THEY CAME HERE TO DIE

[Camel Mlik]

Insurgents in western Iraq fight to finish

‘They came here to die,’ Marine sergeant says

 

USMC via AFP - Getty Images

An image released Tuesday by Marines shows mortar rounds and a BMW automobile, the making of a car bomb, discovered in Anbar province.

By Ellen Knickmeyer

 

Updated: 6:43 a.m. ET May 11, 2005JARAMI, Iraq, May 10 - Screaming "Allahu Akbar'' to the end, the foreign fighters lay on their backs in a narrow crawl space under a house and blasted their machine guns up through the concrete floor with bullets designed to penetrate tanks. They fired at U.S. Marines, driving back wave after wave as the Americans tried to retrieve a fallen comrade.

 

 

Through Sunday night and into Monday morning, the foreign fighters battled on, their screaming voices gradually fading to just one. In the end, it took five Marine assaults, grenades, a tank firing bunker-busting artillery rounds, 500-pound bombs unleashed by an F/A-18 attack plane and a point-blank attack by a rocket launcher to quell them.

 

The Marines got their fallen man, suffering one more dead and at least five wounded in the process. And according to survivors of the battle, the foreign fighters near the Syrian border proved to be everything their reputation had suggested: fierce, determined and lethal to the last.

 

 

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"They came here to die," said Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley, commander of the team from the 1st Platoon, Lima Company, of the Marines' 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, that battled the insurgents in the one-story house in Ubaydi, about 15 miles east of the Syrian border.

 

"They were willing to stay in place and die with no hope," Hurley said Tuesday. "All they wanted was to take us with them.''

 

The fighting that began Sunday in Ubaydi was an unplanned opening phase of a massive Marine offensive in Iraq's far northwest against the foreign fighters who U.S. and Iraqi commanders say are crossing the Syrian border to join the Iraqi insurgency. By Monday, more than 1,000 Marines backed by Cobra helicopters and Hornet warplanes were pouring into an area north of the Euphrates River where few American troops and no Iraqi forces have been for at least a year.

 

U.S. commanders say they believe that foreigner leaders of the insurgency have established a refuge north of the Euphrates they use to channel incoming fighters, arms and support to insurgents in the rest of Iraq.

 

"We're taking down an enemy safe haven," said Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, which along with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, did the bulk of the fighting at Ubaydi.

 

U.S. officers say the most-wanted insurgent leader in Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi, is being sheltered among tribal leaders in Haditha and Hit, two towns 80 and 110 miles downriver. The Americans say Zarqawi was almost caught in February at a checkpoint between the towns. Other sightings since have placed him in other towns on the south side of the Euphrates. In Haqlaniyah, Zarqawi felt bold enough to preach a sermon at a mosque, according to at least one report to U.S. forces.

 

U.S and Iraqi officials blame Zarqawi and other foreign fighters for many of the insurgency's bloodiest attacks, including suicide bombings that are claiming dozens of lives almost daily in Iraq.

 

Fighting continued Tuesday north of the Euphrates, where the Marines' heavy-caliber weapons, mortars and artillery could be heard booming across the green river at dusk.

 

At least three Marines have been killed in the offensive. Marine Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, said he believed at least 75 foreign fighters were killed Sunday alone, after the offensive opened prematurely with the clash at Ubaydi.

 

The ambush

At noon Sunday, Marines were waiting on the bank of the Euphrates for U.S. Army engineers to finish erecting a temporary bridge when insurgents opened fire from Ubaydi, less than a mile away. They fired AK-47 assault rifles at helicopter gunships overhead and pounded the waiting Marines with mortar rounds -- including one that landed yards from a Humvee carrying the operation's commanding officers.

 

The Marines pressed against the walls of a ruined home for protection and waited for the mortars to stop. When they did, one officer said: "Let's go to Ubaydi."

 

Lima Company and a company from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, entered the town. Insurgents -- dozens of them, Marines said later -- met them with AK-47 fire and rocket-propelled grenades. In the first hours, one Marine was killed and at least seven were wounded.

 

Lima Company battled its way through town, at one point exchanging fire with fighters on a the roof of a mosque and forcing them down. The mosque's loudspeakers screamed Arabic that the Marines could not understand, but they said that since it was past time for prayers, they assumed the loudspeakers were rallying forces for attack.

[Camel Mlik]

In the end, it took five Marine assaults, grenades, a tank firing bunker-busting artillery rounds, 500-pound bombs unleashed by an F/A-18 attack plane and a point-blank attack by a rocket launcher to quell them.

 

WHAT A FIGHT U KNOW AS LONG AS GOD IS ON YOUR SIDE U JUST CAN'T LOST NO MATTER WHAT.

 

LET THE AMERICAN'S BRING OUT WHAT EVER BUT THEY WILL KNOW THAT THE WAR IS FAR FROM OVER.