Posted on 05/28/2005 7:50:42 PM PDT by TexKat
An Iraqi police officers holds up a rocket propelled grenade launcher discovered on a farm to the south of Dora along with a large cache of other weapons, at Dora police station in southern Baghdad in Iraq Saturday, May 28, 2005. Iraqi authorities are preparing to launch a massive security crackdown, involving more than 40,000 soldiers and policemen, in Baghdad to try root out insurgents responsible for a wave of violence. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
The U.S. Military Academy Class of 2005 celebrates with the traditional hat toss after being commissioned at the conclusion of graduation exercises May 28. Photo by Leslie Gordnier
PATRICK QUINN
BAGHDAD (AP) - Two of Iraq's most influential Shiite and Sunni organizations agreed Saturday to try to ease sectarian tensions pushing the country toward civil war as the government prepared to take its battle against the insurgency to Baghdad's streets.
The new effort to make peace came as attacks killed a U.S. soldier and at least 45 Iraqis over the past two days, including three suicide bombers and three men killed when a roadside bomb they planted exploded prematurely.
"We are all Muslims, and usually problems happen between one family. We want to solve them on the basis of Islamic brotherhood," said one Sunni official, Isam Al Rawi.
In an Internet message, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaida in Iraq on Saturday launched a tirade against Shiites, accusing them of targeting Islam and especially Sunni Muslims in what appeared to be an attempt to stoke hatreds and sectarian violence.
"There's no mosque or honour that has been violated or Muslim who has been insulted in Iraq without the help of the (Shiites)," said the statement, posted on an Islamic website.
It accused Iraq's majority Shiites of aiding "the Jews," apparently referring to U.S. troops and officials in Iraq. The mocking statement was allegedly posted by Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, a spokesman for the group. Its authenticity could not be verified.
The group purportedly claimed responsibility for twin suicide car bombings in Sinjar. The attacks, 120 kilometres northwest of Mosul city, killed seven Iraqis and injured another 38 at the entrance to an Iraqi military base, according to hospital officials.
Another al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, announced the death of a Japanese contractor it abducted earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police and army units prepared to launch a crackdown Sunday in Baghdad that will include helping cordon off the city and erecting hundreds of checkpoints in and around the capital, according to defence and security officials. More than 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, supported by U.S. troops, will deploy to the new checkpoints and later begin street-to-street sweeps.
They hope to catch or flush out the insurgents responsible for a wave of violence that has left more than 690 people dead since the country's new Shiite-led government was announced April 28, according to an Associated Press count.
In an effort to mitigate escalating sectarian tensions, officials from the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, considered close to some insurgent groups, met with representatives from the Badr Brigades, the military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Organized by the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the gathering aimed to smother accusations that began earlier this month when the association's leader, Harith al-Dhari, accused the Badr Brigades of killing Sunnis and executing their clerics. A number of Shiite clerics were also killed.
The brigades not only denied the charges, they accused the Sunni association of failing to condemn the insurgency and of trying to "push Iraq into a sectarian conflict."
Large portraits of the burly, black-bearded cleric al-Sadr adorned the walls inside the building, located in a narrow back alley in northern Baghdad's suburb of Kazimiyah, a Shiite stronghold.
"We overcame many obstacles. The two parties agreed to serving Iraq and to preserve its unity," al-Sadr official Abdul Hadi Al Daraji said.
He said another meeting would be held during the week and a national gathering would be called once the crisis between the two organizations was resolved.
Akihiko Saito, 44, a Japanese contractor, was among a group of five foreign workers - four of them earlier confirmed dead - who were ambushed in the Anbar province west of Baghdad.
Iraqi confirmation of Saito's death followed Friday's Internet release of a video showing the bloodied body of an Asian man, apparently Saito. An Ansar statement said he died after being wounded during clashes after the ambush.
More than 200 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq, and at least 30 killed.
A U.S. soldier died from wounds from a homemade bomb near Diyara, west of Baghdad, the military said Saturday. The soldier, who died Friday, was assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
As of Saturday, at least 1,655 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.
The Iraqi army captured two Iraqis on Saturday they suspect shot down an American helicopter and killed its two-man crew on Thursday near Buhriz, north of Baghdad, said Maj. Steven Warren of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
In Syria, the Arab League's secretary general, Amr Moussa, said the league was "ready to send advisers to help and offer assistance" to the 55-member Iraqi commission charged with drafting the new constitution.
Supporters of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez march to demand the United States extradite a Cuban militant wanted for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, March 28, 2005. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Venezuelans Demand Militant's Extradition
By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela - Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched through the capital Saturday demanding the United States extradite a Cuban militant wanted for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.
The protesters, supporters of President Hugo Chavez, accused President Bush of harboring the terror suspect Luis Posada Carriles and of a double standard in dealing with terrorists. Chavez is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration.
"Bush is protecting a terrorist while he is supposedly fighting against terrorism, that's hypocrisy," said Pedro Caldera, a 34-year-old who works at a government-organized farming project in a Caracas suburb.
The government-sponsored march came a day after U.S. authorities rejected Venezuela's request for the arrest of Posada as an initial step toward his eventual extradition.
Venezuela wants to try Posada, an ex- CIA operative, on murder charges for the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane that exploded after taking off from Barbados, killing 73 people. Posada is accused of plotting the attack while in Caracas and escaping from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 as prosecutors were preparing to appeal his acquittal.
The 77-year-old naturalized Venezuelan, who is a radical opponent of Cuba's Fidel Castro, has denied any link to the bombing.
U.S. officials have said they will not bow to pressure from Venezuela and that Caracas has yet to formally request Posada's extradition.
RIP Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Scott. Thank you for your service.
This undated photo provided by Melissa Scott shows Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Scott. Scott, 28, of Sun Prairie, Wis., died Friday, May 27, 2005, from injuries he suffered Thursday when his OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter was shot down in Buhriz in central Iraq, the department said. Scott was assigned to the Army's 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C., the military said. (AP Photo/Melissa Scott
Operation Lightning on the horizon
He's the terrorist mastermind with a $25m bounty on his head. Last week rumours swept Iraq that he had been gravely wounded. But no one's really sure where he is, or even who he is
Paul Harris Sunday May 29, 2005 The Observer
He is an American nightmare, an Islamic mass killer who haunts the national psyche. He has masterminded a bombing campaign in Iraq that has cost hundreds of innocent lives. He has a $25 million bounty on his head and is blamed for terrorist atrocities that span the globe. He is Abu Musab Zarqawi.
No single name emerging from the war on terror, perhaps not even Osama bin Laden himself, now dominates the headlines as much as Zarqawi. Certainly not in the past week. Accounts are confused, but it seems Zarqawi has been injured in Iraq. Perhaps he is even dead. Rumours have been flying across the internet and front pages. There have been hospital sightings, stories of a dying leader being smuggled across the border and the beginnings of a fight for a successor. No one knows what is true. Zarqawi has been pronounced dead before and always come back to the fight. Perhaps this time it will be different. Perhaps not (the latest rumours have him alive and back in control).
Only two things are certain. First, the one-time street thug from a Jordanian slum town is now America's number one target. Second, if he dies, the Iraqi insurgency will carry on without him. For Zarqawi did not create the war in Iraq. Rather, Iraq's war gave him his chance. Zarqawi's story is of a man who seized an opportunity to practise mayhem, honing his dreadful talent on the killing fields of the Sunni Triangle.
Zarqawi was put up by America as a terrorist bogeyman long before he had the profile to justify it. Much of the world first heard his name in Colin Powell's speech to the UN when he was used to link al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Zarqawi was held up as key to making the case for America's invasion of Iraq. Ever since, in his own blood-stained way, he has been making the case against.
Yet Zarqawi remains a shadowy figure. Even his name is not real. His nom de guerre is simply a homage to his home town of Zarqa, a poor town about half-an-hour's drive from Amman. His real name is the more wordy Ahmad Fadeel Nazal Khalayleh. He was born in 1966, possibly on 20 October, to a father who was a retired Jordanian army officer. Their house was a two-storey concrete construction overlooking the chimneys of a city dubbed Jordan's Detroit for its car industry (and its crime). Like so much of Zarqawi's life, a close examination sees certainty evaporate. No wonder US Marines scouring Fallujah or Ramadi cannot find him. Many of his fellow Islamists see him as a ghost-like figure, always eluding the net. In trying to piece together his life, they sometimes seem to have a point.
When Powell first described Zarqawi, he said he was of Palestinian origin. It is a mistake often repeated. But those trying to explain Zarqawi's blood lust by using the Palestinian tragedy are scouring the wrong ground. In fact his family belong to the Beni Hassan tribe of Bedouin, a long-established Jordanian group that is usually loyal to Jordan's ruling monarch.
Nothing in his childhood hinted at what he was going to become. His father died in 1984, leaving the large family to struggle on a meagre army pension. Zarqawi quickly became a tearaway. He spent his time scrapping and playing football in Zarqa's dusty streets and surprised no one by dropping out of school aged 17.
He drifted into casual crime as an enforcer and general-purpose thug. At some time, he was imprisoned for sexual assault. On the streets, he learnt the art of violence. It was a lesson he learnt well and used to dramatic effect when he hacked off the head of American engineer Nick Berg in the first terrorist 'snuff video' to emerge from Iraq.
Indeed, much of his violence has a street crime feel to it. It is brutal, direct, unflinching and unthinking. Not for Zarqawi the press interviews with Westerners that bin Laden once gave. Not for Zarqawi the pampered Saudi childhood. Not for Zarqawi the meandering meditations on Islamic theory as a justification for murder. If Zarqawi and his network are eclipsing bin Laden and al-Qaeda, as some terrorist experts believe, then it is a form of terrorism that betrays its roots in Zarqa's brutish underworld, not some austere Arabian seminary.
Zarqawi's criminal career exposed him to Jordan's Palestinian refugee camps. Wallowing in crime, the camps also suffered from a different affliction: radical Islam. At some stage, Zarqawi the thug began to change into Zarqawi the militant. It was an unexpected transformation. Even his family were surprised when, after marrying a maternal cousin, he suddenly moved to Afghanistan in 1989. Zarqawi hoped to fight the Russians, but he was too late - they were leaving. Instead, he ended up as a reporter of an Islamist newsletter, interviewing veterans of the war and listening to tales of Jihadist glory.
While working in Peshawar, Zarqawi met Mohammed Maqdisi, a Jordanian preacher of the radical Salafist sect. Zarqawi's militancy began to evolve. Like everything Zarqawi did, whether violence or belief, he took it to extremes. He returned with Maqdisi to Jordan and they spoke out against the government and hoarded arms. Soon, they were in jail, with Zarqawi catching a 15-year sentence.
But prison, as is so often the case, honed Zarqawi's beliefs. He and Maqdisi became the focal point of Islamic inmates. Zarqawi fashioned blankets over his iron bunk bed to create a sort of 'cave' where he would read the Koran endlessly. He forbade other prisoners to read anything else. He had his un-Islamic tattoos removed (shedding the last reminders of his old street life).
He meted out violent punishments to those who disobeyed him. 'Either you were with them [Zarqawi and Maqdisi] or you were an enemy. There was no grey area,' recalled Youssef Rababa'a, who spent three years in the same jail.
Zarqawi's story should have ended behind bars. But, in a sweeping amnesty in 1999, he was released. It was a catastrophic mistake. Some associates have described him wanting to buy a truck and open a vegetable stall but being prevented from doing so by the attentions of Jordan's security forces. More likely, he simply carried on his radical activities. Either way (after apparently helping to plot an attack on a Western hotel in Amman), Zarqawi fled to Afghanistan and took his mother, believing the mountain air would be good for her leukemia.
He entered the network of terror camps set up by bin Laden and hosted by the Taliban, but Zarqawi did not join al-Qaeda. Instead, he used their contacts and money to set up his own camp, near Herat, and his own organisation called Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War). The group specialised in smuggling Islamic militants. That experience would prove vital in allowing Zarqawi to recruit foreign fighters into Iraq after Saddam's fall. It would allow him to assume a role as their leader, bringing them over, giving them support, sending them on suicide missions. It would give him a chance to lead his own war after missing out in Afghanistan.
That chance came in Iraq. 'Iraq gave him a tremendous platform,' said Matthew Levitt, director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. But Zarqawi's arrival in Iraq was by accident, not design. As the Americans overthrew the Taliban, Zarqawi fled to Iran. American pressure soon forced him to move again. He ended up in the mountains of northern Iraq with a group of Kurdish Islamic guerrillas called Ansar Islam. Hostile to both Saddam and the West, the small band of fighters had been largely ignored by the world.
Because they were Islamic militants based in Iraq, even though not in an area controlled by Baghdad, and linked, however tangentially, to bin Laden, the Americans felt more confident about trusting unsubstantiated material from dubious sources that alleged a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Powell used it to the full, pushing Zarqawi as a terrorist supremo and claiming he was developing chemical weapons at the Ansar camp. We know now there was no such link and that the chemical weapons programme was amateurish.
From that time on, he was a huge figure in the subsequent invasion and insurgency. He stoked the chaos of the war to bring Iraq and America to where they are now, trapped in a cycle of violence. His seemingly never-ending supply of suicide bombers wreaks havoc. The flow of militants his network smuggles in has never dried up. Often, the targets are simply Shias, whom Zarqawi's unbendingly blind faith views as apostates and traitors.
He uses all his street fighting tricks to stay ahead of the game. He is rumoured never to sleep for long in the same place; he uses a cell-phone once before throwing it away; he rarely sees his family.
He and his network have now been linked to many terrorist atrocities across the world, including the train attacks in Madrid and the assasination of American diplomat Laurence Foley. Some accusations are probably true, others not. Zarqawi has become a catch-all villain for many aspects of the war on terror, especially as the hunt for him intensifies and the search for bin Laden wanes.
What is in little doubt is his dreadful legacy: the ongoing war. When his mother died this year, a family friend told reporters her last desire was that her son would perish in battle and not be captured by Americans. If Zarqawi is indeed dead, then she now has her wish.
But Zarqawi will have his, too. 'When he dies, the situation in Iraq will most likely remain the same,' said Levitt. The problem for the Americans (and for the world) is that his masterpiece of terror in Iraq has been all too successful. It will live long after him. The bombs will not stop.
Abu Musab Zarqawi
DoB: 20 October 1966 (probably) in Zarqa, Jordan (probably)
Real name: Fadeel Nazal Khalayeh
Education: On the streets of Zarqa, in Palestinian refugee camps, and in prison
Job: Leader of Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War)
Bump!!
What I want to know is, do yjey all have to find the same hats or are they interchangeable?
A perfect STRIKE ;)
BUMP!
Letters from Iraq's former deputy PM Tariq Aziz insist he is innocent and claim he is being held illegally.
Antony Barnett - The Observer
Sunday May 29, 2005
He was the urbane, English-speaking deputy to Saddam Hussein, the bespectacled face of the former Iraqi dictator's regime, at home on the international stage.
Yet nothing had been heard or seen from Tariq Aziz since he surrendered to US forces on 24 April, 2003, as Iraq crumbled around him.
Today The Observer publishes several letters from the former cigar-smoking Deputy Prime Minister handwritten from Camp Cropper prison in Baghdad. Aziz scribbled these notes on pages from his lawyer's diary who was with him when he was questioned recently by the CIA and US politicians.
Two are in Arabic, the other three in English and addressed to: 'The world public opinion.' Aziz pleads for international help to end his 'dire situation'. He claims he is innocent and is being held unjustly without being allowed contact with his family. One letter reveals questions he had been asked about which politicians benefited from the controversial UN oil-for-food programme.
Although Aziz supporters claim he is a 'political prisoner' who did his best to restrain Saddam, his opponents have little sympathy. They describe him as the dictator's henchman who also bears personal responsibility for crimes committed by the Baathist regime, such as the gassing of Kurds at Halabja.
Aziz's letters are another remarkable snapshot into how Iraqi's former political elite are being held. This month the Sun published photographs of Saddam in his underpants in his Camp Cropper cell and The Observer revealed how prisoners are kept mostly in solitary confinement in tiny cells with no natural daylight.
The most recent letters by Aziz were written on 21 April, when he was being interviewed by US senators investigating allegations of corruption surrounding the oil-for-food programme, which allowed Saddam to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods and services.
Writing in Arabic, Aziz says: 'We are totally isolated from the world. There are 13 other detainees here, but we have no meetings or telephone contacts wth our families. I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place. It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment. It is totally in contradiction to international law, the Geneva Convention and Iraqi law as we know it.'
In a letter dated 7 March and written in English, Aziz states: 'We hope that you will help us. We have been in prison for a long time and we have been cut from our families. No contacts, no phones, no letters. Even the parcels sent to us by our families are not given to us. We need a fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally a fair trial. Please help us.'
In another letter, written in Arabic and English, he says: 'I haven't been accused of anything,' and 'I have not done anything contrary to law and human behaviour.'
Speaking from Jordan, his son, Ziad Aziz, who was jailed by Saddam, has defended his father's role as the former dictator's deputy, claiming that he was only following orders and would have been killed if he disagreed. 'My father is now in poor health and should be brought to trial or relased,' he added.
Aziz - the only Christian in Saddam's government - was 43rd in the US 'most wanted' set of 55 playing cards and not considered to be a member of the innermost circle, dominated by the Tikriti clan.
However, according to Indict, the committee seeking to prosecute the Iraqi leadership, he was a member of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council and is therefore complicit in genocide and war crimes against Iran, Kuwait and his own Iraqi people.
An Iraqi tribunal has also implicated him in the 1988 gas attack on Kurds in Halabja. There have been unsubstantiated reports that Aziz will be a star witness in any trial of Saddam, providing crucial evidence that Saddam was personally responsible for war crimes.
One of Aziz's roles was as the principal contact for foreign individuals involved in the oil-for-food programme which has been dogged by allegations of corruption. Saddam offered favoured people allocations of oil which they could sell for huge profits. In return, the former Iraqi leader took illegal kickbacks that helped fund his regime.
In a note scribbled on his lawyer's diary, Aziz says: 'I was asked if I had recommended giving money or oil to President Chirac [of France], or Petros Gali [former UN general secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali], Ekius [UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus]. My answer is NO. The same to President Megawati [Sukarnoputri of Indonesia]. NO.'
Chirac, Boutros-Ghali and Megawati have previously strenuously denied receiving any oil allocations. Ekeus, the Swede who led the UN's efforts to track down WMD from 1991 to 1997, has claimed he was offered a $2 million bribe from Aziz to doctor his reports, but turned it down.
29.5.2005. 10:59:49
Pakistani troops claim they have defeated 600 al-Qaeda linked militants based in the southern Waziristan tribal region.
Regional commander Major General Niaz Khattak said al-Qaeda fighters had either been killed, captured or driven out.
He said he had seen no trace of fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden during the operation.
Troops were now focusing on developing infrastructure as well as medical and educational facilities.
General Khattak said his forces had killed 306 militants and arrested 700 others since the start of military operations in the area more than a year ago.
Meanwhile, security forces were on alert for reprisal attacks after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Shiite Muslims on Friday, killing at least 19 people and wounding nearly 100 others.
The government has ordered tighter security across the country- particularly at mosques and other places of worship following the explosion at the Bari Imam shrine near Islamabad.
Most of the victims of the blast were members of the minority Shiite community, triggering concerns over a new round of sectarian violence.
By Paul Adams - BBC chief diplomatic correspondent
Saturday, 28 May, 2005
When the US withdraws many of its troops from Afghanistan in 2006, Nato forces will take over in areas of the country where they can expect far tougher challenges than they face at the moment. Paul Adams spent a week with a Nato general to get a closer look at the problems that may lie ahead.
The Nato force is drawn from more than 30 countries
The general leaned forward and peered out of the cockpit of his Hercules, his gaze resting on the endless, rolling ridges of dun-coloured hills.
As he looked at this apparently desolate landscape, I wondered what thoughts were going through his mind.
General Gerhard Back - former fighter pilot and head of the German air force - is the man with operational control of Nato's presence in Afghanistan.
That presence, limited to a few thousand troops in a handful of locations, is now expanding. And with expansion comes responsibility and danger.
It was a big step for Nato to come here at all. But the coming months will test the resolve of an organisation that has a hard time living up to its own expectations.
After visiting Kabul, where Nato first got its boots on the ground, and Herat in the west, where Italian and Spanish troops are only just settling in, our journey took us to Kandahar, close to the front line in Washington's so-called war on terror.
It is a huge, dusty base which sprawls across the southern plain, a short helicopter ride away from the caves that perforate the mountains along the Pakistani border.
It is from here that the United States supports its combat troops in their forward operating bases.
Finishing the job
And while we in Britain do not seem to hear much about this war any more, let me tell you that the skies above Kandahar are alive with men and machines, attempting to finish what they came here to do.
Great lumbering C-17 transport planes fly in direct from Germany, carrying all manner of equipment.
The air reverberates to the sound of helicopters. And everywhere soldiers and civilian contractors tramp about in wraparound shades, getting on with their business. Which is, in short, to destroy what is left of the Taleban.
And they think they are winning.
Since the end of a particularly harsh winter, the Americans have been going after their opponents with renewed vigour, hoping to finish them off once and for all.
"They're showing their teeth and we're showing ours," an attack pilot, Alexander Swyryn, told me.
And the result? By the end of the summer, he said, almost diffidently, most of them would be either killed or captured.
It is easy to talk, of course, but all over the base I sensed that the Americans really believe they are reaching the end.
Ghostly planes
As we toured the facilities, General Back's eye was caught by the strange spectacle of a fleet of ghostly unmanned planes known as Predators.
Up to 800 Predators are said to be operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are flimsy, improbable machines that can monitor the ground by day and by night, eavesdrop on phone calls, fire missiles and stay aloft for almost 24 hours.
Oh, and they are piloted by someone sitting more than 7,500 miles away in Nevada. A useful bit of kit if you're looking for an enemy in the remote, rocky mountains of Afghanistan.
The general was clearly wondering whether he could have some and fell into conversation with a burly, moustachioed contractor who seemed only too happy to oblige.
He had the polished patter of the best used car salesmen but, as the conversation strayed into matters of capability and contracts, he and the general drifted away.
This was not for our ears. It was sensitive stuff.
Lying low
As the Americans reduce their presence in Afghanistan next year, handing over more and more of their combat responsibilities to Nato, they will inevitably take a lot of their favourite toys with them.
Nato does not have the same kinds of capabilities.
And since this is hardly a secret, it seems reasonable to assume that any Taleban fighters left after this new offensive may choose to lie low and bide their time; wait for an altogether less intimidating opponent to take the field.
General Back told me he was confident. In spending millions of dollars on the Kandahar base, he said, the Americans had prepared a nice nest for Nato.
But he did not tell me whether he had done a deal on the Predators.
The burly contractor did not let on either but, when he told me what they could do, I almost felt he was trying to flog me one.
This man was not just a salesman, he was an evangelist.
"They help us all," he said, as he put his fleet of strange machines to bed in their hangar. "They help us all in the free world."
Difficult discussions
After three days of criss-crossing the country, General Back headed home to his Nato headquarters in the Netherlands.
Difficult months of discussion lie ahead.
Will Nato members be willing to change their rules of engagement to allow them to fight the way the Americans have?
Will the perennial problem of so-called "national caveats" prevent some countries from getting involved in dirtier, more dangerous work?
Germany, for one, will not send troops to the south. Britain is among a handful of countries that will.
And will the alliance be able to stump up the troops and equipment needed for such an enlarged undertaking?
Lots of questions for General Back to ponder as the battle-scarred landscape of Afghanistan slid away beneath us.
Lol!!
DUBAI (AFP) - A Japanese hostage held in Iraq died from wounds he received after opening fire on his captors who had not intended to kill him, the militant Sunni group which kidnapped him said in an Internet message.
Relatives and officials confirmed Saturday that a man shown in a video released by the Islamic militants in Iraq was missing Japanese security contractor Akihiko Saito, but could not verify the fighters' claim he was dead.
The Army of Ansar al-Sunna group posted on its website Saturday a video of what it said was the body of Saito, a 44-year-old former Japanese soldier taken hostage in Iraq about 20 days ago.
A four-minute video message on its Arabic website showed the man's back covered in blood and a picture of his passport.
The group, linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network, said Saito died as a result of injuries incurred during his capture in Iraq on May 8. It warned people against working with US troops.
Captured during an ambush on his convoy, Saito had fired a weapon at one of the mujahadeen fighters guarding him, "without hitting his target," the group said in a message on the website.
"The brother (mujahadeen) responded, firing several shots, wounding him but not killing him," the message continued.
After being moved "to a safe place" upon the arrival of US troops at the ambush site, Saito "was found dead following haemorrhaging," the group said.
"As god is a witness, we had intended to look after him and keep him alive to show the world an example of Japanese soldiers operating in Iraq while claiming to serve friendly forces," the group said in its statement, signed by the "military committee" and dated Saturday.
The statement did not explain why it had taken three weeks to announce the death of the hostage.
In Tokyo the Japanese government said while it had "no choice" but to believe that the man in the video was Saito, it could not confirm he was dead.
After watching the video, a younger brother of Saito also confirmed that the man shown in it was the former paratrooper and French legionnaire, who had been missing since a convoy he was accompanying was ambushed on May 8.
"I have confirmed it was my brother by watching the video on my personal computer. I have conveyed this to the police and the foreign ministry," Saito's brother Hironobu, 34, said.
"The image was so cruel that I didn't want to show it to my father and another brother."
Saito had been employed by the British private security firm Hart to assist US-led military operations in Iraq. He joined the firm last December after serving for 21 years in the French Foreign Legion following two years in the Japanese ground force with an elite paratroopers unit.
He was not linked to the 600 Japanese troops who are on a reconstruction mission in southern Iraq in the first deployment since World War II of Japanese forces to a country at war.
Five Japanese, including two diplomats and two freelance journalists, have been killed in Iraq since the US-led war launched in March 2003. Five others were kidnapped but later released.
Iraq's deputy minister for internal security Abdel Karim al-Anzi condemned Saito's "murder" but stressed that relations with Tokyo would weather the act.
"We condemn this assassination and this criminal act will not affect Iraqi-Japanese diplomatic relations," he said in a statement on Saturday.
He said "efforts had been made to free him (Saito) but his murder took place before they produced results."
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