U.S. Faces 'Ball of Fire' in Falluja -Iraqi Cleric

[Khephra]

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Sheikh Khaled Saleh, a fiery Iraqi Sunni Muslim cleric, says the young angry men battling U.S. troops in the violent town of Falluja are holy warriors who look to Osama bin Laden as their mentor.

"Although unorganized and without leadership, the Iraqi resistance is a ball of fire in America's face that will bring its end in Iraq," said the 53-year-old cleric, whose sermons draw thousands in the main Badawi mosque, one of over 70 mosques in the center of Falluja.

The cleric said growing numbers of young men in Falluja were influenced by bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi militant behind the shadowy al Qaeda network blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The city of almost 500,000 people, 45 miles west of Baghdad, lies in the Sunni Muslim triangle, a bedrock of support for deposed leader Saddam Hussein and anti-U.S. resistance.

more...................

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3459470

[Coventina]

1. Must....resist.....Jerry....Lee.....Lewis......joke

In...light....of....seriousness....of....situation......

[Fenris]

2. Goodness Gracious...

I was thinking the same thing. :D

[xchrom]

3. ok -- i confess

me too -- sad ain't it.

[NNN0LHI]

4. It never even crossed my mind

OK. I am fibbing.

Don

[expatriot]

5. I am imagining

an Islamic cleric standing up at a piano pounding the ivories and yellow into a microphone and filling the city with his tune from the minaret speakers:

"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain..."