US Marines have found beheading chambers, bomb-making factories and even two hostages as they swept through Fallujah -- turning up hard evidence of the city's role in the insurgent campaign to drive American forces from Iraq.
Marines on Sunday showed off what they called a bomb-making factory, where insurgents prepared roadside explosives and car bombs that have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and US troops.
PHOTO: AFP
Wires, cellphones, Motorola handheld radios and a foam box packed with C4 plastic explosives sat in the dark building down an alley, along with three balaclava-style masks reading: "There is only one god, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."
"It's all significant because this is not the kind of stuff an average household has," said Lieutenant Kevin Kimner, 25, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
So far US troops have only found two hostages, one Iraqi and one Syrian. Marines last week found the Iraqi in a room with a black banner bearing the logo of one of Iraq's extremist groups. He was chained to the wall, shackled hand and foot in front of a video camera. The floor was covered with blood.
The rescued Syrian was the driver for two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, missing since August. The journalists have not been found, but France maintains they are still alive.
A Marine officer said he found signs that at least one foreign hostage was beheaded in the room. The Marine, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not give details.
The Iraqi hostage, who had been beaten on the back with steel cables, said his tormentors were Syrian and that he thought he was in Syria until the Marines found him, the Marine said. Other militants came and went, but "The Syrians were always in charge," the Marine said.
The hostage was in a room -- inside a compound that also had AK-47 rifles, improvised bombs, fake ID cards and shoulder-fired missiles that could down an airliner. Beneath it were tunnels running under the neighborhood.
Marines said weapons depots were strategically placed throughout Jolan. Insurgents marked many of the caches with a piece of brick or rock, suspended from the buildings by a piece of string or wire.
Among the rebels' most-fearsome weapons have been the car bombs and roadside explosives that have targeted military convoys but also Christian churches and other areas where civilians gather.
A hollowed-out plastic foam container about the size of two shoe boxes lay in the bomb lab on Sunday, packed with plastic explosives and wires. The plastic foam box was covered in cloth to disguise it as an innocuous package.
Scattered on the ground nearby -- cellphones, walkie-talkies, Motorola handheld radios -- all used as detonators lay tangled in coils of wire. There was a computer without a hard drive and a box full of professional explosives-triggering.
When Marines uncovered the lab in a sweep Saturday, they also found Islamic Jihadist writings. A complete reading of the Koran on cassette tape lay in a box. Also among the clutter were two wills, addressed to friends and family in Algeria.
A Marine staff sergeant, who deals with detainees, told reporters it appeared as though a kidnapping squad used Fallujah to hold its captives.
"These guys have a kidnap squad, working outside Fallujah and bringing their victims to the city," he said.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS