Stepped-up insurgency terrifying officials

[Barrett808]

Stepped-up insurgency terrifying officials
By Colin McMahon and Sinan Adhem, Chicago Tribune. Tribune foreign correspondent Colin McMahon reported from Baghdad and Sinan Adhem reported from Baqouba
Published January 9, 2005

BAQOUBA, Iraq -- Even before the masked men wielding assault rifles stormed his home, stole his car and threatened to shoot him dead, Rasim Ismael Hamoud knew that serving in Iraq's government was a good way to get himself killed.

Guerrillas have assassinated more than seven officials in Diyala province, including two this month, since its regional council was inaugurated last June. And with insurgents ratcheting up their intimidation campaign ahead of national elections scheduled for Jan. 30, Hamoud and his colleagues fear the worst.

"If it continues to devastate us like this, we would resign, all of us," said Hamoud, who lives in Baqouba, the provincial capital about an hour's drive northeast of Baghdad. "We cannot work in these circumstances."

Determined to topple Iraq's interim government but unable to directly confront the U.S.-led forces that installed it, insurgent groups are now hunting down local and national officials and attacking state security forces with alarming success.

Last week alone, guerrillas killed about 100 police, soldiers and government officials, capping the week's violence Saturday with a series of abductions, assassinations and bombings.

(more)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501090386jan09,1,4804772.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

[GetTheRightVote]

1. What do you think is going to happen when US is killing women/children

Do you think they are going to just sit down and cry about it ?
Or are they going to get up out of the dust and fight to protect
their loved ones. I know which one I would choose and that would
include a very big gun.

:mad:

[HawkerHurricane]

2. The penalty for collaboration is death.

always has been.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. Don't they know there's about to be an election?

"If it continues to devastate us like this, we would resign, all of us," said Hamoud, who lives in Baqouba, the provincial capital about an hour's drive northeast of Baghdad. "We cannot work in these circumstances."

A comment like that could get more than the insurgents after him. :eyes:

[bemildred]

4. The writer seems to be confused.

It's not that the "insurgent groups" are unable to "directly confront
the U.S.-led forces", it's that they are not dumb enough to. It is the
US that is unable to force a direct confrontation, a thing it would dearly
like to do. It is the height of bad strategy to go to war expecting
the enemy to cooperate by fighting the way you would prefer.

[AlbizuX]

5. this must be a sign

of their desperation and losing the Iraq war....

[Just Me]

6. The neoCONimperialists's f-upped, big time!!!

Or, maybe,...this is precisely what they want (consistent with the Vietnam destruction) in order to advocate mass destruction, total war, world war,...with the neoCONimperialists' profiteering off their PRO-DEATH, TOTAL-POWER policies.

Hitler would be kissing these guys' heels!!!