How Iraqi Urban Warfare works (explained)

I found this extremly informative site from a Spanish magazine called 'El Mundo'. It's a flash presentation describing some of the ways Iraqi soldiers are effectively using urban warfare to combat our troops.

The site is in Spanish, however for those of you that cant read it I will do my best to translate it. Remember, the soldiers in green are the Iraqis, the soldiers in black are us.

www.elmundo.es... (Iraqi defense in the cities)
NOTE: You need to Copy/Paste this into your browser, linking does NOT work.

Factor Suprresa:
It's pretty much saying how the Iraqis use vehicles with machine guns to surprise the US troops. The Iraqi soldiers drive really fast and usually attack form behind.

Aislamiento:
The soldiers communication does not work in the city. There could be jamming devices operating within the area. Also, the helicopters providing aerial force cant accurately shoot the insurgentes so there is a lot of friendly fire going on. This occurs mainly because the insurgentes are located in buildings.

Falsas Rendiciones:
Soldiers pretend to surrender, US troops approach them and then they are surronded by a trio of Iraqi soldiers, usually perched in buildings.

Tiradores:
It's just pretty much saying that there are a lot of operatives working on top of the buildings shooting our aerial support.

Also, the Iraqi soldiers destoryed the interior walls in the buildings. This makes it easier for the soldiers to snipe a couple of shots...run to another part of the building, and shoot off another couple of rounds.

Bloqueo de calles:
This is a technique used by the Iraqi soldiers to defeat our ground vehicles, mainly tanks. They burn fires across the street in order to confuse the tank operators. They also impeded their movement by placing large items such as building material, man made sand mounds...etc. Once these tanks began to get stuck an Iraqi soldier will run up to the vehicle and place an explosion on it.

Tuneles:
The Iraqi soldiers are using the sewage system as tunnels. They will shoot from a certain area in a building, crawl down the pipes, and then appear in a manhole somewhere out in the street.


That was the best I could do. I'm pretty sure that someone could translate this site better than I hope you guys got the overall jist of what is going on.

[edit on 11/9/2004 by Simulacra]

[edit on 11/9/2004 by Simulacra]

Can anyone re-translate this site for me?

I'm almost sure that I missd out on a lot of topics. Thanks!

those are some good tactics by the insurgents

i tried to get it translated by google but that didnt work

They have those tactics yes, and they are effective. But soldeirs are also trained heavily to deal with them. Its not like they just go stroling along the city and suddenly get ambushed like the animtion shows. Movement is slow and methodical as buildings are secured and cleared one by one.

Actually that type of warfare is what you find more often on south american guerrillas, in Iraq your may find the group of well trained insurgents but the rest are just people that take arms against the coallitions forces because they feel that they should oppouse the ivadors.

If you notice everytime the US and coallition goes into a town to fight at the end is not amount of isurgents to be found because they blend back with the population.

I saw the video and you did a very good job on the translation

Originally posted by marg6043
If you notice every time the US and coallition goes into a town to fight at the end is not amount of insurgents to be found because they blend back with the population.

Blending back in won't work this time. They have evacuated the city, and any adult males found in the city are considered prisoners. Some of the tactics showed in the animation are laughable. How are you going to approach a tank to place an explosives charge on it when it has a manned 50 cal. machine gun on the top? Good luck.

The defenders do have an advantage, but the depiction of the U.S. forces wondering in as a clueless army that doesn't fire back is silly. Where are the insurgents going to find these nice vehicles with machine guns mounted on the top? Running from window to window in a building is cool until a tank shoots out the floor you are standing on.

I suppose that these are their best options, but they won't be nearly enough.

Originally posted by dbates
Running from window to window in a building is cool until a tank shoots out the floor you are standing on.

Exactly. I thought this was a nice tactic but thats assuming that US Military doesnt just blast the entire building with a mortar.

I also thought the sewer technique was clever, although disgusting

Did the same things to the Germans in WWII(especially the sewer movement)

I don't think that smaller cities outside Baghdad have any sewer systems.

So the tunnels will have to be man made they will not be able to used the sewer.

Just shot the people with their hands up, should be less likely to get ambushed.