AP Violence persists after al-Zarqawi's death

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AtVamjL.hs04joqYHIPfyk6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
Violence persists after al-Zarqawi's death

By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer 35 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents set a fire in a vegetable market to lure British soldiers into a gunbattle Sunday that left five civilians dead and more than a dozen hurt by the crossfire, Iraqi police said.
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The fighting was part of a string of violent incidents Sunday amid a government stalemate and threats of continued violence from insurgents after the death of al-Qaida in
Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Police Capt. Hussein Karim said insurgents started the blaze in the market in south Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, to draw the troops into an ambush.

The British Defense Ministry offered a different account, saying soldiers were sent to search the suspected launch site of a rocket attack and came under small-arms fire.

The ministry said there were reports of "a small number of terrorist casualties," but full details of the incident remained unclear. It could not confirm that civilians were among the dead and wounded.

Don't the Iraqis know that Zarqawi's death changed everything?

Eh, must be a plot by that 'librul' media we keep hearing so much about....!

They'd turn a corner, move forward, make progress, and stand up so we can stand down.

Well, duh--who do they think they killed, Iraq's answer to John Gotti? Zarqawi was more like a Fredo Corleone!

:boring:
rocknation

The image pieced together from interviews with tribal leaders and fleeing families in recent weeks is one of a desperate population of 400,000 people trapped in the crossfire between insurgents and U.S. forces. Food and medical supplies are running low, prices for gas have soared because of shortages and municipal services have ground to a stop.

U.S. and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the city by Saturday, residents and Iraqi officials said. Airstrikes on several residential areas picked up, and troops took to the streets with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Capt. Tahseen Dulaimi said.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2332554

Haven't we flattened Ramadi several times already? At this point every sunni city and town other than Baghdad is either flattened, de-flattening, or about to get reflattened.


I wake up everymorning filled with 'joy' in the knowledge that my government is out wrecking the lives of so many people who did so little to deserve such treatment, and that there is almost nothing that I can do about it.

...After the Fallujah offensive, the Americans tried to quell the insurgency in Ramadi with a combination of political maneuvers and the cooperation of tribal leaders to root out foreign Islamist fighters.

But that plan has spectacularly fallen apart: The men who dared to ally themselves with the Americans and speak out against Zarqawi and his supporters quickly learned that the U.S. military couldn't protect them. Insurgents killed 70 of Ramadi's police recruits in January, and at least half a dozen high-profile tribal leaders have been assassinated since then.

Ramadi has become a town where anti-American guerrillas operate openly and city bureaucrats are afraid to acknowledge their job titles for fear of being killed. Masked members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the organization led by Zarqawi, perhaps borrowing from the American hearts-and-minds campaign, drop by elementary schools to pass out pens, books and toys, U.S. intelligence officers say.

The government center in downtown Ramadi, a fortified complex where the governor holds meetings with U.S. officials and tribal leaders, comes under gunfire or mortar attacks daily...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061106A.shtml

This is the thanks we get?? And did I tell you I was shocked?

'Copters of justice meting god's patient hand,
flogging out missiles on the poor undefeated,
wasting the taxes in asian desert sand,
blogging the army, hearts and minds defeated.

violent murdered women, misogyn every land,
killing civilians, presciently foredefeated,
strung up hurting villains, knife in every hand,
peace in the bombstrikes, missiles apty greeted.

War in the head, war just ain't so grand,
bloodlusting mindstate, mythic lying we're cheated,
to rape her tied in bed, stifling hatred fanned
conscience awaken, rotting corpses stench so fetid.
Warcrimes enflame ten thousand violent ends,
timebombs of justice, christian war amends.