Operation Matador,
Another Offensive Atrocity in Iraq
"But when the offensive began, according to tribal leaders,
U.S. forces attacked both friends and foes. Residents who returned
to their villages after the fighting said they found widespread destruction
and the bodies of local militia fighters who had stayed behind to
help the marines, Knight Ridder reported. "
By Chris Shumway
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/operationmatadoratrocity19may05.shtml
May 19, 2005
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2812/2/
ANALYSIS: Operation Matador wreaked local havoc, killed friendlies,
found few militants
Written by Henry Adams
Thursday, 19 May 2005
Chris Shumway of NewStandard takes a closer look at Operation
Matador, the recent week-long U.S. offensive in western Iraq, and finds
a reality that ill accords with U.S. commanders’ reports of a “victory.”
-- Far from being rescued from the scourge of occupation by militants, thousands
of residents of western Iraq have been thrown into “something more
akin to a humanitarian disaster,” with dozens of local residents killed
and thousands of displaced, “many without adequate food, shelter or
water.” -- Among Shumway’s sources on the humanitarian crisis
caused by the operation are IRIN, the United Nations humanitarian news service,
the Italian Consortium of Solidarity, an NGO, and the Iraqi Red Crescent
Society. -- In addition, Shumway suggests that U.S. troops responded to
an unexpectedly high level of resistance encountered in the early stages
of the offensive by becoming more indiscriminate in wreaking havoc in local
communities, attacking “both friends and foes” and killing some
“local militia fighters who had stayed behind to help the marines”
fight “the foreign militants, whose presence . . . many locals resented,”
according to a local tribal leader. -- Many of the dead “insurgents”
or “militants” reported by U.S. commanders, by this account,
were actually friendly Iraqis. -- Shumway also noted that Marine commanders
told the Washington Post that in quite a few towns there were no militants
to be found. -- “That was the frustrating piece: coming up here for
a fight and not finding anyone,” Major Steve Lawson told the Post....
Original Title
U.S. OFFENSIVE CAUSES HUMANITARIAN CRISIS, NETS FEW REBELS
By Chris Shumway
** While information about last week’s counter-insurgency
campaign in Western Iraq proves elusive, hospitals cite civilian deaths;
thousands remain homeless as locals and some US troops challenge claims
of success. **
U.S. military commanders were quick to declare victory after
a massive, weeklong offensive that involved air and ground attacks against
villages in Western Iraq, saying that marines had "neutralized"
an important haven for insurgents in the region.
But local residents, doctors and relief agencies described
something more akin to a humanitarian disaster, saying the campaign killed
dozens of people, displaced thousands more -- leaving many without adequate
food, shelter or water -- and flattened scores of buildings.
Dr. Hamid Al-Alousi, director of the main hospital in Al-Qa’im,
the largest town in the region, told reporters that the fighting between
U.S. forces and suspected rebels had killed more than 42 Iraqis and wounded
another 80. He also said it was impossible to differentiate between civilians
and fighters.
The Al-Qa’im hospital was so badly damaged in the fighting
that Al-Alousi said doctors have been treating the wounded in makeshift
facilities set up in private homes.
Due to a lack of medical supplies, Al-Alousi told IRIN News
that doctors had to perform more than eleven amputations without the use
of anesthetics.
According to IRIN, the United Nations humanitarian news service,
the village of Romanna, located about one mile west of Al-Qa’im, was
particularly hard hit. A school and a mosque were destroyed; gunfire and
artillery shells damaged dozens of homes, IRIN reports.
"My house was totally destroyed during the attack, and
I want to know who will pay for it," Salua Rawi, a resident of Romanna,
told IRIN. "The U.S. and insurgents just know how to fight but don’t
look at the mess they are causing in our country."
U.S. military commanders said the week-long offensive, called
"Operation Matador," involved some 1,000 marines and Army personnel
on the ground, supported by Navy and Marine Corps fighter jets and attack
helicopters. It was reportedly the largest military offensive in Iraq since
U.S. forces attacked and largely destroyed Fallujah last November. No Iraqi
forces participated in the campaign, the Washington Post reported.
Commanders told reporters that U.S. occupation forces were
targeting other groups of foreign fighters they say had entered Iraq through
Syria and taken up arms with insurgents and radical Islamic militants led
by reputed Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
Many residents said U.S. forces struck civilian neighborhoods,
rather than insurgent bases, forcing people to flee their homes.
Um Mazin, a resident of Karabilah, told the Associated Press
last week that U.S. artillery shells hit her house. "We ran away from
the American bombings," Mazin said. "The Americans do not hit
the gunmen, they hit the houses of civilians."
After the attack, Mazin said she quickly fled her village
with four other women and 21 children, joining dozens of other refugees
in an impromptu tent village set up along a desert highway. There, they
experienced fierce sandstorms and struggled to survive without adequate
food and other supplies.
"We did not take enough food, water, medicine or clothes
. . . and we are tired of the sandstorms," Mazin said. "No one
can go back now, and we do not know what happened to our husbands."
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed
Monday that fighting in and around the city of Al-Qa’im caused hundreds
of women, children and elderly persons to flee their homes. Many have yet
to return to their villages, stating they are too afraid.
"We are happy that the offensive has ended but we are
afraid to return to the town in case fighting erupts again, and we don’t
want to takes chances," Muhammad Warda told IRIN. Warda said he has
been living in the desert south of Al-Qa’im for the past week.
According to the Italian Consortium of Solidarity, a non-governmental
aid agency setting up relief efforts in Western Iraq, the events displaced
8,000 people, and 6,000 are presently homeless in the region.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society puts the number of displaced
families in and around Al-Qa’im at 1,000, according to the BBC. Many
of them reportedly fled to schools and mosques in nearby towns, or into
the desert where they lack shelter and other basic needs.
Adel Izzedine, a resident of Al-Qa’im who spoke to the
AP last week at the peak of fighting, said he left on foot with his wife
and three children. Izzedine said they walked six miles through farm fields
to reach a village where the family found transportation to Rawa, located
43 miles east of the fighting.
"There are gunmen in the city, but there are also a lot
of innocent civilians," Izzedine said. "We are living the same
misery that Fallujah lived some time ago."
The ICRC says it is now providing 135,000 liters of fresh
water per day to hundreds of displaced families in the area.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society also began trucking in aid
to Al-Qa’im last week. It says it has distributed food and non-food
items to some 200 families in the village of Rawa, 250 families in Ana and
500 families in Akachat.
The U.S. military claims that marines killed an estimated
125 insurgents during the week-long campaign, which spanned villages along
the Euphrates River to very near the Syrian border. Nine U.S. marines died
and 40 more suffered wounds, according to commanders.
U.S. claims -- like those of Iraqi officials -- could not
be verified. The military did not indicate how it had determined the number
of rebels killed, and news reports early in the offensive presented casualty
estimates that conflicted with official reports.
Two days into the fighting, for example, commanders in Baghdad
boasted that marines had killed 100 insurgents, but a reporter from the
Chicago Tribune, who was embedded with the combat unit, quoted field commanders
saying troops had killed only "a couple of dozen" suspected insurgents.
An officer also said he thought "hundreds" of rebels were in the
region, but "how many hundreds is tough to tell."
According to a report by Knight Ridder, some local tribal
leaders said that when U.S. forces attacked, they failed to distinguish
between Islamic militants and local residents who oppose them.
"The Americans were bombing whole villages and saying
they were only after foreigners," Fasal Al-Goud, a tribal leader, told
the news service. Al-Goud said he asked U.S. forces and Iraqi government
officials to help local tribal militia groups battle the foreign militants,
whose presence he said many locals resented.
Tribesmen reportedly told Knight Ridder that they had evacuated
many women and children and set up checkpoints around their villages before
U.S. forces arrived. The men claimed they were trying to prevent militants
from escaping to outlying areas and neighboring villages.
But when the offensive began, according to tribal leaders,
U.S. forces attacked both friends and foes. Residents who returned to their
villages after the fighting said they found widespread destruction and the
bodies of local militia fighters who had stayed behind to help the marines,
Knight Ridder reported.
Captain Jeffrey Pool, a Marine Corps spokesperson in Iraq,
acknowledged that informants in the area had provided intelligence about
the activities of foreign militants before the offensive began. But he told
Knight Ridder that U.S. forces had not made arrangements for local tribesman
to help with the operation.
Early in the offensive, marines encountered unexpectedly intense,
organized resistance from insurgents in the town of Ubaydi, located about
twelve miles east of the Syrian border, according to the Chicago Tribune.
After calling in air strikes, ground forces engaged in fierce door-to-door
fighting, the Tribune reported, after which they hit the town with artillery
fire.
Colonel Stephen Davis, commander of a Marine Corps combat
team, referred to the air assault portion of the campaign one of the offensive’s
success stories, according to the Washington Post. By most reports, the
air strikes flattened numerous houses and other civilian structures.
But despite Col. Davis’ assessment, as well as official
statements claiming massive casualties, some marines admitted that the offensive
failed to net the hundreds of foreign fighters they said they were hunting.
Marine commanders told the Post that after entering several
towns, they could not find any militants. They speculated that the opposing
fighters had retreated to towns closer to the Syrian border, such as Husaybah,
or fled into Syrian territory.
"That was the frustrating piece: coming up here for a
fight and not finding anyone," Major Steve Lawson told the Post.
A man from Husaybah, identified as Abu Abdullah, told the
AP that his town "witnessed heavy fighting, but despite that [American
troops] were not able to enter it."
Other residents of Husaybah reported there were never any
foreign militants in their town, only Iraqis defending their country against
U.S. forces.
According to the Post, a group of marines conducting house-to-house
searches left some Iraqi homes carrying pillows and blankets they had commandeered,
while others admitted they had beaten Iraqi men to get information about
insurgents during previous searches.
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