Posted on 04/24/2005 9:35:15 PM PDT by TexKat
04/15/05 - The Honor Guard aboard USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) post the colors during a burial at sea ceremony in the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 2005. The Mayport, Fla., based aircraft carrier Kennedy is currently conducting scheduled carrier qualifications in the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Tommy Gilligan)
04/18/05 - U.S. Marines and Sailors eat chow on the mess decks aboard USS Duluth (LPD 6), on April 18, 2005. Duluth is currently conducting Maritime Security Operations in the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Duluth is part of Expeditionary Strike Group Five based in San Diego, Calif. (U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class...
Members of Iraq's national council raise their hands to vote on a resolution during the national assembly's session at the convention center in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 24, 2005. Members of the assembly were discussing rules of procedures in the assembly. (AP Photo/Ali Haider, Pool)
Allawi Party Not Part of New Iraq Cabinet
Sun Apr 24, 3:18 PM ET Middle East - AP
By JAMIE TARABAY, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - After nearly three months of negotiations, Iraq's major Shiite bloc has decided to form a Cabinet without members of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List party, lawmakers said Sunday.
Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari could submit a list of ministers to parliament as soon as Monday, they said.
"There is a big expectation that tomorrow there will be an announcement of a new government without the participation of the Iraqi List," said Saad Jouawd Qandil, a member of al-Jaafari's Shiite-dominated Iraqi United Alliance.
There were conflicting reports, however, when the allocation of seats would be final. Qandil thought the final list would be submitted to parliament on Tuesday. But Ali Adib, another alliance member, said al-Jaafari would make the announcement on Monday.
"We weren't able to succeed in our talks with Allawi's group, and so we'll go ahead with a government formed by the Kurds, Sunnis and the Shiites," Adib told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Tomorrow we expect to announce to the assembly the government."
Members of Allawi's party could not immediately be reached for comment.
Al-Jaafari's alliance has repeatedly predicted he would soon announce a new Cabinet. So far each prediction since the Jan. 30 elections has proved wrong.
Many Shiites long have resented Allawi, himself a secular Shiite. They accuse his outgoing administration of having brought into the government and security forces former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, who had helped carry out policies that oppressed many Iraqis — especially Shiites and Kurds.
On Friday, Allawi's Iraqi List alliance, which controls 40 seats in the 275-member interim National Assembly, accused Shiites of trying to keep all the party's members out of the new Cabinet. But it said the party would continue to support the government, even if it is excluded.
The dispute with Allawi's party is just one of a number of issues that have stalled the formation of a government. The alliance, which controls 148 seats, is also trying to balance the competing demands of Kurdish factions while drawing in members of the country's Sunni minority.
The Sunnis, who largely stayed away from the Jan. 30 election either in boycott or out of fear of attacks at the polls, won only 17 seats and are widely believed to form the backbone of the insurgency.
In April, the interim parliament elected Hajim al-Hassani as parliament speaker in a gesture toward the Sunni Arab community and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani to the largely ceremonial job of president. Talabani and his two vice presidents then selected al-Jaafari as interim prime minister.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon (L) talks to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill (R) at a meeting to discuss North Korea's nuclear program at the foreign ministry in Seoul April 25, 2005. Any move by North Korea to test a nuclear weapon would only isolate it further and jeopardise the future of the communist state, Ban was quoted as saying on Monday. REUTERS/Ahn Young-joon/Pool
Nuclear Test Would Threaten N.Korea's Future-Seoul
SEOUL (Reuters) - Any move by North Korea to test a nuclear weapon would only isolate it further and jeopardize the future of the communist state, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was quoted as saying on Monday.
The strong comments came amid growing concern about the North's continued refusal to resume multinational talks on its nuclear aims and after recent U.S. media reports that Pyongyang might be preparing for its first nuclear test.
"If North Korea takes the reckless action of conducting a nuclear test, it will further deepen its isolation and take itself on a road where its future would not be guaranteed," Ban was quoted by Yonhap news agency as telling a forum.
The top U.S. negotiator to the six-party talks also began discussions on Monday in Seoul on how to break the deadlock.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met his South Korean counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon. Hill is due to travel to Beijing on Tuesday and Tokyo on Wednesday for further talks.
"What we are focusing on is the diplomatic track and the need to get the talks going and more importantly, once they get going, to achieve progress," Hill told reporters after meeting Song.
Hill said he and Song had a "very good and complete agreement on how to proceed," without elaborating.
Three rounds of the talks by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia have produced no substantive progress. A fourth round never materialized after Pyongyang said Washington must first drop what it called a hostile policy against it.
Arriving in Seoul on Saturday, Hill hinted that his agenda for consultations went beyond just trying to restart the stalled six-country talks, saying officials would try to address "a problem," referring to North Korea's refusal to attend the talks.
"We have to see what we can do to get (North Korea) there and see what else we can do," Hill told reporters on Saturday.
Washington has said North Korea could be taken to the United Nations Security Council for debate on possible sanctions if it continued to snub the six-party talks.
South Korea has been reluctant to explicitly discuss the possibility, but officials have said it was reviewing the option.
"(Hill) was speaking in general terms, but I understand he was saying other solutions must be sought if current efforts to hold the six-party talks do not work out," Song was quoted as saying by Yonhap before his meeting with Hill.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the United States had warned China that North Korea might test a nuclear weapon and urged Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang to stop such a move.
U.S. and South Korean officials later said there was no definitive evidence suggesting the North was preparing for a test.
April 25, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq - An American sailor was killed when the U.S. Marine convoy he was traveling with was hit by a roadside bomb, the military said Sunday.
The attack occurred Saturday in Fallujah, where U.S. troops conducted a weeklong offensive in November to break insurgents' control of the city 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
The name of the deceased was being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The brief military statement did not say why the sailor was taking part in a U.S. Marine land operation, but other sailors have done that in the past in support roles such as medics.
As of Saturday, 2005, at least 1,566 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,191 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.
Gucho, everyone!!
Iraqi prime minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari. The unveiling of Iraq's new government was again delayed because of last-minute negotiations between political factions.(AFP/File/Karim Sahib)
Iraqis Try Again to Form New Government
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi politicians tried again Monday to end a nearly three-month deadlock over forming a new transitional government, and the death toll from well-coordinated car bombings targeting police and civilians in Saddam Hussein's hometown and Baghdad rose to 29.
Insurgents, meanwhile, launched two separate attacks aimed at Iraq's oil industry in the north, setting fire to pumps near Kirkuk and opening fire on police guarding a convoy of tanker trucks, officials said. Two policemen were wounded and three insurgents arrested in a one-hour gunbattle over the convoy, police said.
On Sunday, lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he was ready to announce a Cabinet that would exclude his interim predecessor, Ayad Allawi.
Al-Jaafari had decided, some members of his political bloc said, to shun further attempts to include members of the party headed by Allawi, the secular Shiite politician who was prime minister as the country prepared for elections Jan. 30.
Members of Allawi's Iraqi List, which controls 40 seats in the National Assembly, said his party had not been officially informed of the development. Allawi loyalists were bidding for at least four ministries, including a senior government post and a deputy premiership.
"Whoever says the Iraqi List has withdrawn from the negotiations about the Cabinet is not right. We haven't done that," Iraqi List legislator Hussein al-Fadr said Monday.
Al-Jaafari's list could be submitted to parliament Monday, some officials said, but others indicated Tuesday was more likely. Many such forecasts have proven wrong earlier.
Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of having included former members of Saddam's Baath Party, which brutally repressed the majority Shiites and Kurds.
There had been intense pressure to end the political bickering after a recent increase in insurgent violence that many blamed on the continuing political turmoil nearly three months after the elections.
The New York Times reported Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney, frustrated by the political deadlock, were pushing top Kurdish and Shiite politicians to come together and form a new government.
On Sunday, an emboldened Iraqi insurgency staged carefully coordinated dual bombings in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and a Shiite neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing and wounding dozens of Iraqi police and civilians.
Also, the U.S. military said it had detained four more suspects in the downing of a civilian Mi-8 helicopter Thursday. All 11 passengers and crew were killed, including a survivor gunned down by insurgents. Ten suspects have been apprehended in all, the military said.
A vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police and residents rushed to help the victims, a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd. At least 23 people were killed and 41 wounded, officials at two hospitals said Monday.
In Tikrit, two remotely detonated car bombs exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six Iraqis and wounding 33, police and a hospital official said. The blasts occurred as recruits were about to travel to Jordan for training, said police Lt. Shalan Allawi.
Insurgents also attacked U.S. forces. A roadside bomb hit a convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded in the attack.
At least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, claimed responsibility for the Tikrit and eastern Baghdad attacks in statements posted on militant Web sites. The group also claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol near the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no one was hurt in that attack.
The authenticity of those claims could not be verified.
___
Associated Press writers Jamie Tarabay and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this story.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaks in his weekly television and radio show in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Sunday, April 24, 2005, where he said that a military exchange program with the United States was canceled because U.S. officers in Venezuela were spreading a negative image of his government to the soldiers they were training. (AP Photo/Miraflores, Francisco Batista)
Chavez Announces Detention of Americans
Mon Apr 25, 7:02 AM ET World - AP Latin America
By ALICE M. CHACON, Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said a military exchange program with the United States was canceled because U.S. officers in Venezuela were spreading a negative image of his government to the soldiers they were training.
He also announced the detention of several Americans and said the United States might be planning to invade his country.
The U.S. Embassy on Friday said Venezuela had abruptly and without explanation ended the 35-year-old military exchange program. Ambassador William Brownfield said the five U.S. officers in Venezuela involved in the program had been notified.
Some 90 Venezuelan military personnel were in the United States as part of the program, the embassy said. It was not clear how they would be affected.
During his weekly television and radio show, Chavez complained the U.S. officers "are sent here to turn our boys against us."
"It's best that they leave, until someday we can have transparent, clear relations and cooperation with the civil and military institutions of the United States, the way we do with almost all governments in the planet," Chavez said Sunday.
Chavez said that a woman in the U.S. armed forces had been detained by authorities while taking pictures of military installations in central Venezuela. He did not identify her or say whether she had been released.
"If she or any other U.S. official does this kind of activity again, they will be imprisoned and face trial in Venezuela," he said.
Chavez also said several American journalists were detained taking pictures of a refinery 60 miles west of Caracas. He did not elaborate except to say they were released.
Chavez said the cases indicated the U.S. might be planning to invade Venezuela.
Venezuela is a top U.S. oil supplier, but tensions have risen due to U.S. criticism of Venezuela's purchase of 100,000 assault rifles from Russia, and Chavez's continuous criticism of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Chavez accuses Washington of being behind a brief 2002 coup against him and of supporting other plots to oust him. U.S. officials deny the claims.
MANILA (AFP) - The US Pacific Command's logistics chief arrived in the Philippines for counter-terrorism talks with Filipino officials, the US embassy said.
US Army Brigadier General James Lewis Kennon will review US-Philippine "military-to-military security cooperation activities" including the local military's procurement reform program.
The visit is under the "regular series of meetings between military and security officials of both countries to discuss programs for sustained counter-terrorism capability." the embassy added.
The US government is helping train and equip the Philippine forces against Al-Qaeda-linked Muslim militants in the insurgency-wracked main southern island of Mindanao.
Small numbers of US special forces train troops on a regular basis as part of President George W. Bush's pledge to assist countries who backed the Washington-led global war on terror.
Rescuers operate at the site of a derailed commuter train that smashed into an apartment building in Amagasaki, western Japan April 25, 2005. A crowded Japanese commuter train derailed on Monday and hurtled into an apartment building, killing at least 52 people and injuring hundreds in the country's worst rail accident in over 40 years. REUTERS/Issei Kato
Train Rams Into Building in Japan; 52 Die
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer
AMAGASAKI, Japan - A packed commuter train jumped the tracks in western Japan on Monday and hurtled into an apartment complex, killing 52 people and injuring more than 417 others in the deadliest Japanese rail accident in four decades.
Investigators focused on whether excessive speed or the actions of the inexperienced, 23-year-old driver caused the crash in an urban area near Amagasaki, about 250 miles west of Tokyo.
Several passengers speculated that the driver may have been speeding to make up for lost time after overshooting the previous station, forcing him to back up to let off passengers.
Floodlights were trained on one of the worst-damaged cars as rescuers tried to free four people still alive in the wreckage more than 11 hours after the 9:18 a.m. crash, said Yoshiki Nishiyama of the Amagasaki fire department. The four drank water provided to them, but their conditions were otherwise unknown.
The fate of the driver also was not known.
The seven-car commuter train was carrying 580 passengers when it derailed, wrecking an automobile in its path before slamming into a nine-story apartment complex just meters (yards) away. Two of the five derailed cars were flattened against the wall of the building, and hundreds of rescue workers and police swarmed the wreckage and tended to the injured.
"There was a violent shaking, and the next moment I was thrown to the floor ... and I landed on top of a pile of other people," passenger Tatsuya Akashi told public TV network NHK. "I didn't know what happened, and there were many people bleeding."
Train operator West Japan Railway Co. apologized.
The Amagasaki Fire Department said the death toll had reached at least 52, while a Hyogo prefectural (state) police official said at least 417 people had been taken to hospitals. It was not clear how many of the dead were passengers or if bystanders and apartment residents were among the victims.
The accident was the worst rail disaster in nearly 42 years in safety-conscious Japan, which is home to one of the world's most complex, efficient and heavily traveled rail networks. A three-train crash in November 1963 killed 161 people in Tsurumi, outside Tokyo.
"There are many theories but we don't know for sure what caused the accident," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said. "The prime minister instructed us to respond with urgency."
Survivors said the force of the derailment sent passengers tumbling. Photos taken by an NHK reporter aboard the train showed passengers piled on the floor and some clawing to escape. Two derailed train cars smashed into the first-floor parking garage of the apartment complex, NHK said.
Distraught relatives rushed to hospitals to search lists of the injured and dead. Takamichi Hayashi said his elder brother, 19-year-old Hiroki, had called their mother on a mobile phone from inside one of the train cars just after the crash but remained unaccounted for. He said he had heard Hiroki was among the four trapped in the wreckage.
It was unclear how fast the train was traveling at the time of the accident, said Tsunemi Murakami, the train operator's safety director.
He estimated that it would need to have been traveling at 82 mph to have jumped the track purely because of excessive speed. The crash occurred at a curve after a straightaway, requiring the driver to slow to a speed of 43 mph.
A crew member aboard told police later he "felt the train was going faster than usual," NHK said, echoing comments from survivors interviewed by the network who speculated that the driver was attempting to make up for lost time after overrunning a stop line at the previous station.
The driver had committed a previous overrun at a station in June 2004 and was issued a warning, officials said.
Murakami later said investigators had found scrapes and other evidence of rocks on the tracks. But he said it was too early to say whether that was a factor in the crash.
Experts suspected speed was to blame.
"If the train hadn't hit anything before derailing ... the train was probably speeding. For the train to flip, it had to be traveling at a high speed," Kazuhiko Nagase, a Kanazawa Institute of Technology professor and train expert, told NHK.
NHK reported that the automatic braking system at that stretch of track is among the oldest in Japan. The system stops trains at signs of trouble without requiring drivers to take emergency action, but the older system can't halt trains traveling at high speeds, NHK said.
Tokyo dispatched Self-Defense Force soldiers to the disaster scene to assist. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered condolences to families of passengers who were killed, as did Emperor Akihito, in unusual unscripted remarks. Koizumi pledged that officials would do everything they could to prevent a recurrence of the crash.
"It's tragic," Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa said at the scene. "We have to investigate why this horrible accident happened."
Deadly train accidents are rare in Japan. Five people were killed and 33 were injured in March 2000, when a Tokyo subway hit a derailed train. An accident killed 42 people in April 1991 in Shigaraki, western Japan.
An earthquake in 2004 caused a bullet train to derail — the first since the high speed trains went into service 40 years ago.
(AFP)
25 April 2005
AMMAN - A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend’s camera-equipped mobile phone in the latest “honour” killing in the kingdom, hospital officials said on Monday.
The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to “cleanse his family’s honour.”
The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law.
Last month, a man stabbed his sister to death after finding out she had agreed an unofficial marriage with a man who subsequently disappeared.
At least 19 women lost their lives in honour killings in Jordan last year, according to the local press.
25 April 2005
RIYADH — About 70,000 people, most of them from Arab and Muslim countries, have been barred from flying into the airspace of the United States, sources from the Kingdom of the Netherlands disclosed.
They said the US authorities had furnished airports worldwide with a list of names of those people, adding that Holland’s ministry of justice had described the list as well-arranged, but did not include reasons behind the barring of those people whose names appeared on the list.
It is believed that the action is related to the security measures adopted by the US in recent times, particularly towards citizens of Arab, Islamic and some European countries.
what do you hear from your son Kat? Laura Ingram just played a few times the clip of POTUS introducing General G. It was funny. I had seen the pix & knew it was a "classic". again thank you for faithfully providing us with good information... One stop..tons of news..
love & cyber hugs to all
(PS,yes we have had a ton of snow... 12" in our area). I will try to remember this in the summer when it is hot & muggy (and I am complaining)
You've got private mail. Stay warm!!
04/25/2005 10:06:35 AM
WASHINGTON -- Two years after his much-maligned "mission accomplished" speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, President Bush and his foreign policy team are trumpeting developments in the Middle East as a vindication of his Iraq policy.
The orderly selection of a new government in Iraq, the announced departure of Syrians from Lebanon, the election of a new Palestinian leader, and elections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have breathed life into a foreign policy that many predicted would be the president's undoing.
Hardly a day goes by without Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or another senior administration official speaking publicly about the "march of freedom" and the success of the Iraq invasion in securing peace.
"There's a movement toward freedom around the world," Bush said in an interview with a Lebanese television station this past week. "I believe that a true free society, one that self-governs, one that listens to the people, will be a peaceful society -- not an angry society."
The notion that the world is more peaceful as a result of the U.S. invasion, let alone that the mission was a success, is far from universally accepted.
In the two years since Bush declared an end to "major combat operations, " thousands of Iraqis and nearly 1,500 Americans have died; U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $200 billion to secure the peace; troops discovered no weapons of mass destruction, which was the principal reason stated by Bush to justify the attack; and a majority of Americans now say they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq.
Yet the perception by critics that the mission is unproductive, or a debacle, shows no sign of resonating at the White House, where, quite to the contrary, it is evident that Bush feels emboldened by the past two years' experience.
Bush's words suggest he views himself as a transformational figure, able to use the example of American democracy, and the might of the U.S. military, to reshape the governance of an entire region. Rather than serve as a caretaker of a humble foreign policy, a role Bush advocated as a presidential candidate in 2000, he speaks of spreading freedom -- "Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world" -- around the globe.
"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty," Bush recently told troops in Fort Hood, Texas. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a crushing defeat to the forces of tyranny and terror, and a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."
Bush always mentions that much hard work lies ahead. His handlers have been careful not to repeat the display of the "mission accomplished" banner that hung from the aircraft carrier behind his May 1, 2003, speech -- and became a rallying cry to opponents who decried as delusional his optimism about Iraq.
Yet there is a tone of vindication as administration officials defend a policy that prompted anger and scorn from people and many governments around the globe.
The decision to topple Hussein "was not a popular decision, but a decision that now, I think, people are beginning to see has unlocked the possibility of a different kind of Middle East, most especially as they saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30 and as people in Egypt and Lebanon and other places saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30," Rice told editorial writers earlier this month.
"You can continue to talk about neoconservatives or non-neoconservatives or realists or whatever you want to talk about, but you cannot deny that something is happening in the Middle East that wasn't happening even six months ago," she said. "And, I'm sorry, it didn't just happen by chance."
25/04/2005 KurdishMedia.com
London (KurdishMedia.com) 25 April, 2005: The Iraqi daily Al-Sabah today wrote that the Iraqi Ministry of Health has pointed out the fact that cases of violence targeting physicians in Iraq have escalated over the last period.
The daily quoted the spokesman of the ministry saying that there are several political, economic and social reasons behind such cases in addition to several factors that have created a suitable environment for spreading kidnapping and violence against physicians, pointing out that there are certain sides aimed at aborting the establishment of a unified, civilized and scientific country, citing that this phenomena has became one of the problems facing the process of promoting the health status of the citizens.
The spokesperson indicated the necessity for eradicating this phenomena and respecting the law authority in cooperation with other ministries and related sides.
The news report of the daily added that for his side, Dr. Mohammed al-Hassoni, the Director of Violence and Harm Prevention Program said that Health Ministry’s statistics indicated expanding the range of this phenomena and its direct impact on teaching levels in Iraq. Notably, the number of physicians whom were subjected to threats, kidnapping and killing has exceeded the number of 120 physicians, according to the last updated data done by the Health Ministry.
By VOA News
25 April 2005
A published report says the Bush administration is pressing Iraqi leaders to end their political stalemate and form a new government.
The New York Times newspaper says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Iraq's President Jalal Talabani on Friday to urge that the government be formed as soon as possible.
It says Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney conveyed the same message in a White House meeting with Adil Abdul Mahdi, a leading Shi'ite politician named as one of the new Iraqi vice presidents.
U.S. officials have said repeatedly that Iraqis must form their own government without American intervention.
But efforts to name a new cabinet in Baghdad have failed, although nearly three months have passed since the Iraqi elections. Many Iraqis blame the political turmoil for a recent upsurge in violence.
Iraq Dragnet Snags 18 Suspects; Detainee Dies at Hospital
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 25, 2005 – Coalition forces captured 18 suspected terrorists during a search-and-seizure operation conducted April 22-24 in Babil province, Iraq. Elsewhere, a security detainee died at a U.S. military hospital.
Operation Philadelphia, which concluded April 24, was conducted to prevent terrorists from mounting attacks in Multinational Division Central-South’s area of operations and to secure stability for Iraqis living in Babil province.
Eighteen people were detained as a result of the operation, including one person on a list of wanted terrorists who’d previously attacked coalition forces. More than four hundred coalition soldiers participated in the operation.
Also in Iraq, a 20-year-old security detainee was receiving medical care at the U.S. 115th Field Hospital when he died April 24. The detainee died of complications resulting from gunshot wounds received two weeks ago while engaging coalition forces.
The detainee’s remains will be transferred to his family after an autopsy is completed. An autopsy is standing procedure for all detainees who die in Multinational Force Iraq custody.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/20050425_742.html
April 25, 2005
Updated: Monday, 25 April, 2005
Six people have been killed in a suspected Taleban attack on a mayor's office in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, police say.
They say the attack led to an hour-long gun battle with government troops.
Deputy police chief Salim Khan told the Associated Press that 60 gunmen had attacked the office. Four attackers and two soldiers had died, he said.
The clash is the latest in a series, which observers say shows the rebels are stepping up their campaign.
"We found the bodies of the four dead Taleban along with their AK-47s and machine-guns," Mr Khan said.
He told the AFP news agency that the attackers came from "behind the border", in Pakistan's tribal areas where the militants are believed to have bases.
Feuds
Correspondents say that Kandahar is still affected by Afghanistan's three-year-old insurgency and is used as a base by people smuggling drugs out of the country through Pakistan.
There are also violent factional feuds in the area, which officials regularly blame on the Taleban.
On Sunday, the Romanian government said one of its soldiers had been killed and two others injured when their patrol vehicle struck a mine near the city of Kandahar - a former Taleban stronghold.
In other incidents over the weekend, the US army reported the deaths of four suspected militants and two Afghan soldiers.
(NY-NBC) April 25, 2005 - US prosecutors in New York City said they have captured one of the largest global drug lords from Afghanistan and charged him with international heroin-trafficking.
DEA Special Agent John Gilbride says Haji Bashir Noorzai produced and transported millions of dollars worth of heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan to various countries, including the US, "Noorzai is known to the Drug Enforcement Administration as the Pablo Escobar of heroin trafficking in Asia."
The suspect and nine others made it on the White House's list of the world's most wanted drug leaders last year. US Attorney David Kelley says the suspect's operations were protected and aided by the Taliban who ran the country before US troops went in, "Noorzai and the Taliban had a symbiotic relationship."
The indictment comes just over a month after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the war-torn country. The US has become concerned with the surge of opium poppy fields in the region.
Sixty percent of Afghanistan's economy still comes from the production of poppy, which is turned into heroin. In recent months, Afghan police have gone in to destroy the fields.
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
ANKARA, Turkey - After months of delay, Turkey's Cabinet on Monday approved a long-standing U.S. request to have increased access to a strategic air base for flying into Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decision was another step toward improving relations with Washington that were strained when Turkey refused to allow U.S. troops to stage an invasion of Iraq from Turkish territory in March 2003.
A Cabinet decree — allowing the United States to fly in more cargo planes into the southern Incirlik Air Base for one year beginning in June — was sent to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer for approval, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency said.
The details of the agreement were not released. The U.S. request, which was relayed to Turkey in June, asked permission to establish a logistics hub at Incirlik.
U.S. Ambassador Eric Edelman and Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul are scheduled to hold a joint news conference on the deal Tuesday.
According to private NTV television, Turkey also accepted a U.S. request for blanket clearance for all cargo flights, backing off an earlier stance that each flight should get separate permission before landing and takeoff.
U.S. diplomats had expressed unease about Turkey's delay and its insistence on requiring separate permission for each flight.
The United States plans to fly in large civilian cargo flights to Incirlik and redistribute the goods to military planes for Afghanistan and Iraq.
Incirlik now hosts some 10 KC-135 refueling aircraft, supporting operations for Afghanistan and Iraq. There are about 1,400 airmen at the base.
The current deal expires June 23. The one-year mandate of the new agreement likely will start then.
Turkey last year allowed the United States to fly thousands of U.S. troops out of Iraq through Incirlik, which is about 600 miles from the Iraq border and 2,000 miles west of Afghanistan. The United States has had access to Incirlik since 1954.
Incirlik was used by the United States and its allies during the 1991 Gulf War to launch airstrikes against Iraq. It was the hub for U.S.-led flights enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq for 12 years until 2003.
The base also was the main U-2 operating location until May 1960, when Francis Gary Powers' aircraft was shot down by Soviet surface-to-air missiles over Sverdlovsk.
Chief Prosecutor Eduardo Fungairino leaves a courthouse during a break in Europe's biggest trial of suspected Islamic militants in Madrid April 25, 2005. The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Spain, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, went on trial along with 23 others in Madrid in Europe's biggest court case against suspected Islamist militants. REUTERS/Andrea Comas
Spanish al-Qaida Suspect Denies Plotting
By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain - The man accused of leading a Spanish al-Qaida cell denied charges he helped organize the Sept. 11 attacks by arranging a final planning meeting, telling judges Monday he had nothing to do with that act of "terrible savagery."
Imad Yarkas, the main suspect in Spain's case against al-Qaida, described himself as a hardworking father of six who struggled to make ends meet.
He took the stand on Day 2 of the trial of 24 terror suspects — Europe's biggest court case against radical groups with alleged ties to Osama bin Laden's terror network. If convicted, he faces a symbolic sentence of almost 75,000 years in prison — 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Two alleged accomplices also face charges that they helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks, and 21 others are charged with belonging to a terrorist group, illegal weapons possession and other offenses.
Yarkas, arrested in November 2001, denied leading a cell of radical Muslims with ties to al-Qaida, or knowing two of the alleged Sept. 11 ringleaders.
Yarkas, 42, a Syrian-born Spanish citizen, was questioned about a Spanish indictment that accused him of arranging a July 2001 meeting in the Tarragona region of northeast Spain where suicide pilot Mohammed Atta and purported Sept. 11 operations coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh allegedly discussed the final details.
Prosecutor Pedro Rubira provided no evidence. He simply asked Yarkas if he arranged such a meeting.
Yarkas said he had not. "I don't know Ramzi bin al-Shibh. I don't know Mohammed Atta," he said.
He called the Sept. 11 attacks "terrible savagery," adding: "I didn't have anything to do with it."
Yarkas also was asked about an August 2001 telephone conversation in which a Moroccan associate allegedly called him from London and said people he knew "had entered the area of aviation and had even slashed the throat of the bird," according to a translation from Arabic contained in the September 2003 indictment against Yarkas.
The judge in charge of the terror investigation, Baltasar Garzon, has said the conversation suggests that the Moroccan, identified as Farid Hilali, was involved in the Sept. 11 plot to hijack airliners. Hilali remains jailed in Britain fighting extradition to Spain.
Yarkas said Monday he couldn't remember the conversation clearly but said it had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. He asked to hear the tape again.
"This has nothing to do with what you say it does," Yarkas said.
The questioning followed this pattern for much of the day. Rubira addressed minutiae of Yarkas' activities as far back as a decade ago but did not present the court with evidence of wrongdoing.
Rubira also questioned Yarkas about his contacts with the other defendants and suspected militants abroad. Yarkas insisted he knew them only as acquaintances at mosques and members of Madrid's Muslim immigrant community.
Among those Yarkas acknowledged knowing in the 1990s was Mustafa Setmariam, a Syrian fugitive believed to be a senior al-Qaida operative. The United States last year offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
Yarkas said the two men took their children to the same school at a Madrid mosque, and "we would see each other and chat."
He said he lost track of Setmariam when the Syrian moved from Spain to Britain, then either to Pakistan or Afghanistan. Setmariam is accused of running a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion ousted the Taliban militia from power after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Yarkas also discussed his life in Spain, saying he arrived from Syria in 1985 or 1986 to study but ended up in business, acting as an intermediary between wholesalers and dealing in everything from cars and clothes to honey — "anything I could make a profit on," he told the court.
He described himself as a dedicated family man: "Whatever I earn, I spend. I have six children. I don't hesitate when it comes to spending money on my family."
He said he knew nothing about a trip an accused accomplice, Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, made in 1997 to take detailed video of the World Trade Center — footage that Garzon said served as "preliminary information" for plotting the Sept. 11 attacks.
He also denied having anything but a casual business relationship with Moroccan Jamal Zougam, accused of placing the backpack bombs aboard trains in the March 2004 attacks that killed 191 people in Madrid. Spanish court documents call Yarkas Zougam's mentor.
The trial is expected to last two to four months.
Alert Marines of 3-8 patrol highway from Baghdad to Fallujah
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, April 25, 2005
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq — Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Dagenhart’s sixth sense kicked into overdrive Sunday while he was patrolling a major Iraqi highway that some Marines have dubbed “the most dangerous road in the world.”
He liked nothing about the young man perched on a motorcycle in the median of Main Service Road Mobile, a thoroughfare between Iraq and Jordan, of which the 25 miles between Baghdad and Fallujah is patrolled day and night by Marines of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment.
When the platoon began approaching the man early Sunday afternoon, the suspect tried to hide in a palm grove, said Dagenhart, 35, platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, Weapons Company.
“He was sitting near a [known] IED [improvised explosive device] spot, he seemed to be observing, he was riding a motorcycle, I could see the shovel handle,” Dagenhart said. “Then he tried to evade us, and he got caught.”
Inside the motorcycle’s sidecar, the Marines found a shovel, several canisters, sharp metal pieces, a slice of a metallic mine, an empty sandbag and an empty beer can, among other things.
“This is some of the stuff they’re known to use, stuff that would really mess up our day and mess up our Marines,” Dagenhart said.
Using a field kit, Dagenhart tested the man and the motorcycle for gunshot residue, getting a positive reading from the suspect’s hands, the handle of a shovel and various areas on the motorcycle, including the handle bars, brake and gas tank, Dagenhart reported to Capt. Ed Nevgloski, commanding officer of 3-8’s Weapons Company.
The man was found in the general area where several hours earlier, forces reported hearing small-arms fire, Nevgloski said.
Marines detained the suspect, cuffing his hands behind his back and taking him to a temporary detention facility. The MAM, or what the military calls “military-aged man” didn’t struggle as Marines led him away from the area.
Dagenhart rode the motorcycle back to the unit’s home base.
Day and night, Weapons Company links up with U.S.-trained Iraqi Security Forces to patrol the two major roadways that run through their sector, which they’ve named MSR Mobile and MSR Michigan.
The Marines have encountered dozens and dozens of roadside bombs and car bombs along the routes, Nevgloski said.
“We’re keeping the road safe for convoys,” said Lance Cpl. Joshua Johnson, 19. “I’ve seen enough death and destruction already, and the more people like this we can keep off the streets, the better.”
On Sunday, Nevgloski beamed with pride.
“Good catch, guys. Hoorah.”
Dagenhart had to ride the motorcycle back to the Marines’ home base near Fallujah. (Sandra Jontz / S&S)
Army helicopter pilots get on board with Navy-style landings
Training requires Black Hawk to land on deck of destroyer
By Juliana Gittler, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, April 25, 2005
ABOARD THE USS CURTIS WILBUR — A tiny gray speck grows into the form of a ship before an Army Black Hawk helicopter maneuvers onto the very small deck of the destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur.
The small, moving platform, pitching in the wind and waves, is not the usual place for an Army aviator to land.
It’s hard enough landing a helicopter. Add movement, a sloping deck and the threat of a vast sea just a few feet away, and the procedure is all the more difficult.
That’s why the Army requires helicopter pilots and crew that operate near water, such as the 78th Aviation Battalion from Camp Zama, Japan, to land on ships.
Deck-landing qualifications give aviators more experience and provide a chance for Army and Navy personnel to work together, part of the Defense Department’s push for more joint cooperation.
On Thursday, several pilots were scheduled to land aboard the Curtis Wilbur for their qualifications. But after the first landing, the seas became too rough, causing them to cancel the training. But the cancellation demonstrated all the more why landing on a moving seesaw takes practice and skill.
Black Hawk pilots can use that skill to stop off for refueling during long overseas hauls or to medevac a patient.
“It gives us operational flexibility,” said Capt. Daniel Rice, operations officer.
Navy helicopter pilots do it all the time, but the Black Hawk, configured differently from the Navy’s Sea Hawk, can topple more easily on a rolling deck.
“It’s not comparable to Army aviation at all,” Rice said.
The training gives the pilot and crew specific experience, but it helps in other ways as well.
A ship at sea has few features around it that would help helicopter crews gauge distance and depth, so deck landings help crew chiefs learn to “see” landings differently. The crew chiefs sit in the back and serve as the pilots’ eyes in the rear and side of the aircraft, so their visual acuity and depth perception is essential.
The experience can be applied to other reduced-visibility conditions, such as when operating with night-vision goggles or over desert sand, said crew chief Spc. Jeffrey York.
The training also helps teach the two services to work together.
“All the resources out there belong to someone else,” Rice said.
An operations officer from Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron (Light) 51 came to Zama from Naval Air Facility Atsugi to offer the Army pilots tips, such as to focus on the horizon, not the ship, to gauge how much the ship is moving.
The Navy also uses a crew on the deck to place chocks under the wheels and tie down the aircraft after a landing; in the Army, the crew chiefs jump out and do it themselves.
The deck landings allow crew chiefs to practice working with others and to use different procedures and hand and arm signals during landings.
“We are actually at the mercy of the deck crew,” York said. “This is certainly different.”
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=28642
Mon Apr 25, 2005 09:44 PM BST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. investigators have found that American troops who shot dead an Italian agent at a Baghdad checkpoint on March 4 committed no wrongdoing and will not be disciplined, an Army official said on Monday.
But Italy disagrees with key findings in the preliminary report by the U.S. military investigators and has balked at endorsing it, added the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. troops fatally shot the Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, when they opened fire on a car heading for Baghdad airport in which he was escorting Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a hostage who had just been released.
© Reuters 2005
Iraq group kidnaps 6 Sudanese drivers in Iraq - Web
25 Apr 2005 16:51:13 GMT
Source: Reuters
DUBAI, April 25 (Reuters) - Islamic militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it had abducted six Sudanese drivers working for U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a statement posted on the Internet on Monday.
Militants seized the six after they left a base west of Baghdad, said the statement, adding a video of the drivers would be released soon.
"Your mujahideen brothers were able to ambush Sudanese drivers who were transporting goods, supplies and weapons for American forces," the statement said.
The authenticity of the statement, posted on a Web site often used by Islamic militants, could not be verified.
The organisation, one of the main Sunni Muslim insurgent groups, has claimed responsibility for attacks against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government and killed several hostages.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25165707.htm
April 25, 2005 — Jordanian rebel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — Iraq's most wanted fugitive — recently eluded capture by American troops, but left behind a treasure trove of information, a senior military official told ABC News....(Excerpt)
AM - Saturday, 23 April , 2005 08:00:00
Again!!!
Mr Noorzai was named as one of the world's most wanted drug barons
US arrests 'Afghan heroin baron'
By Jeremy Cooke BBC News, New York
An Afghan man regarded by the US as one of the world's most wanted heroin traffickers has been arrested, American officials have announced. Federal prosecutors say the arrest of Bashir Noorzai on US territory will be a severe blow to the Afghan drug trade. A US federal indictment alleges Mr Noorzai has been at the centre of a multi-million dollar heroin operation.
He is expected to appear in a federal court charged with conspiring to import heroin worth $50m (£26m).
'Militant financier'
Last year, US President George Bush named Mr Noorzai as one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers.
Prosecutors allege that since 1990, he has been at the centre of a multi-million dollar heroin operation which controls poppy fields, drug laboratories and a trafficking operation based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US attorney, David Kelly, said the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had become aware that Mr Noorzai was planning to come to America and that it had "seized the opportunity and the individual".
The US authorities are giving no further details of the arrest. The Americans clearly regard this as a major breakthrough in their war on illegal drugs.
But they also believe that the arrest may have wider implications, claiming that Mr Noorzai had close links with the Taleban and had used drug money to supply Islamic militants with arms and explosives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.