Update [2005-4-16 16:32:27 by hfiend]: Networks are now reporting that there is a joint operation being carried out by Iraqi and US forces.

This is a new tactic for Iraq. They used to kidnap someone or some group of people usually Iraqi police or Shia’. Now they have taken a town and the resulting rescue, if it gets out of hand, could be a lot of bad press for the occupation from any point of view.

An entire city just got snatched by an insurgent army…

Sunni insurgents have taken at least 60 people hostage in the town of Madaen near Baghdad and are threatening to kill them unless Shi’ites leave, a Shi’ite official who said he had been contacted by residents there said.

“People from the town called me begging the Iraqi government to save their relatives, who are hostages. They told me there are at least 60 hostages,” the Shi’ite official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. (LINK)

and not to long ago…

Insurgents with heavy weapons appeared to have taken control of the mixed Sunni and Shi’ite town of Madaen, just south of Baghdad, and no police or government forces were in sight, said the official. (LINK)

That’s my post…

But let me add a brief snip of the DoD propaganda website right NOW!

“It’s particularly important today … because the American people need to know the full story,” said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “because it is going to be their resolve that is so critical to our ability to confront the extremist threat.” (LINK)

Not that our soldiers are doing excellent work, but this story hasn’t made front page of one news service, I got this through the Swiss Media.

So as you wish sir, here is the real Iraq.