Drones pick off 'rats' of Fallujah
James Hider, Fallujah
November 16, 2004
A group of 15 fighters dressed in black and carrying an array of
weapons ducked into a two-storey house in war-torn southern
Fallujah. Their movement was picked up by an unmanned spy plane
that beamed back live footage to a control centre on the edge of
the city. Within minutes, an airstrike was called and the house
disappeared in a giant plume of grey smoke.
From a house across the road, the explosion flushed out another
group of guerillas. Deafened by the blast, they stumbled out into
the street, formed a ragged line and started off on the marathon to
postpone their deaths, the drone dogging their every step.
"The rats are trying to move about," said Major Tim Karcher, of the
Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, as the figures flitted from
street to street, seeking cover close to walls.
Sometimes they can throw off the drone, ducking out of sight of the
men with the power to summon FA18 fighter-bombers or 155mm
artillery strikes. But they have no way of knowing. And,
increasingly, as they run they come into the crosshairs of American
snipers, crack shots such as Sergeant Marc Veen and his
long-barrelled rifle, Lucille.
Yesterday morning he spotted a black-clad man with an AK47 assault
rifle peering round a corner 450m from the villa where Cougar
Company of the Seventh Cavalry has set up a forward base. He shot
the man in the stomach: he fell, but kept crawling, so Sergeant
Veen shot him again in the shoulder. Still the man tried to move
away, so the sergeant blasted him with his 50 calibre
machinegun.
"There's pretty much no feeling," explained the 24-year-old from
Chicago, perched on the parapet of the house, the shell of the
killer bullet tucked as a trophy into his flak jacket. "If I didn't
get that guy, that guy would get one of my buddies sometime later
down the line."
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My comment : Is this the new face of FIBUA ?
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