US says warplanes pound Al-Qaeda in Iraq targets

[951-Riverside]

Source: AFP

BAGHDAD (AFP) — US warplanes overnight pounded suspected Al-Qaeda havens on the southern edge of Baghdad for the third time this month, hitting more than 30 targets in a 35-bomb blitz, the military said on Monday.

The mainly Sunni Arab Jabour rural area was hit with bombs weighing a total of 19,000 pounds (9,000 kilogrammes) during the air raids, which aimed to destroy roadside bombs and arms caches, a military statement said.

The operation Sunday night involved precision air strikes by air force, navy and marine F-18 fighter jets and B-1 bombers, it added.

"The strikes that we conducted were focused on IEDs (bombs) and caches that we have targeted, that will allow us to get our ground troops further into the zone," military commander Colonel Terry Ferrell said.

Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hQoxr3QnQhmLtNL0QwZ9ds3-kb4A

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This is just absurd.

[JeffR]

1. Nearly 5 years on, these are the great military triumphs

of Emperor Bush, that popular wartime president, that decider, that man of God? This is Caesar subduing his oil-rich Gaul?

How obscene what these thugs have done, and why.

[democrank]

2. PRECISION air strikes five years later.....

Apparently Junior wants to remind everyone who`s boss before he slinks back to Crawford. It`s sickening.


http://icasualties.org/oif/

[LiberalFighter]

5. The Crawford Ranch will fold up once Bush is out of office (It was all a front)

[bdamomma]

13. probably after the big wedding.

[RC]

3. 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' read as 'Iraqi Families'

'Suspected Al-Qaeda havens' read as 'Iraqi Homes'

What people here still don't seem to realize is we are the invaders and what we call Al-Qaeda and insurgents there are really Iraqi citizens fighting to repel the invaders, drive them (read us, U.S.) out.


Also, why do they keep telling us how much the bombs weigh? Why not how much they cost also? And what their replacement cost is? That is useful information too. Making bombs is one of the few manufacturing jobs Left in this country.

[DavidMS]

18. It doesn't matter if they actualy hit whatever they are aiming at

The problem is no one should use airstrikes for Counter-Insurgency except for close air support since the goal is not to see how many insurgents you can kill but how many families you can protect and provide basic services for. No one has ever bombed an insurgency into submission.

[and-justice-for-all]

19. Correct! Al-Qaeda DOES NOT EXIST.

Go back to January of 2001, to the trial in NY of the man convicted of the bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi (I think)or Kenya, one of those. He was the first to use the term Al-Qaeda. Ever since then, it has turned into a phantom enemy for the US. A none existent enemy, much like the 'horrible' threat of communism, which is another one of those phantom enemies.

But rest assured that Al-Qaeda DOES NOT EXIST.

[minnesota_liberal]

4. A million times more expensive and equally less effective...

than it would have been to just guard the damn weapons depots 5 years ago.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Rural area? Is that why their farmers have increased opium production?

[LiberalFighter]

7. Are they killing civilians? Or is the military classifying everyone killed/injured as insurgents?

[gratuitous]

8. Specially manufactured bombs

They only blow up Al Qaeda hideouts and kill Al Qaeda members. If you'll just wait a few days, we'll have a membership card for every body that can be identified. The bodies blown to unrecognizable smithereens were the really bad ones. Trust your leaders, where mistakes are almost never made.

[Magleetis]

9. * is

an evil killer.

[annabanana]

10. These reports are horrifyfing. . .

An 'insurgent' isn't Al-Qaeda. . . And you can't take out a roadside bomb with a bombing blitz.

[bdamomma]

14. just bombing the hell out of the place, haven't we done enough

damage out there, this is truly disgusting. Waste of life on both sides.

[rodeodance]

16. we see so few pics of complete shambles the country, as a whole, is in.

[Nihil]

11. W.T.F.?

> US warplanes overnight pounded suspected Al-Qaeda havens on
> the southern edge of Baghdad for the third time this month,
> hitting more than 30 targets in a 35-bomb blitz,
>
> ... was hit with bombs weighing a total of 19,000 pounds (9,000 kilogrammes)
> during the air raids, which aimed to destroy roadside bombs and arms caches,
>
> "The strikes that we conducted were focused on IEDs (bombs) ...

So they dropped 19,000lb of bombs in order to try to hit ... bombs?

They wait until nightfall before bombing the southern edge of Baghdad?

Was that to make sure that the IEDs were all fast asleep?

Maybe it was to stop those nasty "insurgents" from seeing the bombers
in case they would run towards the alleged arms caches and move things
to a safer place in the time it takes the bomb to fall from the plane?

"Southern edge of Baghdad"? This would be the same Baghdad that's the
capital city of Iraq woudl it? The one that's full of civilians who have
been terrorised guarded by those "visitors" for the last few years?

Now are we *really* sure that such a "precision" raid was done at night
for any reason other than sheer cowardly murderous convenience by the
invaders wanting to remind the occupied people "who is in charge"?

:grr:

[bdamomma]

12. hmm... more ethic cleansing and the surge is working huh

you POS *.

[bdamomma]

15. and then we have comments like this from this POS pResident

what a sick SOB.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2730670&mesg_id=2730670

[ohio2007]

17. " the air raids, which aimed to destroy roadside bombs and arms caches, "

Captured Insurgent - Iraq -
"caught placing an IED..."
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=644_1200912827
wonder how much the guy was paid to plant the IED.

[tabasco]

22. Probably not as much as Blackwater gets paid to murder Iraqis. n/t

[wtmusic]

20. precision my ass.

They are murderers all. :grr:

[yellowcanine]

21. Destroying roadside bombs with air power? I am not a military person but that sounds stupid.