Doug Lorimer
Attacks by Iraqi resistance fighters rose by 29% in 2005 to 34,131, up from 26,496 attacks in 2004, according to US military figures released on January 22. The Pentagon reported that roadside bombs continued to be the most common weapon used by the anti-occupation guerrillas — 10,953 were used in 2005, up from 5607 the year before.
In a worrying new development for the Pentagon, Iraqi resistance fighters reportedly shot down a US attack helicopter on January 16 using a Soviet-made Strela shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. Reuters reported that the Apache helicopter "crashed after coming under missile fire near the village of Mishahda, close to Taji", killing both of its crew.
US ABC TV News reported the next day that US Army officials saw this as a possible advance in the Iraqi resistance's fighting capabilities because, while there are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of Strela missiles that are unaccounted for in Iraq, resistance fighters had never successfully used them against US attack helicopters.
"It could be just a lucky shot, or it could be that they have invested in a training program, and they now have some qualified operators and that'll be more of a threat than it has been in the past", said General John Keane, the US Army's acting chief of staff.
The Apache helicopter was the third US military helicopter to be shot down by Iraqi resistance fighters this year. On January 13, a Kiowa Warrior, a two-seat, single-engine reconnaissance helicopter, was brought down by insurgent fire near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Five days earlier, a Black Hawk troop transport helicopter was shot down, killing all 12 aboard.
US Army helicopters come under fire in Iraq "15 or 20 times a month", said General Edward Sinclair, the commander of the US Army's aviation centre at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
On January 8, the Pentagon issued a statement announcing that three US marines were "killed by small-arms fire in separate attacks while conducting combat operations against the enemy in Fallujah". Other news reports claimed that local residents said the marines were killed during "fierce" gun battles with resistance fighters.
The predominantly Sunni city of Fallujah, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, was supposed to have been definitively "pacified" by a month-long assault in November 2004 by 10,000 US troops, backed by air attacks and round-the-clock artillery shelling, which killed up to 6000 residents. Late last year, the Pentagon confirmed that during the assault the US military had used shells containing white phosphorus, a chemical that bursts into flames on contact with the air, causing horrible injuries.
Writing in the December 18 London Sunday Times, Hala Jaber, the first Western newspaper journalist to enter Fallujah for more than a year without the supervision of the US military, reported that little has been done to repair the damage inflicted on the city by the US assault.
"Huge areas of what were once homes have been flattened. On countless street corners, mountains of rubbish spew plumes of black smoke into the air. Fields of rubble stretch as far as the eye can see. Here and there children scamper across the ravaged landscape, seeking out larger bricks and rocks for use in laborious rebuilding", Jaber reported.
"Anger, hate and mistrust of America are deeper than ever", she added. "Stoking the anger has been the slow pace of compensation payments, despite the allocation of [US]$490m by Iraq's interim government last year.
"Dr Hafid al Dulaimi, head of the city's compensation commission, reported that 36,000 homes and 8400 shops were destroyed in the US onslaught.
"Sixty nurseries and schools and 65 mosques and other religious establishments were wrecked. Falluja's mayor, Dhari abdel Hadi al Irssan, claims that only 20% of the compensation promised has reached the city ...
"With so many institutions damaged, those that remain are under intolerable pressure. School buildings are being used by three or four schools holding classes in shifts. Electricity and water are severely limited."
Only half of the city's original 300,000 inhabitants have returned. They are subject to a daily curfew from 11pm to 6am, enforced by 4200 US Marines and 5000 Iraqi troops. Jaber was told that the US marines regularly carry out night-time raids on people's homes, knocking down doors and taking adult males away to be "subjected to the interrogation routines that have become notorious in US internment camps", including mock electrocutions.
Jaber reported that Fallujah's resistance fighters, many of them former Iraqi Army officers and soldiers, "are returning to exploit the popular rage".
She reported meeting with Abu Safi, a member of the Ansar al Sunnah insurgent group that has claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings and executions of both foreign and Iraqi hostages. "But in a sign that tactics may be changing, Abu Safi said his spiritual leader had advised him against a suicide mission. The cleric told him his life would be better spent planning to kill Americans over a long period. Abu Safi said his group was now forming smaller cells to avoid infiltration by informers and was planning more use of hit-and-run attacks."
From Green Left Weekly, February 1, 2006.
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