Word: ramadaan
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...reconstruction efforts; it has challenged the credibility of the occupation force. The likes of Osama bin Laden have always argued that if bloodied once or twice, the U.S. will retreat. Iraqi insurgents are now testing that theory, compelling the U.S. to hit back hard. In response to the insurgents Ramadaan offensive, U.S. forces have retaliated with everything from massive sweeps to air raids, artillery strikes and sieges. Of course, in many instances the target of these actions remained invisible; the object appears to have been to intimidate the local population by demonstrating that continued support for the insurgency would carry...
...forces had to do something, of course. The insurgents' Ramadaan offensive has seen three U.S. helicopters shot down, a daily dose of ambushes and audacious and high profile guerrilla and terror strikes, and upward of 60 coalition troops killed within the past two weeks alone. No military force is going to absorb upward of 30 attacks a day week after week without hitting back hard in order to reassert its deterrent capability. The problem facing U.S. troops in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, however, is that the enemy is largely invisible, and unless the civilian population is willing to blow...
...Even the relentlessly upbeat Defense Secretary suggested that victory in Iraq could be assured only after "a long, hard slog." The dramatic escalation of attacks on the U.S. and its allies in Iraq over the past three weeks - the "Ramadaan Offensive," of which the downing of a Chinook helicopter that killed 16 soldiers was simply the most dramatic in a series of daily, deadly attacks - has turned up the domestic political pressure on the Bush administration to provide answers over what is transpiring in Iraq, and how soon Americans might expect to be out of there. Although administration officials have...
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