

      In the interest of a reasonable discussion, I will add a couple of moderating comments (at least, I think they are). I understand that some of the insurgents really are native Iraqis, and really are defending what they believe is right. I can sympathize, to a point, but I can’t see what they hope to accomplish by violent resistance. If they want to change things, they should try to find positions within the government, where leadership is sorely needed. I think that the U.S. wants very badly to leave Iraq, and will do so when the situation is stable enough. Do you disagree? Why?

    • Normally I wouldn’t bother, because I do not think you are CAPABLE of seeing anything but what has been spoon fed to you.

      To begin with it is not the duty of the Iraqis to fight a battle on our terms. As long as we occupy their country without their permission, they are free to do anything to make our time there unsuccessful, can you comprehend that? The more they make our mess a bigger mess the more successful they are at making us look like a big mess (which we are). The new so called elected government is full of CIA plants, the oil minister is Allawai appointed by the CIA whom he used to work for. Now does this sound like an elected official???? Of course not, and the Iraqis are not stupid they can see the hands of Bush all over the "new" government, why should they lend any credibility to something that is staged?

      Can you even start to understand that having your family murdered by American soldiers is not the same as having your home destroyed although that has happened too, a home can be replaced and you might be able to forgive and forget that tresspass, but the killing of your loved ones is something you would NEVER forget or forgive and until you have personally experienced what these people have been through (and keep in mind that they never did one thing to us) I do not think you can even start to comprehend things from their point of view.

      They are in no mood to play nice and go along quietly. If you were capable (and I do not think you are) of putting yourself in their place for even five minutes, you might have the understanding you need to see what is happening there, just try for one minute to imagine that Iraq was a huge vastly armed empire and they invaded the U.S. and killed your family and many of those you care about and wrecked your home, your town and your life. You only have electricity part of the day but the invading Iraqis are busy over at the oil company helping themselves to your regions wealth all the while giving you excuses for why your hospitals and schools are still not rebuilt 2 years later and that they can not leave because they can’t trust you and your countrymen to try to put your lives right and rebuild your own country (all totally phony lies, never getting any truth just more lies all of the time, rigged situations and government officials with the hands of the enemy all over it) I still do not think you can relate to any of this, its easier for you to keep imagining that the Hollywood fantasy of everyone living happily ever after and converting to the religion that you think everyone should belong to so that we can all be exactly alike, etc. etc., see that is why I usually ignore you, I am sure you can not see anything except your own vision of what you think Iraq and our occupation really is.

    • Sorry for butting in here, but if you really believe that the US has any intention of leaving Iraq then you are living in a world entirely of your own construction. The war is about oil, pipelines and strategic power in the middle east. There is not a country on earth that wouldn’t violently resist an invasion, especially an illegal one.
      Can you imagine US citizens standing around smiling and making coffee and cookies for invaders brutalising women and children, killing indiscriminately and torturing whoever they please while stealing your natural resources?

    • Not soon enough. During the Vietnam war the Nixon lovers used to say "Love it or leave it" now that we are stuck with Bush and he makes Nixon look like a novice, I wish I had taken that advice as it really hurts to see what has happened to our country and I am afraid it will only get worse as the ugly head of fascism has become the face of our government.

    • I like your approach — calm and collected in spite of deliberate put-downs that aren’t called for. Just try to hang in there.

      Anyways, it’s been my observation that the US is essentially like an empire. Don’t go believing that we are going to "pull out" of anything ( "pulling out" flies in the face of George Carlin’s bigger-dick- foreign policy theory) — let alone a place where we can squeeze the piss out of it for some double-jeopardy level money. I think that it’s so very quaint that the white house doesn’t even want to discuss an exit strategy — could it be... BECAUSE WE AREN’T GOING TO EXIT??! There are hundreds and hundreds of bases that we have established many, many years ago ( that AREN’T classified and that we know of ). We just don’t leave. We set up shop and we aim to stay. At the very most, a base will be shut down simply to be moved to a more opportunistic place — officially or not. I wonder what could the official explaination for possessing all of these offshore bases could be. There is probably well over a thousand. Are we supposed to be spreading freedom from other people’s backyards or something? Unfortunately, I have to call Bullshit on this.

      Once again, we are in Iraq to stay — I would bet my ass on it.

    • "But this is not the war we planned". "Pockets of resistance".....

      Chumps, the truth is the americans have placed their heads so far up their collective ass that the sphincter muscles has snapped shut, cutting off the supply of oxygen to the befuddled brain.

  • My compliments to the Bellaciao comrades for providing this forum.

    As for the current US operation in western Anbar, it seems that a Cambodia-like incursion pretext is being prepared for Syria. "We have to interdict these ’foreign insurgents’ at the border" - or, perhaps, before they even reach the border. Make no mistake about it, the US wants escalation in order to justify aggression against Syria.

    As for the uninformed comments by "129 127," one would like to believe that s/he is just trying to be provocative. But, since I hear the same insipid justifications from real people that I know, it doesn’t seem likely. Anyway, thank you "4 249" for your cogent and inspired response.

    I guess "129 127" hasn’t heard of the permanent US bases in Iraq. Do you think that if the Iraqi patriots fighting for THEIR HOMELAND were to put down their arms the US would leave? How gullible and stupid can one be if the answer is "yes" to this question?

  • I agree with my friend, the gentleman who says that the US will leave soon enough. Yes, our strategic interest is to have a permanent presence, but it will be in Afghanistan, where the government of Hamid Kharzai has already requested that the USA maintain a permanent presence, (i.e., a permanent military base). As far as the oil, if we wanted the oil in the ME< we would have taken the oil fields in Kuwait in 1991 very easily, with out a single casualty. We had the means, we had the motive. After all, when your buddy boy Saddam set fire to the oil fields on his way out (not a whimper of protests from you on the left about that, right?) it was American technology that put the fires out. Why didn’t we take those oil fields?? Do we want our oil companies to have a place at the table? You BET we do, and why not? AFter all, WE did the dying, for crying out loud! But that doesn’t mean we are controlling it, far from it.

    And as far as Allawi, and your nonsense about him being "CIA" Allawi LOST the election. He’s out, for all intents and purposes. Get with the program.

    We are training Iraqi security forces now. General Petraeus has the level up to about 150,000 trained now, and this is on our way up to a target level of about 250,000. Once the Constitution is written later this year, we will no doubt start a major exodus. We are not about to announce the withdrawal, even though you people would love to give the terrorists an advantage in knowing our schedules.

    • Well again you are just a dumb bastard since our CIA man Allawai is now the OIL MINISTER, yes that is right the OIL MINISTER how convenient for the oil barons who went there for the oil and guess what they are going to stay for the oil...go troll somewhere that they like Bush apologists and paid trolls who want to remain stupid and wish the rest of us would join them.

  • Get your Nazi occupation troops out of the civilized world. The label insurrgent used by American/British occupiers means: freedom fighters.
    Does anybody of the pros on this board believe they have a right to murder, ambush, torture civilians around the world. That is like the Germans would call their Nazi troops war heroes. Ridiculous!

    Here again: Ami go home and please stay in your own dirty country - filled with plastic shags environmental diseases and food you can barly eat.

    We don’t like what you call culture.

  • The marines have got to stop underestimating the sneakiness of the insurgents and their supporters. They really have to get much better at gathering intelligence although it is a very hard task.

    • What we need to change these Bush’pologists minds are;

      1 An Arab country to bomb the fuck out of the US and the UK , because....... they have..weapons of mass destruction, or just for regime change, or for the fact they’ve bombed 23 countries since WW 2.

      2 The invading country to set up permanent military Arab bases all over the US, and to destroy the infrastucture so that there is little drinking water, sporadic electricity and very few amenities and healthcare.

      3 To randomly batter doors down in the middle of the night in Washington, London, New York etc.humiliate,hood and arrest any males in the house.

      4 Road blocks and checkpoints to be set up all over the US where any one in there fat SUV’s who doesn’t stop gets shot to pieces.

      5 Prisons to be set up where any one deemed a US or Brit insurgent is taken. Torture to be de rigeur and phosphorous lights to be shoved up prisoners asses. Rape and sensory deprivation to be rife. Circulate photographs.

      6 Steal the US resources and make the US pay for it at the same time.

      7 Prior to the invasion 10 years of sanctions ensuring that 500 000 US babies die from malnutrition and disease

      8 A policy of humiliating christanity, Abe Lincoln , and to pollute the US for centuries with depleted uranium resulting in severe deformaties of infants for decades.

      9 Set up a US government, (controlled by Arabs, obviously)

      10 Pull Bush and Blair form their holes and have an Islamic court sentence them to death

    • Well said, but in the absence of a strong rope and a convenient lamp-post I’ll settle for the Hague for both of them.

    • You obviously went to the Saddam Hussein school of terrorism. It’s bizarre how many saddam hussein apologists there are in the world. Hussein tortured and killed millions of his own people and none of the loony left says anything about it. They’re all such hypocritical self-righteous posers. It’s a good thing none of them occupy any jobs of consequence.

    • I don’t think you’ll actually find that many Saddam apologists as you call them on here. But you might like to consider where Saddam got the power and the weapons to do all the terrible things that now seem to trouble you so much...... Try Bush I, Rumsfeld etc......

    • I am well aware that Saddam received military materiel from the US. But it seems that you are not so aware of the context surrounding that support. Why don’t you brush up on the Iranian history at that time. Iran was being run by a bunch of fascistic mullahs that threatened the middle east with islamofascism and us with all sorts of things. Iran is three times the size of Iraq and three times the population of Iraq. Between Saddam and the mullahs, Saddam was the safer bet - at that time and that’s why Saddam got the support. You are looking at the situation with 20-20 hindsight.

    • Talking of Iranian history, Dr Mossadeq, prior to the Shah was the popular leader of Iran. He highlighted how the UK and US were taking Iranian oil, and nationalised the industry. All the Iranian people loved him and it was a democratic country.

      Naturally, this stance of a country wanting its own natural resources was not popular in London and Washington. cue CIA sponsored coup to install the undemocratically elected Shah, cue thousands of deaths. You know the story, all over central and South America similar scenarios were created from CIA sponsored coups.

      This secular, greedy Shah, polarised religous fundamentalism, and the Islamic revolution followed. Similar to the Czars in Russia living in opulence polarising the starving populace into the 1917 revolution.

      You’re right Rumsfeld et al saw the relatively stable Saddams Iraq as the best bet to stem the spread of radical Islam. During the 10 year Iraq v Iran war however, the US supplied arms to both sides to keep the status quo delicately balanced, prolonging the war and maximising casualties.

      This is one of the reasons why the Washington regime became loathed in Baghdad and Tehran.

    • You are the one who needs to brush up on your history and the current situation. The U.S. is to blame for the mess there and another thing dumb fuck Saddam did not torture "MILLIONS" of his own people, that is what Bush is doing....get a clue. Troll somewhere else, you are too stupid for the others here to have to try to get you up to speed. You are well aware of nothing.