25 Insurgents Are Killed Trying to Overrun U.S. Ou

[<bleeding_heart>]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 29 - United States troops and warplanes killed at least 25 insurgents who used car bombs and rocket-propelled grenades to try to overrun an American combat outpost in Mosul on Wednesday afternoon, the American military said. It was the fiercest fighting the restive northern city has seen in weeks.

Fifteen American soldiers were wounded, military officials said.

The two-hour battle followed an ambush on Tuesday night in Baghdad where insurgents tricked the Iraqi police into raiding a booby-trapped home and then detonated a powerful bomb that killed at least seven police officers and 25 others, Iraqi officials said on Wednesday. Most of the civilian victims were family members who were crushed to death when the blast flattened nearby homes, the officials said.

The bomb detonated just as the police charged the home, in the Ghaziliya district of western Baghdad at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. Ghaziliya

is a rough Sunni Muslim neighborhood on the road to Abu Ghraib prison that has seen clashes between gunmen and the police.

The explosion left electrical appliances, bedsheets and other household debris strewn about in the street as American soldiers and Iraqi officials used heavy equipment to search for survivors. Two policemen and 23 others were also wounded, officials said.

The insurgents' attack in western Mosul was the latest coordinated strike at American or Iraqi forces, and it came eight days after a suicide bomber killed 18 Americans and 4 others in Mosul by infiltrating a mess tent at a military base.

The attack began about 3:45 p.m., when insurgents armed with a car bomb tried to blow down the concrete barriers of the combat outpost, which is manned by a small force of soldiers. An armored military vehicle then sped to the outpost.

The armored vehicle "found itself pretty much in the middle" of a improvised car and roadside bombs that had been set up to attack any American vehicles coming to the aid of the outpost, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a military spokesman in Mosul, using military acronyms for improvised roadside bombs and car bombs. The armored vehicle, he said, fired its .50-caliber machine gun to explode or disable the bombs, and proceeded to the outpost.

There, the American troops were attacked by a coordinated force of about 50 insurgents who fired rocket-propelled grenades and semiautomatic weapons. At that point, two F-18 and two F-14 military jets swooped down on strafing runs and also fired Maverick missiles, wiping out much of the insurgent force. "That's when the close-air support came in and did a job on them," Colonel Hastings said.

A top insurgent commander in Mosul was captured last week, Iraqi government officials said on Wednesday.

The commander, Abu Marwan, a 33-year-old member of the Mosul terrorist group Abu Talha, which is affiliated with Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was seized on Dec. 23 based on tips from Iraqi citizens, they said.

The Iraqi government described Mr. Marwan as a "key al-Zarqawi operative" who was "responsible for conducting and commanding terrorist operations in Mosul, purchasing weapons for Talha's terrorist group, and coordinating the training of terrorist cells within the Abu Talha terrorist group."

The United States military has begun a significant new offensive to root out insurgents around Mahmoudiya and other towns in the "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the assistant commander of the First Cavalry Division, told The Associated Press. No other details were available.

In the Baghdad explosion on Tuesday night, the United States military said its experts believed that 1,700 to 1,800 pounds of explosives were used.

The force of the explosion lifted one police car into the air and slammed it into a nearby home, said Marwan Yousif, a laborer who lives in the neighborhood.

"I saw many bodies scattered on the ground," Mr. Yousif said. Neighbors had grown suspicious of the occupants of the house, who had many late-night visitors, Mr. Yousif added.

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[Mad Manfred]

Heh, always gotta shoot from far away or from the air, eh?

A generation of button pushers.

Regardless, these pesky "insurgents" are putting up a hell of a fight...good on em.

[bathory]

Heh, always gotta shoot from far away or from the air, eh? 

A generation of button pushers.

Regardless, these pesky "insurgents" are putting up a hell of a fight...good on em.

428930[/snapback]

you've got to be kidding...

The two-hour battle followed an ambush on Tuesday night in Baghdad where insurgents tricked the Iraqi police into raiding a booby-trapped home and then detonated a powerful bomb that killed at least seven police officers and 25 others, Iraqi officials said on Wednesday. Most of the civilian victims were family members who were crushed to death when the blast flattened nearby homes, the officials said.

i hope you are enjoying the show

[Stellar]

The two-hour battle followed an ambush on Tuesday night in Baghdad where insurgents tricked the Iraqi police into raiding a booby-trapped home and then detonated a powerful bomb that killed at least seven police officers and 25 others, Iraqi officials said on Wednesday. Most of the civilian victims were family members who were crushed to death when the blast flattened nearby homes, the officials said.

Hmm, yes, those insurgents sure are fighting because they hate the death and destruction of the civilians! They're fighting to put an end to the death!

Whats ironic is, I bet you relatives of those civilians killed in the blast caused by the insurgents are going to get mad at the US and join the insurgency.