OCCUPIERS LOSE CONTROL

Oil Export in Iraq Stopped. Brits Besieged in Basra. Resistance against US troops intensifies.

By Rudiger Gobel

[This article originally published in: junge Welt, August 31, 2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.jungewelt.de/2004/08-31/005.php.]

According to media reports, the US occupation forces are increasingly losing control over Iraqi cities. For the time being, all oil exports of the country are halted. Resistance groups have successfully cut off important pipelines in southern Iraq.

According to information from the Daily Telegraph, British troops have partly lost control over Basra. Soldiers who patrolled the streets of the oil metropolis at the start of the occupation last spring without helmets and protective vests can only move around in armored vehicles. As the British newspaper reported, the diplomatic embassy of the United Kingdom in Basra was besieged three weeks ago by armed Iraqis. The 50 embassy workers can only be supplied by military helicopters. On account of continuing mortar attacks, everyone has to wear bullet-proof vests in the embassy building.

The Daily Telegraph reports that members of the Mehdi militia established checkpoints on the streets of the city. Curfew was imposed by followers of the Shiite preacher Muqtada Al Sadr. The local authorities cooperate with the resistance groups. The Basra police chief was seen going into the office of the Sadr-followers on several occasions. The Mehdi militia recently freed around 180 Iraqis from the state jail.

The New York Times announced that the two cities Falludsha and Ramadi along with a large part of the Anbar province in western Iraq are controlled by militias. US soldiers are fixed in massively guarded military bases at the edge of the desert. The western access roads to the capital Baghdad are also lost to the occupiers. According to the New York Times, the American commanders do not know how to bring the situation under control. They only seek to prevent the resistance fighters from further extending their spheres of influence east toward Baghdad. In the past days repeated heavy bombing of Falludsha by US fighter aircraft over the weekend, at least six Iraqis were killed and 20 others wounded in the air attacks.

In the three week fighting between Sadr-followers and US troops in Nadschaf, 569 persons were killed and 785 wounded according to hospital information. The losses on the side of the occupation troops are not counted in these numbers. The US army doesn’t want to give any information.





OCCUPIERS IN RETREAT

By www.Freace.de

[This article originally published August 29, 2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.freace.de/artikel/200408/290804b.htm.]

As reported on Saturday, the southern Iraqi city of Basra is no longer in the hands of the British occupiers but is controlled almost entirely by resistance fighters.

An article published Sunday in the New York Times that can only be described as propaganda showed that Basra is by no means an exception.

The article repeats in detail the statements of the US military that the resistance fighters were only “incorrigible Saddam followers”, “fanatic Islamists” and “foreign terrorists”. The occupiers are now on retreat from the resistance fighters.

“Both cities, Fallujah and Ramadi, and most of Anbar province are now controlled by fundamentalist militia while the American soldiers are in large part chained to massively protected fortresses at the end of the desert”, the article continued.

That the two cities and the largest part of Anbar province are in the hands of the resistance is remarkable. The western access roads to the capital Baghdad are also lost for the occupiers.

American commanders admit that – except for the possibility of completely destroying both cities – they don’t know how they can bring the situation under control. They are now only trying to prevent the resistance fighters from extending their sphere of influence to the East, to Baghdad.

This explains the massive air attacks on Fallujah.

A far-reaching loss of control will also greatly weaken the bases in the region since supplies are only possible – if at all – from the air or with costly guarded convoys.