Crowds Plead With U.S. Forces in Tal Afar

[takumi]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040913_905.html

[leftchick]

1. More Terrorism AmeriKan style....

<snip>

ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TAL AFAR Sept. 13, 2004 — U.S. troops barred anguished crowds from returning to their homes in the besieged city of Tal Afar on Monday as residents described corpses scattered across orchards and the collapse of essential services such as water and electricity.
American troops and Iraqi forces on Sunday overran Tal Afar, one of several Iraqi cities they say had fallen into the hands of insurgents, after a nearly two-week siege that forced scores of residents to flee and left a trail of devastated buildings and rubble.

<snip>
Hazem Saleh, deputy head of the Kurdish Democratic Party one of the main U.S. allies in northern Iraq said there were not enough police and paramilitary forces to secure the city amid concerns of possible looting and chaos as thousands of people stream back to their homes.

Saleh, speaking by telephone from his party's headquarters in Tal Afar, said the city was quiet Monday but that health, water and electricity services had ceased to function.

"There are still bodies lying in the battlefields, orchards" and dry river beds, said Saleh, adding that the dead included militants and civilians.

"Who would take them away?" he added, "There's no hospital or government offices working."

[Dhalgren]

2. Also, at the end of the article,

The lady said, "It's hard here, but I am in peace because there are no tanks and planes firing at us." Who has tanks and planes in this conflict? Only the US. So it is clear who was firing at these civilians. US terrorism? You bet...

[coalition_unwilling]

3. According to Patrick Coburn, of The Independent,

what's actually going on in Tal Afar is that the U.S. military is taking sides in a simmering civil war between the Kurds and Turkmen. Population of Tal Afar is primarily Turkmen, but Kurds want hegemony there.

Coburn is dismissive of the idea that "foreign fighters" (or "insurgents" on any stripe) are there.

[Gloria]

4. Hell, Turkey is saying there is the potential for "genocide" here...

check out the article in the current World Media Watch...(URL in Sig line or at Buzzflash.com)

[coalition_unwilling]

8. My understanding is a bit hazy . . .

But I believe Turkey claims to be a "protector" of ethnic Turkmen in northern Iraq. The U.S. had better be careful or it could find itself in a 3-front war (Shiites, Sunnis and Turks).

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Tell me again, who are the terrorists here?

Is this what freedom supposed to look like?




U.S. soldiers and Iraqi security forces prevent local residents from entering the city of Tal Afar, some 390 km.




Adlah Ghaib Alyas cries as her sister Najlah Ghaib Alyas is admitted at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq , Thursday Sept. 9, 2004. Their father Ghaib Alyas,rear, said that his wife died in the airstrike at Tal Afar, a northern city near the border with Syria. The U.S. military said 57 insurgents were killed in the attack.



An unidentified injured man is rushed to a hospital in Tal Afar , near Mosul, northern Iraq , Saturday Sept. 4, 2004. At least eight people were killed and 50 injured after U.S and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents.

[daa]

6. Just like Nam

We must destroy the village to save it. Too bad tha asshole repukes didn;'t serve ttheir time in Nam or they would have learned that lesson already. But hey, no rich senator's kids dying over there.

[bemildred]

7. Just like Nam.

Learned nothing.