Under Pressure, Rebels Abandon an Iraqi Stronghold

[ECH1969]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 11 - Fighting in the northern insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar calmed on Sunday, as thousands of American and Iraqi troops who entered the city this weekend found that many insurgents had fled and that its most dangerous neighborhood was largely deserted, Iraqi and American military officials said.

"There are those who fled the city," said Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi, adding that the insurgents who escaped would be hunted down. "Some of them have the ability to move. They will not find safe haven in Iraq."

Mr. Dulaimi, the normally soft-spoken defense minister, lashed out in a news conference on Sunday and warned insurgents and those who harbor them that Iraqi forces would "cut their heads and cut out their tongues." "We will not back down," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/international/middleeast/12iraq.html?pagewanted=2
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The Iraqi Defense Minister actually said "We will cut off their heads and cut out their tongues", but they were close enough.

[msongs]

1. musta learned that from bushco nt

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Mr. Dulaimi was undoubtedly speaking from the Green Zone

as otherwise one of those pesky insurgents would have cut his head off and ripped his tongue out.

Did they expect the insurgents to sit there and get obliterated when the guns tanks and planes of our armada showed up?

[bemildred]

4. Or sent an RPG up his ass. nt

[Cocoa]

3. how many times have we captured Tal Afar?

soon it's going to exceed the number of times we killed Chemical Ali.

[henslee]

5. I dont get it. How do you flee a city if you are surrounded?

[Javaman]

6. exactly. the Iraqi fighers had learned from Falluja not to go toe to toe..

with the US army. So they just let them have the town, then after the big show of force, the army leaves and the fighters reenter. It's very much like the Viet Cong. We control the day, they control the night.

[daleo]

7. Is cutting off heads and cutting out tongues part of the new constitution?

Let freedom reign.