forwarded from Byron Black

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Byron spotted this on the The Observer site and thought you should see
it.

Note from Byron:

So what about the brave "Mission Accomplished" boys and girls?

To see this story with its related links on the The Observer site, go to
http://www.observer.co.uk

 23 killed as Iraqi rebels overrun police station
 Patrick Graham in Falluja
 Saturday February 14 2004
 The Guardian


 Ask Hussein Saleh what happened yesterday morning and he hoarsely
describes standing outside his police station when it was overrun by
attackers who were firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

 Ask him about the US army and he turns his head and screams: 'Shit on
the
Americans, shit on them.'

 The 23-year-old Iraqi policeman was shot in the leg, fracturing the
bone,
in one of the largest and best-organised attacks of its kind since the
end
of the war last April.

 The three other policemen standing beside him were shot dead, he says,
when dozens of attackers overran Falluja's main police station and laid
siege to a heavily guarded fort of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC)
nearby.

 The bold daylight assault on an Iraqi police station and a security
compound met with little resistance as guerrillas shouting 'God is
great'
gunned down policemen and freed dozens of prisoners in a battle that
killed
23 people. Most of the dead were policemen.

 The same security compound was attacked two days earlier by gunmen just
as
the senior US commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, was
visiting the site. Abizaid escaped unharmed.

One shopkeeper across the   street from the compound said he and his
neighbours had been warned not to open yesterday morning because an
attack
was imminent.

 About 25 attackers, some masked, stormed the police station, throwing
hand
grenades, survivors said. The few police present had only small weapons.

 'I only had a pistol with me,' said Kamel Allawi, a police lieutenant.
'Right away I fell on the ground and blood was gushing out of my left
leg.'

 At the same time, another group of attackers used grenades and heavy
machine guns on the heavily protected compound of the Iraqi Civil
Defence
Corps.

 Iraqi security forces, firing from the concrete and sand barricades in
front of the compound, battled the attackers for half an hour.

 Police Lieutenant-Colonel Jalal Sabri said 23 people were killed,
almost
all policemen. Four attackers died, two of whom held Lebanese passports,
he
added. But it is the inactivity of the US army, which is accused of
standing
by and watching the attacks, that has caused fury.

 'The American army watched but did not help,' said Qais Jameel, a
wounded
policeman. 'I don't know why. Americans don't like the people in
Falluja.'

 It's been a bad week for the Iraqi security services, 600 of whom are
said
to have been killed since the summer.

 Two large bombs have killed more than 100 prospective police and army
recruits during the past seven days, and on Thursday insurgents ambushed
the
convoy of General Abizaid as it arrived at the same ICDC fort.

 Despite months of fighting, no one is really sure who is behind the
attacks or how many different armed groups are fighting the US-led
occupation and its Iraqi allies.

 However, large daylight attacks like the one yesterday in Falluja are
rare
and indicate what might lie ahead when the US begins to pull back its
forces
in preparation for a handover in early July.

 Mohammed Jassim was inside his electrical shop at about 8.30am
yesterday
when a Toyota Landcruiser and a pick-up truck pulled up 100 yards from
the
cement barriers blocking the police station.

 Men with scarves around their faces, he said, began firing grenades and
machine guns. As he shut his shop, he could hear more attackers firing
from
the other side. Within a half an hour, 14   policemen, four of the
insurgents and another four civilians had been killed.

 'It's the biggest attack we have seen in Falluja,' he said. 'No one
knows
who they are. Some say it was the [Shia] Badr Brigade, others say it was
the
local resistance, but we don't know.'

 Shortly after the attack, rumours circulated in Falluja, a Sunni town
and
a centre of resistance against the American forces, that the Shia Badr
Brigade had carried out the attack.

 Although unlikely, the rumour indicates growing sectarian fault lines
in
Iraq. The long-dominant Sunni minority faces the possibility that the
Shia
majority will take power.

 Until recently, the US forces appeared to have made considerable
progress
in their battle against the insurgency around Falluja.

 Widespread arrests of Saddam Hussein regime loyalists and an
increasingly
sophisticated intelligence network meant that the number of attacks was
falling, according to local people.

 But yesterday's assault suggests that the insurgents are changing their
tactics, hitting at the vulnerable Iraqi security services, who are
caught
between the Americans and their fellow Iraqis.

 'No, the Americans did not come,' said Salim, an officer with the ICDC,
as
he stood outside the fort that had been attacked earlier. 'We did not
want
them to come and help us. We must fight on our own. But it will happen
again.'

 Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited