The jihadists celebrate a victory. It looks as if the non-Muslim world will be experiencing the repercussions of Fallujah for quite some time. From AP, with thanks to DC Watson:
U.S. Marines besieged the city west of Baghdad in April after four Americans were ambushed and killed there. Ten Marines and hundreds of Iraqis, many of them civilians, died before the Marines pulled out and handed security over to an Iraqi volunteer force.
The three-week siege is inspiring “a literature of resistance and war,” said Egyptian novelist Gamal el-Ghitani. “Fallujah is a symbol, in one of the worst eras we have witnessed, that it is not impossible to stand up to America.”
He said it also sends a message to Arab dictators about the lesson people may draw about resisting oppression.
“I used to laugh, despite the ghastly daily news, about how a bunch of poor, helpless Iraqis with primitive weapons are forcing the greatest superpower in the world to negotiate. Honestly, the American army was ridiculed,” he said.