Posted on 06/07/2005 6:20:16 PM PDT by TexKat
US destroys rebels bunkers
By Christopher Drew and Tresha Mabile The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2005
A chain of evidence that investigators believe will help convict Saddam Hussein begins at a wind-swept grave in the desert near Hatra, in northern Iraq.
The burial site - a series of deep trenches that held about 2,500 bodies, many of them women and children - is one of many mass graves that dot the country. But it was the first one excavated by an American investigative team working with a special Iraqi tribunal to build legal cases against Saddam and others in his government.
A senior Iraqi court official has said the tribunal is planning to start the first trial of Saddam by late summer or early fall in a case that focuses on the killings of nearly 160 men from Dujail, a Shiite village north of Baghdad, after the former dictator survived an assassination attempt there.
But American legal advisers say the Hatra grave holds a key to what is likely to be one of the broadest charges against Saddam - that he is responsible for the killing of as many as 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s, some in chemical weapons attacks. They say those charges could be filed later this year, and Iraqi officials said last weekend that there would be 12 separate cases against Saddam and others. Each would require a separate trial, and multiple convictions could mean multiple death sentences for any defendant.
According to Gregory Kehoe, the American who set up the investigative team, what was found at Hatra shows how the Hussein leadership made a "business of killing people" - the scrape marks from the blade of a bulldozer that shoved victims into the trench, the point-blank shots to the backs of even the babies' heads, the withered body of a 3- or 4-year-old boy, still clutching a red and white ball.
Much rests on the prosecutions of Saddam and his lieutenants - for Iraqis seeking a reckoning and for the Bush administration, which hopes the trials and the Iraqi-American partnership will help vindicate its involvement in Iraq and serve as a model of justice and democracy in the Arab world.
Yet in the 18 months since Saddam's capture, questions have been raised from several quarters about whether the process can produce a fair trial. Not only has Saddam challenged the tribunal's legitimacy, mocking an Iraqi judge for "applying the invaders' laws to try me," but also the United Nations and most European countries have refused to help, partly out of opposition to the death penalty. Human-rights advocates have questioned whether the tribunal's standards for finding guilt will be high enough to link Saddam justly to the killings.
In their first extensive interviews, with The New York Times and the Discovery Times Channel in the United States, Kehoe, the top American adviser to the tribunal from March 2004 until this spring, and other investigators provided a detailed look at how the cases were being built.
Tue Jun 7, 2005 9:12 PM ET
By JoAnne Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Tuesday urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do more to stop Kurdish militants he said were crossing the border with Iraq to carry out attacks in Turkey.
Gul raised the issue in a meeting with Rice one day before Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan meets President Bush.
Speaking to Turkish reporters after his meeting with Rice, Gul said terrorism in Turkey was a matter that needed to be urgently addressed.
"There is leakage from Iraq, and a noticeable increase in attacks on our troops by PKK terrorists utilizing remote controlled bombs and mines. We cannot ignore this, and I expressed that the U.S. needs to be more decisive in this struggle," said Gul.
The Turkish military said last month that guerrillas of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were stepping up attacks in Turkey after a large number of them were detected smuggling in explosives from northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
More than 30,000 people, mainly Kurds, have been killed since 1984 when the PKK launched its armed campaign for an independent homeland in southeastern Turkey.
Erdogan was expected to repeat Turkish calls to Bush for U.S. forces to crack down on Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and to try to improve battered relations with the United States. Ankara angered Washington by refusing to back its war in neighboring Iraq.
© Reuters 2005
From correspondents in Dubai
07jun05
IRAQ militants have threatened to kill a Turkish hostage unless Turkey agrees to end cooperation with the US military within four days.
In a statement to Dubai television accompanied by video footage of the businessman they said they were holding, the militants warned they would kill him and two companions "unless the Turkish authorities cease all forms of logistical support to the US military as well as cooperation with US firms doing business in Iraq".
Seated on the ground in front of a banner bearing the name of the group - the Ali bin Abi Taleb Brigades - and flanked by two gunmen, the hostage held up a passport which Dubai television said bore the name Ali Abdullah.
On May 24, Turkey's Anatolia news agency said a Turkish national named Ali Musluoglu, 48, had been seized by militants demanding that his building materials firm cease its Iraq operations.
Turks have frequently fallen victim to the persistent violence in Iraq. Around 90 have been killed in recent months, most of them truck drivers caught in ambushes.
Wednesday June 8, 2005
Islamist insurgents have turned the aftermath of the war in Iraq into a seemingly endless holy war, and are still pouring into the country to fight the 'American devil'. En route, many of them pass through Syria. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visits the ancient city of Aleppo and hears one jihadi's story
Aleppo, Syria. Ten brothers were sitting in the courtyard of their house in one of Aleppo's myriad lanes, with a plastic bag full of small pieces of paper, from which they drew lots. Five of them would stay in Syria and look after all 10 families. The others, the winning five, would enjoy the ultimate prize: a jihadi trip to Baghdad. It was March 2003, the Americans had just started bombing Baghdad and, like the 10 brothers, hundreds of young men were eagerly making their way in cramped buses towards the Iraqi border. Most of them were Syrians, but there were many, too, from other Arab and Muslim nations, all driven by a religious fervour fuelled by the cries of jihad from Muslim scholars.
"Each neighbourhood [of Aleppo] started sending buses loaded with mujahideen into Iraq," says Abu Ibrahim, the second eldest of the 10 brothers, describing those early days of the war. "If someone was unable to go, he would support the jihad by giving his money."
The call to jihad was openly encouraged by the Syrian government, says Abu Ibrahim (a nom de guerre); it also arranged for buses to ferry fighters, speeded up the issuing of documentation and even gave prospective jihadis a discount on passport fees. Meanwhile, the Syrian media were banging the drum for jihad. (The US has repeatedly accused Syria of involvement in terrorism in Iraq; the Syrian government vehemently denies this.) Eyewitnesses recall Syrian border police waving to the jihadi buses as they crossed into Iraq. From the Grand Mufti of Syria, a man known for his religious tolerance for more than 50 years but who issued a fatwa legitimising suicide bombing just before the outbreak of the Iraq war, to a 16-year-old Christian boy from Damascus whom Abu Ibrahim remembers volunteering to fight alongside radical Muslims in Iraq, much of Syria was galvanised to resist the American invasion next door.
Abu Ibrahim, the most radical of his family, was not one of the lucky five of his brothers and had to stay in Syria, which did not go down well with his Bedouin wife. "My wife accused me of being a coward. She accused me of being happy that I didn't have to go."
But a few months later, he and a group of Syrian and Saudi jihadis crossed the border just as the Iraqi insurgency was getting into full swing. Fifty fighters went in total, Abu Ibrahim says now, but after a few months he returned to Syria with three others - the only surviving members of the group.
***
Two years after Syria first encouraged resistance to American troops in Iraq, the country claims to have cracked down on Islamic networks and cross-border activity. But many of these claims have fallen short of expectations, a fact that regional analysts attribute to two different factors. The first is that Syria is dominated by many and sometimes competing security apparatuses, which often behave quasi-independently, according to the leadership and specific agenda of each. The second is that while the Syrians, publicly at least, have considerably reduced the amount of support given to the insurgents and have put hundreds in jail, they are happy to keep the jihadi networks alive for a day when they might be useful again.
Abu Ibrahim was born in 1973 in a village north of Aleppo, close to the Turkish border. His father was a Sufi, a member of a mystical Islamic sect that is reviled by some ultra-conservative Muslims, but Abu Ibrahim never shared his father's tolerant views. "I was born to be a Salafi!" he says, referring to the fundamentalist Sunni school of Islam also called Wahhabism. "Even when I was a child of 10, I would refuse to shake the hands of the Sufi sheikhs who visited my father."
Abu Ibrahim's face is lined from time spent in Syrian and Saudi prisons. He looks older than his years, and has a short, scrubby beard, his larger beard having been shaved off by Syrian security officers during one of his detentions. (My conversations with Abu Ibrahim were conducted under extremely close monitoring by the Syrian security services.) He is small and slight, but says he can fight five men alone. He keeps repeating that pride and honour are the most important things in life.
Abu Ibrahim is furious at American imperialism, outraged by Palestine, repelled by the secular Syrian regime. He is angry, as many Arab young men are, and like many of his generation, has grown to see the holy war of jihad championed by Osama bin Laden as the only way to salvation.
Abu Ibrahim's goal is to re-establish the Islamic caliphate, and he sees the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of the Prophet. He thinks the Qur'an is "a constitution, a law to govern the world". His views are severe, narrowly defined and impractical. But it is important to understand his anger and his contradictions, because Abu Ibrahim is as close to al-Qaida as it is possible to get.
***
At the age of 22, Abu Ibrahim's rebellious ideas against his father's Sufism were nurtured by a group of radical Salafis who flourished in the villages around Aleppo, in Syria's Sunni heartland. "I met a group of young men through my wife's family who spoke to me the true words of Islam; they told me Sufism was forbidden and that the Shia are infidels."
A year later, he decided to go to Saudi Arabia, taking some of Aleppo's famous textiles from his family's workshop and trading them in Riyadh. His seven years in Riyadh were prosperous ones; at times he was sending home $12,000 a month. But while he was there, he also met other young men with whom he started learning the Qur'an. "God provided for us," he says. "We were banned from preaching publicly. We read the mother of all books and then we started to know the truth. Everything was done in people's homes."
Young Saudis, he felt, were educated and worldly and they had what he considered a better understanding of the truth. But he also saw that they had the money and resources to put into practice what they were talking about. "When they went to fight in Afghanistan, they got a government salary, and they also had the resources to fight in Chechnya, the Balkans and now in Iraq."
In 1999 Abu Qaqaa, a charismatic Syrian religious sheikh, was preaching a radical version of Islam in Aleppo. In Saudi Arabia, Abu Ibrahim heard about the sheikh, who wore a salwar kameez, a relic of his time spent with Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan, and was impressed. "We were Wahhabis. Abu Qaqaa was preaching what we believed in. There he was saying these things: people with beards, come together. I was so impressed."
Returning to Aleppo, he became Abu Qaqaa's right-hand man. While in Saudi Arabia, Abu Ibrahim had been given training in video montage and digital photography at a private Saudi production company that specialised in the dissemination of radical Islamic propaganda. Now he helped to tape and copy Abu Qaqaa's sermons and to distribute CDs. They would travel to Damascus and to Saudi Arabia together. By 2001, Abu Qaqaa had attracted about 1,000 young men to his cause, though everything at this stage was underground and secret. "No one knew about us. But September 11 gave us the media coverage. It was a great day. America was defeated. We knew they would target either Syria or Iraq and we took a vow that if something happened to either countries, we would fight."
Two weeks after September 11 they decided to have a celebration. They called it "the Festival of America the Wounded Wolf". They made a video of martial arts fighting, including hand-to-hand combat and training exercises in which they jumped off 8m-high walls. During this time, Abu Qaqaa was arrested by the Syrian authorities, but was released within hours. "We thought, 'Oh, how strong our sheikh is that they do not touch us,' " Abu Ibrahim remembers. "How stupid we were."
By 2002 they were organising anti-American "festivals" twice a week. Food and CDs of sermons were distributed freely and the group, now calling itself "the Strangers of Cham [the Levant]", grew more popular. One festival was called "the people of Cham will now defeat the Jews and kill them all".
"Officials used to come to these festivals, security chiefs, advisers to the Syrian president. We had Palestinian flags and scarves saying, 'Down America'. It was very well organised - we tried to inspire young men and encourage them. We even had a website." The group grew bigger and stronger, its reputation and CDs reached other Arab countries, and young men from Ramadi, Salahuddin and Mosul provinces in Iraq came to seek them out. Meanwhile, money started pouring in from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
Abu Ibrahim and his friends were tough, and created a phalanx cadre around Abu Qaqaa. They would raid houses and throw people out of their beds if they heard that they had said bad things about him. "We were exactly like the Amen [the state security services]," he says. "Everyone knew us. We all had big beards. We became thugs."
But slowly they began to suspect that their charismatic leader was a stooge for the state security and had long been an agent for them. "In the 80s, thousands of Muslim men died in Syria for much less than we were saying. We asked the sheikh why we weren't being arrested. He would tell us it was because we weren't saying anything against the government, that we were focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel."
Their suspicions hardened when they discovered that Abu Qaqaa had provided the state security with a list of all the Wahhabis in Syria. They had begun to split from him and were thinking of taking their revenge when the Americans invaded Iraq.
With the beginning of the Iraq war came the jihad frenzy, and the busloads of mujahideen. Saddam's government considered them manna from heaven; as the Americans rapidly advanced, they branded them Arab Saddam Fedayeen, and gave them weapons and basic training. But when Baghdad fell, the stories the Syrians brought home were bad. Often the Iraqis shot at them or handed them over to the Americans.
Abu Ibrahim, who had his own group of jihadis and was actively ferrying people across the border during this time, said that his Iraqi contacts "asked us to stop sending people, they said, 'There are Shia everywhere, Americans,' and they couldn't do anything." According to Abu Ibrahim and other sources in the insurgency, the quick American invasion of Baghdad and the collapse of the Iraqi army shocked the religious leaders and a debate started as to whether they should start a jihad against the Americans or whether this would only bring Saddam back to power, an option that was as bad for the Islamists as the US occupation.
But the Syrian authorities didn't want cross-border traffic in fighters to stop. The security services pressured them to keep sending people. "Why were they so keen for us to go and fight in Iraq?" asks Abu Ibrahim. "So we would die there?"
***
In the summer of 2003, the insurgency in Iraq began to organise itself and there was a further call for men. Places to stay and a network of routes, weapons and safe houses had been established. "We had specific meeting places for Iraqi smugglers. They wouldn't do the trip if we had less than 15 fighters. We would drive across the border and then into villages on the Iraqi side; and from there the Iraqi contacts would take the mujahideen to training camps." Syrian recruits could usually skip the training given to others, as every young Syrian man has to do two years of military service."It is mostly the Saudis who need the training," says Abu Ibrahim.
The main bulk of the insurgency at that time was led and organised by Iraqis who functioned in cells, often with no coordination. They focused mainly on ambushes and IED (improvised explosive device) attacks. "Our brothers in Iraq worked in small groups. In each area men would come together organised by religious leaders or tribal sheikhs and would attack the Americans. It was often us who brought them all together, when we met them in Syria or in Iraq. We would tell them, 'But there is another brother who is doing the same thing - why don't you coordinate together?' Syria became the hub.
"Young men are fighting with zeal and passion, there are Saudi officers, Syrians, Iraqis, but not those who fought for Saddam. The man who is leading it for the most part", says Abu Ibrahim, "is Zarqawi."
The emergence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the big breakthrough for the insurgency, especially after he was endorsed by Bin Laden late last year. Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born radical Islamist, then changed the name of his disparate group of insurgents to al-Qaida of Jihad in Mesopotamia, and funds started pouring in from Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, many different factions of the insurgency placed themselves under Zarqawi's banner and a joint treasury of jihad, called Bayt al-Mal, was founded.
"Until six months ago, Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden were different: Osama did not legitimise the killing of Shia. Zarqawi did that. Six months ago, Zarqawi gave the beyaa [allegiance] to Bin Laden. Anyone, Christian Jew, Sunni, Shia, who cooperates with the Americans, can be killed. It's a holy war." (Our conversation took place before Zarqawi was supposedly injured near Ramadi last month.)
By January 2004, Syria was coming under increasing pressure from the US to halt the jihadi traffic into Iraq. Jihadi cell leaders in Syria were summoned to Amen [internal security] headquarters and told that it could not continue. Passports were confiscated; some were detained for a few days.
It may not be terribly significant in halting the violence, however. According to Abu Ibrahim, insurgents in Iraq are not presently in need of fighters, but funds - which usually come from wealthy Saudi young men.
"Our brothers in Iraq are asking for Saudis. The Saudis go with enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers. A week ago we sent a Saudi to the jihad; he went with 100,000 Saudi riyals [$27,000]. There was a celebration among his brothers there!"
Four weeks ago, US troops in Iraq launched an operation just inside the border with Syria, aimed at disrupting the route of foreign fighters; the US army claimed that 100 fighters were killed. Abu Ibrahim is unmoved to learn of the assault. "They think jihad will stop if they kill hundreds of us in Iraq. They don't know what they are facing. Every day, more and more young men from around the Muslim world are awaking and coming to the jihad. Now the Americans are facing thousands, but one day soon they will have to face whole nations."
Iraq said it would bring only 12 charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam Hussein (pictured) although there were more than 500 possible cases against the ousted dictator. [AFP/file]
No date set for Saddam trial; Bombs kill 19
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-08 09:25
BAGHDAD - Iraq's government backed away on Tuesday from suggestions that Saddam Hussein would be tried within weeks, admitting it was up to an independent special tribunal to decide when he appears in court.
Suicide bombers struck across Iraq, with blasts near the northern city of Kirkuk killing at least 19 people and wounding dozens, the latest in a series of suicide attacks that have killed hundreds since late April. A mortar attack west of Baghdad killed three more Iraqis, the U.S. military said.
Iraq's president and the prime minister's spokesman had said in the last week that Saddam could go on trial within two months, popular announcements apparently designed to show Iraqis that progress was being made in bringing him to justice.
But the Special Tribunal, set up in late 2003 to try senior members of the former regime, issued a statement saying no date had been set, and the prime minister's spokesman conceded on Tuesday that any decision was up to the tribunal.
"A fixed date has not been presented," Laith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told reporters.
"(The Special Tribunal) assured me that they have a media official and they wish that information is given by them directly. I refer you to the spokesman for the tribunal."
A tribunal spokesman also denied a decision had been made to focus on just a dozen of the crimes of which Saddam is accused, as Kubba said on Monday, to bring him to trial more quickly.
Since Saddam was taken into custody in December 2003, Iraqi authorities have been under growing pressure to bring him and his senior lieutenants to justice.
An Iraqi National guard soldier leads arrested suspects during Operation Lightning in Baghdad June 7, 2005. Car bombers struck in Baghdad and northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 40, the latest attacks in a surge of suicide bombings that have killed hundreds since late April. [Reuters]
The government hopes any conviction -- including the possibility of the death penalty -- will dent the insurgency by convincing former regime loyalists that Saddam's days are over, so it is pushing for the earliest possible trial.
A high-profile conviction could also help build popular support for the government before a mid-December election.
"Many people lost fathers and sons and want to know where the justice is," Kubba said on Tuesday. "There's popular pressure on us."
In the past, tribunal officials have indicated that Saddam's deputies will be brought to trial first and Saddam himself may not appear in court until 2006.
DEADLY BOMBINGS
At least five car bombs exploded across Iraq on Tuesday.
Four attacks were in or near the northern town of Hawija, close to the strategic oil city of Kirkuk. One suicide bomber blew up his car near a U.S. base, another beside an Iraqi army checkpoint and a third close to a market, police said.
A fourth car bomb struck a checkpoint in the town of Abasi, near Hawija. In total, 19 people were killed and 38 wounded in the four attacks, Major-General Anwar Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi army commander in Kirkuk, told Reuters.
In Baghdad, a car bomb detonated beside a police patrol, wounding 28 people, including two policemen, police said.
Near Falluja, west of Baghdad, police found the body of a man shot in the head. A message scrawled on his clothing said that he had been killed for working with the Americans.
Insurgents also hit a U.S. base between Baghdad and Falluja with mortars, killing three Iraqi contractors and wounding 13, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Since April 28, when Iraq's new Shi'ite-led cabinet was announced, insurgents have sharply escalated attacks, killing more than 800 Iraqis and 88 U.S. troops. May was the deadliest month for U.S. forces since January.
The violence has worsened sectarian tension in Iraq. A series of assassinations of clerics, and mass killings of Iraqis whose bodies were then dumped, has led some Sunni groups to accuse a militia linked to one of the main Shi'ite parties of involvement in the kidnap and killing of Sunni Arabs.
The militia, the Badr organization, has denied involvement and political leaders have called on Iraqis to avoid being drawn into sectarian strife.
In the latest killing of a cleric, Salam Abdul-Karim, a Sunni, was found dead in the mainly Shi'ite city of Basra on Monday, relatives said. They said he had been abducted the previous day by men in Iraqi police uniforms.
Police denied any involvement in the killing. The death followed that of a Shi'ite cleric in Basra last week.
In an effort to defuse sectarian tension and undermine the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency, the Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs that emerged strongest from Jan. 30 polls are trying to involve more Sunni Arabs in the writing of a new constitution, the next key step in Iraq's path toward full democracy.
You are not alone Asclepius.
This undated photo provided West Point United States Military Academy shows Col. Ted S. Westhusing, 45, who was killed in Iraq, Sunday, June 5, 2005, family members said Monday. They did not release specifics on how he was killed. (AP Photo/West Point)
Army IDs Highest-Ranking Officer Casualty
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON - The Army on Tuesday announced the identity of the highest-ranking officer to die in the Iraq war, Col. Theodore S. Westhusing, 44, of Dallas, who died Sunday in Baghdad.
No details about the circumstances of his death were disclosed.
The Army said he died from "non-combat related injuries." That is a category that includes death by accident, illness, act of God or suicide.
Westhusing was serving as a staff officer with the Multinational Security Transition Command, which is in charge of training Iraqi security forces. He was assigned to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
Family members in Oklahoma had said after being notified of Westhusing's death late Sunday that he had graduated from West Point in 1983 and had doctorate degrees in Russian, philosophy and military strategy. They said he deployed to Iraq late last year. He was due to return to West Point this summer.
The Army did not publicly announce his identify until Tuesday, after a range of his relatives were notified.
Several lieutenant colonels have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, but no generals or colonels until Westhusing. The vast majority of the 1,673 members of the U.S. military who have died in the war have been enlisted soldiers and Marines, reflecting their more prominent role in direct combat against the insurgents.
The Army also announced Tuesday that a female soldier died in Iraq on Sunday, Spc. Carrie L. French, 19, of Caldwell, Idaho. She was a member of the 145th Support Battalion with the Idaho National Guard in Boise.
She was the 36th female soldier to die in the Iraq war and the sixth from the Army National Guard. All but one of the 36 have died since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in May 2003.
Two Department of the Army female civilians also have died.
___
On the Net:
Defense Department: http://www.defense.gov
Published: Tuesday, 7 June, 2005, 08:56 AM Doha Time
JAKARTA: One of Southeast Asia’s most wanted Islamic militants may be hiding on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital, police said yesterday as they stepped up security at luxury hotels and embassies after a US warning.
Jakarta police spokesman Tjiptono said that although police in the capital were already on high alert, they had yet to see signs an attack was imminent.
“We think Azahari and his people are just outside Jakarta,” Tjiptono said, referring to the Malaysian fugitive accused by Indonesian police of being the chief bomb-maker for the regional Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah militant network.
“We are increasing security as a precaution. We can’t tell what they are planning to do, but we’re on guard.” Jakarta Police Chief Firman Gani said security had been reinforced at 11 embassies, including France, Canada, Germany and the United States. Five luxury hotels, namely the JW Marriott, Shangri-La, Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and the Hilton, had also had police security strengthened, he said.
Gani said other hotels had been asked to take their own measures to increase security.
Police have said Azahari is among the masterminds behind a spate of bombings in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people, the 2003 JW Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta that claimed 12 lives, and last year’s blast outside the Australian embassy that killed 10 people. The US embassy on Friday warned Americans of a threat to bomb the lobbies of hotels frequented by Westerners in Jakarta.
Tensions have also been raised by the May 28 blasts that tore through a market in the predominantly Christian city of Tentena on eastern Sulawesi island. That attack killed 22 people, making it the bloodiest since the Bali nightclub blasts.
Police have identified two suspects in that bombing, but said while it bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah they had yet to determine a motive. Despite heightened security at hotels, there appeared to be little impact on occupancy. “In fact, last weekend our occupancy rate went up,” Yos Rizal, director of sales of the five-star Aryadutta hotel, told Reuters. “But we are tightening security, and we have asked for additional police to safeguard the compound,” he said.
The Jakarta Hilton also reported no drop off in guests. “Our occupancy is still stable, and we haven’t seen any guests cutting their stays,” said Emeraldo Parengkuan, public relations director. The US embassy and others have issued a number of warnings to their citizens about security in Indonesia in recent years. Among other things, the warnings have advised people to avoid hotels, shopping centres, nightclubs and housing areas popular with Westerners.-Reuters
Tue Jun 7, 2005 03:56 AM ET
KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police have arrested two Islamic militants suspected of involvement in a suicide attack on a Shi'ite Muslim mosque that killed five people in the southern city of Karachi last month, police said on Tuesday.
The pair, arrested in an overnight raid in Karachi, told investigators up to 20 suicide bombers were still at large in the city, Pakistani's commercial hub, the police said.
Fayyaz Khan, a deputy superintendent of police, said the men were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an underground militant group with ties with Afghanistan's former Taliban regime and al Qaeda, and had been arrested with explosives and firearms.
One, Mufti Altaf alias Mufti Shahid, was supposed to carry out the suicide bombing on the minority Shi'ite Madinatul Ilm mosque on May 30 but was replaced at the last moment.
Khan named the other man as Bilal Farooqi and added that police were trying to establish the identity of the suicide bomber.
Two assailants were killed in the attack, including one who blew himself up, while a third was critically wounded.
The attack came three days after a suicide bombing at a Muslim festival in the capital Islamabad that killed at least 19 people, mostly Shi'ite Muslims.
Investigators suspect Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in both attacks and some Pakistan intelligence agents believe there could be a link between the incidents and a suicide bombing of a mosque in the Afghan city of Kandahar last Wednesday that killed 20 people.
Khan said investigators were trying to trace up to 20 suicide bombers the arrested men said were at large in Karachi, which has been the scene of frequent militant attacks since Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in late 2001.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is one of Pakistan's most feared militant groups and has been implicated in attacks on Western targets in Karachi, including the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, and in two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
In an interview published on Monday, Musharraf said recent violence was purely sectarian and there had been no attacks in Pakistan linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban in more than a year.
The suicide attacks followed the capture of senior al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj Farj al Liby in Pakistan last month.
Musharraf said al Liby, who U.S. counter-terrorism agents say became al Qaeda's third most important figure two years ago and is wanted for two attempts on the Pakistani president's life in 2003, had been handed over to the United States.
US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, flanked by his Norwegian counterpart Kristin Krohn Devold, right, and Major Trudi Skjelde whilst on the bridge of Royal Marine Vessel KNM Harstad, in Stavanger Tuesday, June 7, 2005. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived here Tuesday to meet with Norwegian Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold and tour a NATO base. Rumsfeld and Devold are scheduled to sign the new equipment agreement on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alf Ove Hansen / SCANPIX )
Rumsfeld to sign new defence deal with Norway
08 Jun 2005 01:07:34 GMT
Source: Reuters By Carol Giacomo
STAVANGER, Norway, June 8 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will sign a new agreement with Norway on Wednesday for the United States to carry on siting weapons and other equipment in the country, officials said.
Washington first kept equipment in Norway during the Cold War in case of attack by the Soviet Union, but Norwegian officials say it can now be used to deal with any terrorist attack as well as for peace and humanitarian operations.
On Tuesday, Norwegian Defence Minister Kristin Krohn Devold hosted a dinner party for Rumsfeld on a naval ship.
About 400 people demonstrated in the Norwegian capital Oslo against the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and some 800 protested in Stavanger.
The demonstrators held banners calling Rumsfeld a "war criminal" and demanding he leave the country, Norway's NRK television reported.
"(Rumsfeld is) a modern imperialist," Audun Lysbakken, an opposition Socialist member of parliament, told a group of protesters.
Rumsfeld arrived at his hotel in Stavanger under tight guard.
June 08, 2005, 04:30
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, will sign a new agreement with Norway today for the United States to carry on siting weapons and other equipment in the country, officials said. Washington first kept equipment in Norway during the Cold War in case of attack by the Soviet Union, but Norwegian officials say it can now be used to deal with any terrorist attack as well as for peace and humanitarian operations.
Yesterday, Kristin Krohn Devold, the Norwegian defence minister, hosted a dinner party for Rumsfeld on a naval ship. About 400 people demonstrated in the Norwegian capital Oslo against the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and some 800 protested in Stavanger.
The demonstrators held banners calling Rumsfeld a "war criminal" and demanding he leave the country, Norway's NRK television reported. "(Rumsfeld is) a modern imperialist," Audun Lysbakken, an opposition Socialist member of parliament, told a group of protesters.
Rumsfeld arrived at his hotel in Stavanger under tight guard. - Reuters
08 Jun 2005 01:04:08 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Seif Fouad
BAGHDAD, June 8 (Reuters) - Palestinian refugee Thaier Noureddine never wanted to leave Iraq, even if he could return to the land his family fled after the 1948 Middle East war.
But he's been desperate for a way out since Iraqi security forces arrested his brother Ghazwaan and three other Palestinians in a crackdown on foreign fighters from Arab countries and Iraqi guerrillas suspected of "terrorist" attacks.
"He did nothing wrong. Is being a Palestinian a crime?" Noureddine asked.
Iraq -- with its history of dictatorship and war -- has been the only home some Palestinian refugees have known since their families settled here after the violent birth of Israel in 1948.
They have blended in over the years, as doctors, coffee shop owners and labourers in the major oil-producing country, but are now finding themselves under scrutiny from the police, state officials, the government and even their neighbours.
"Let them move us to Palestine or any country. I am ready to live in Sudan, in Darfur. It has problems. But if they take us we will go," said Noureddine, referring to the devastated western province of Sudan.
Some Iraqis believe that Palestinians in Iraq enjoyed privileges like free education and low-cost housing under Saddam Hussein, who portrayed himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause and delivered fiery anti-Israel speeches.
Now some of the 20,000 Palestinians in Iraq say they have been unfairly targeted by a government clampdown on guerrillas and subjected to abuse by Iraqis who believe they were cosseted by Saddam or are involved in guerrilla attacks.
"Twenty-five Palestinians were arrested in May," said acting Palestinian ambassador Dalil Qoussus. "They are innocent."
The Noureddine family's troubles began when Iraqi security forces showed up at Ghazwaan's apartment after a bombing killed 14 people at a crowded market in eastern Baghdad in May. His relatives said he was beaten and then taken away.
"They fired bullets at the door of his apartment. Some landed in the bedroom," Thaier said.
Ghazwaan and three other Palestinians soon appeared on "Terrorists in the Grip of Justice", a television show in which suspects confess to crimes including bombings and rape.
It was not possible to determine if the confessions were genuine. Some of the suspects on the show had bruised faces, including one of the four Palestinians. Detainees have often complained of being beaten by Iraqi security forces and police.
The arrests have led Palestinians to keep a low profile.
In Baghdad's Baladiyat slum that is home to many of Iraq's Palestinian refugees, shops have been shuttered and alleyways are quiet, with a few bicycles leaning on tin shacks. One child holding a toy gun just stared out a window.
"We can't show our identification cards because they will see we are Palestinians. They think Arabs and Palestinians are terrorists," said Ghazwaan's sister Hala.
"When we go to the market they call us terrorists. We can't even take a taxi because they call us terrorists."
UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Palestinian refugees, many born in Iraq, never had much of a say in their future, and they still don't. Their lack of proper documents makes it difficult to travel outside Iraq.
Palestinians fear being swept up in security offensives against Arab guerrillas who have carried out suicide bombings that have killed thousands of people.
Brosh Shaways, secretary general of Iraq's Defence Ministry, said security forces had not singled out Palestinians for arrest, but were detaining any suspicious Arabs without proper papers.
"Unfortunately there are foreigners and Arabs who take part in terrorist acts and explosions and making car bombs," he told Reuters.
"It is the right of the Iraqi government and security forces to take action against them because the lives of innocent people are in danger."
Palestinians can only hope escalating violence that threatens to push Iraq towards civil war will ease and take the pressure off their community.
But guerrillas have stepped up attacks since the new government was announced in late April, killing more than 800 people, including civilians and security forces.
Thaier and others are not taking any chances.
The welder decided to close up his workshop because people started calling him "the brother of the terrorist" after the confession show tied Ghazwaan to the Baghdad bombing.
The Nourreddine family say Ghazwaan was just a coffee shop owner, not someone who would carry out a bombing that left crushed limbs and bodies under burning cars.
"We have no hostility towards Iraqis. We are not related to any terrorists," said Hala, sitting beside Ghazwaan's children and holding up his picture. "Who is going to take care of his children?"
Isolated in the grim concrete buildings of Baladiyat, the Noureddines no longer see a future in Iraq. But they, like others, may have no choice.
"When we hear any sound like an ambulance siren our hearts beat in fear. I am afraid they will kill me because I am the brother of the Palestinian," Thaier said.
10:00 AEST Wed Jun 8 2005 AAP
AP - A man's leg and partial torso fell from a South African jetliner onto a suburban New York home as the aircraft prepared to land at John F Kennedy Airport, authorities and the airline say.
Police said a Long Island resident living about nine kilometres from the airport called to report that a leg with a sneaker on the foot had hit the roof of a garage and bounced into the back yard, where it was lying in the grass.
More remains were found inside the wheel well of the South African Airways aircraft when it landed at JFK, arriving from Johannesburg via Dakar, Senegal.
Spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Jim Peters, said a customs agent meeting the plane discovered another leg hanging from the left wheel well section.
South African Airways issued a statement saying it had "a stowaway situation where remains of a human body were discovered in the wheel-well of an SAA aircraft bound for New York out of Dakar, Senegal".
The severed leg with a part of the man's torso fell onto the home of Pam Hearne, who said she heard "a loud crash" and thought at first that her neighbour was loading a van.
She discovered the leg a few hours later.
"But I am very glad that I live where I do," she said, "so I don't have to run for my life like this man probably was doing."
There have been cases of stowaways being crushed by the mechanism in aircraft wheel wells and perishing from the extreme cold at high altitude.
The airliner said it was "working with the airport authorities in both the United States and Senegal to investigate this tragic event" and offered assurances that "there was no danger to the passengers of aircraft at any stage".
08 Jun 2005 02:45:18 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Patrick Markey
LA PAZ, Bolivia, June 7 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Bolivian peasants and miners marched through La Paz on Tuesday as some opposition leaders urged early elections to end the crisis after President Carlos Mesa's offer to resign.
Police fired tear gas to disperse miners who lobbed dynamite sticks and rocks during a protest calling for nationalization of Bolivia's huge natural gas reserves and constitutional reforms for more representation for the poor Indian majority.
Mesa volunteered late Monday to resign-- his second such offer this year -- after three weeks of indigenous protests blockaded La Paz and triggered the worst turmoil in his 19-month presidency of South America's poorest nation.
Congress, which rejected a Mesa resignation in March, will hold a session on Thursday in the southern city of Sucre to debate whether to accept his latest offer to quit. The session was moved to Sucre because La Paz, about 200 miles (321 km) away, remained too volatile.
"We have made every effort and talked to all the parties, to try to hold the session in La Paz," said Congress president Hormando Vaca Diez, who could be Bolivia's next president. "I have decided to convene Congress in the city of Sucre for the day after tomorrow."
In a sign of concern over the swelling protests, the United States ordered its non-emergency personnel at its embassy in Bolivia and all U.S. diplomats' relatives to leave the country. The State Department also urged Americans against visiting the country.
A blockade of the capital by Indian protesters has caused gas stations to dry up and taxi drivers are asking passengers to share rides. Residents complain about shortages of bread and meat and rising prices.
Public transport workers are on strike and some hospitals in the capital said they are only open for emergencies.
The mayor of the militant city of El Alto, overlooking La Paz, said blockades in that city had become so drastic that protesters had stopped families from burying their dead in the cemetery.
Mesa appeared briefly on the balcony of his office to wave to reporters as thunderous dynamite blasts echoed through the city. Tear gas mixed with smoke from burning tires as police battled small groups of protesters in the narrow streets in the center of the capital.
DELICATE MOMENT
Church leaders have been trying to negotiate an end to the crisis, but the political situation remains delicate ahead of the Congress ruling.
Evo Morales, a main opposition and indigenous leader, has joined other congressmen in calling for the resignation of Vaca Diez and the leader of the lower chamber of Congress to make way for early elections.
He said total nationalization of energy resources was a demand that protest leaders would not negotiate.
No one in Bolivia, except perhaps the multinational oil companies and some elites, could support Vaca Diez as president, he said.
Under the constitution, the president of Congress must replace Mesa if lawmakers accept his resignation.
Still, analysts questioned whether Vaca Diez would be an acceptable replacement for Mesa as protests showed no signs of abating.
"The problems of the country continue ... and the protests are in the streets and the streets in one way or another will decide which way this goes," said political analyst Jorge Lazarte.
Mesa, a political independent with little support in Congress, had struggled to stay in power since coming to office in 2003 as he faced growing Indian demands for more state control of Latin America's second-largest natural gas reserves and calls for autonomy from wealthy regional provinces.
A former television news anchor, he came to office promising to heal the social divisions in the Andean nation of more than 8 million people. But he failed to cope with growing Indian discontent that helped topple his predecessor in a similar popular revolt over natural gas.
The Organization of American States offered to help in dialogue if asked and urged Bolivians to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. (Additional reporting by Mario Roque in El Alto and Saul Hudson in Washington)
AlertNet news
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, June 6, 2005
ABU DHABI — Gulf Cooperation Council states have revised their educational curriculum.
GCC officials said most of the six Gulf Arab states have significantly altered their school curriculum over the last year, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the revisions sought to remove anti-Western and anti-Christian references in textbooks.
"The move to redesign the curriculums is intended to meet the challenges of the new world order and is unrelated to the Sept. 11 [2001] terrorist attacks," Abdul Ilah Al Mosarraf, director of planning and evaluation at the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States, said.
Al Mosarraf said nearly all GCC states have significantly revised their school curriculums. He said Saudi Arabia has removed 31 anti-Western or anti-Christian references from textbooks.
Over the last two years, the United States has sought to work with GCC and other Islamic states to revise their curriculum. GCC officials said the aim of the revisions was to remove material that encouraged Al Qaida doctrine.
In other cases, the Saudi Education Ministry has removed books deemed as offensive to the West, officials said. They said the ministry was considering a recommendation to draft a new school curriculum.
"Riyad has removed the offensive books and passages from the curriculum," a Saudi Education Ministry report said. "In fact, as part of its plan to go ahead with the reform, some experts from the kingdom and from other countries have been employed to develop the curriculum and to suggest changes."
05:59 AEST Wed Jun 8 2005 AAP
One of South East Asia's most wanted Islamic militants used Australian dollars to fund the deadly bombing of Canberra's embassy in the Indonesian capital last year, a witness told a court.
Ahmad Hasan, a witness in the trial of one of the key suspects and himself a defendant, said Malaysian fugitive Noordin M Top had given him $A9,700 for the bombing.
"On the operational funds for the Australian embassy bombing, the funds were given by Khalid, alias Noordin M Top. Khalid ordered me in Surabaya to change $A9,700 to rupiah and we got 63 million rupiah," Hasan, also known as Purnomo, said in testimony.
It was not clear where the money came from or why it was in Australian dollars.
Hasan said another Malaysian, Azahari bin Husin, accused by police of masterminding the blast that killed 10 people on September 9, ordered him and the defendant on trial, identified as Rois, to scout out the embassy site and drive the explosives-laden van into Jakarta.
Azahari also gave them explosives to blow themselves up if they were caught, Hasan said.
"The Australian embassy always helps Indonesia too much against terrorists and to capture the holy fighters," he said.
Azahari and Top are still at large. They are accused of being important members of Jemaah Islamiah, a South East Asian group seen as al-Qaeda's regional arm.
The one-tonne bomb detonated just before the driver reached the embassy gate.
It ripped open the blast-proof fence of the embassy and badly damaged many buildings in the area.
Hassan said that those who died - all of whom were Indonesians - did so because of "Allah's will".
The dead were either passers-by, people queuing up to enter the heavily fortified mission or security guards.
"When we talked about the bombing afterwards, we never felt any remorse," Hassan told the South Jakarta District Court.
Police have arrested six suspects in the attack, which was blamed on Jemaah Islamiah, the regional terror group officials say received funding from al-Qaeda. Three are already facing trial.
Jemaah Islamiah is also blamed in the August 5, 2003, Marriott hotel bombing that killed 12 and the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.
Indonesian police said they believed Azahari was hiding on the outskirts of Jakarta.
Security forces are on high alert for a fresh bombing following a US warning militants may be planning to attack hotels.
A body part apparently fell from the wheel well of a plane coming in for a landing on Tuesday at John F. Kennedy Airport and landed in a suburban backyard, authorities said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said a Customs agent meeting the plane, Flight 203, after its landing at Kennedy's terminal three discovered a leg hanging from the left wheel well section.
Police suspect the remains were that of a male stowaway, Ciavolella said.
He would not confirm that the incidents at the airport and Long Island were related, saying, "It's still under investigation."
Messages left with South African Airways were not immediately returned.
Iraq insurgents 'ready to disarm'
7 June, 2005, 14:42 GMT 15:42 UK
A prominent Iraqi Sunni politician has said that two insurgent groups are ready to disarm and begin talks with the Iraqi government.
Former minister Ayham al-Samarie said the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujahideen Army represented more than 50% of the resistance.
He said he began contacting the groups' political leaders five months ago.
The Islamic Army has claimed responsibility for several attacks and for taking hostages.
It was not possible to independently verify Mr Samarie's claim and the government would not comment on the matter, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The disclosure follows reports last week that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari had opened indirect channels of communication with some militant groups, urging them to lay down their weapons.
Truce possible
Mr Samarie, who also discussed his contacts on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite network, told AP he had not met any of the field commanders of the two groups.
He said no deal had been made on disarming, but a truce of limited duration could be arranged to prove their goodwill after talks began.
"We told them that 'no-one knows what you want and you must come out to the political arena and make clear what is your agenda'," he said.
"They set no conditions and we agreed with them that the time had come for them to come out."
The Islamic Army claimed responsibility for gunning down a commercial helicopter, killing 11 passengers, north of Baghdad in April.
It later posted a video on the internet purporting to show the wreckage, and the shooting of the aircraft's only survivor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4070080.stm
Palestinians carry the body of Islamic Jihad militant Mraweh Kmeil during his funeral at the West Bank town of Qabatiya June 7, 2005. Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad commander and a Palestinian policeman on June 7 during a raid against militants in the West Bank, residents and medics said. Chanting 'revenge, revenge,' hundreds of Palestinians marched through the center of the city of Jenin after the body of Maraweh Ikmil, Islamic Jihad's commander in the village of Qabatiya where the raid took place, was brought to hospital. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)
Head of Islamic Jihad killed in Jenin -terrorist from Abbas's Fatah apprehended in raid
June 7, 2005
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=83508 IDF Eliminates Head of Islamic Jihad in Jenin Tuesday, June 7, 2005 / 29 Iyar 5765
The head of the Islamic Jihad in Jenin, Marouh Kamil, who was involved in recruiting terrorists and planning attacks against Israeli targets, was killed early Tuesday by IDF troops.
An IDF soldier was lightly wounded in a gun battle that raged for a few hours early this morning opposite a building which served as the terrorists' hideout.
Acting on precise intelligence information, IDF troops attempted to apprehend the terrorists peacefully, but as they surrounded the building, the terrorists opened fire.
When the gunfire subsided, three terrorists exited the structure with their hands up. After questioning the captive terrorists, it became apparent to the IDF that Kamil was holding out inside. The army decided to blow up the building when Kamil refused to surrender to IDF troops.
Soldiers found Kamil's body, along with an M-16 rifle and a hand grenade in the debris. The body was handed over to local residents in the PA administered town of Kabatiya, who shouted calls for revenge. Another wounded terrorist was taken by Red Crescent ambulance to a PA hospital where he died of his wounds.
Security sources say that Kamil, 28, had been planning terror attacks against Israel for the past two years. Kamil recruited terrorists in the Jenin area, organized them into units, and trained them to carry out attacks. One of his planned attacks was successfully thwarted by Israeli security forces in 2003.
One of the apprehended terrorists was active in Fatah, the dominant party in the PLO and the one that currently controls the Palestinian Authority. PA chief Mahmoud Abbas, one of the founders of Fatah along with Yassir Arafat, heads the PA on behalf of the Fatah party.
Sami Amin Al-Arian, 47. Born in Kuwait, he was a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida and founder of the World Islam and Studies Enterprise and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, which federal officials say were terrorist fronts. The indictment describes him as a top Jihad leader.
Al-Arian's case opens with questions of terror - St. Petersburg Times
Sami Al-Arian trial coverage - St. Petersburg Times
Opening statements for co-defendants in Al-Arian trial - Tampa 10
First day of testimony in Al-Arian trial puts jurors to sleep - ABC
Defense: Al-Arian co-defendants have no links to terror group - AP
Wednesday, 08/06/2005
There have been some positive reports overnight about three shipments of Australian wheat, rejected by Iraq almost two months ago.
But while cautiously optimistic of a resolution, wheat exporter AWB says the grain has not been unloaded.
Madelene Pearson has the latest.
"The ships remain docked at sea, off the port of Umm Qasar.
"The Iraqi buyer rejected the wheat after it claimed it had iron contaminations.
"News reports today are suggesting the wheat has begun unloading, after Iraq's Prime Minister gave the all clear.
"But AWB spokesman Ryan Mckinlay says that is not the case."
"AWB is aware of comments from the Iraqi Prime Minister's office that the test results conducted on the three vessels have indicated they are clear of iron contamination and they would be able to discharge," he said.
"AWB has yet to receive official notification to commence discharge of the vessels. We are actively seeking that confirmation from the relevant Iraqi officials."
AWB says it will continue to work with Iraq to get the grain unloaded.
ISLAMABAD, June 7 (KUNA) -- Taliban Tuesday fired rockets at two oil tankers carrying jet fuel for the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, killing two Pakistani drivers and destroying the tankers, said an official.
A senior official of the Chaman administration told KUNA that the oil takers, enroute to Kandahar in Afghanistan, came under Taliban attack in the Spinboldak area of Afghanistan.
He said two Pakistani drivers were killed, and the tanks were destroyed.
Oil tankers are routinely loaded at southern Karachi port city and then shipped to Kandahar for US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The attack was fourth of its kind since January 2002. The Taliban have been carrying attacks on oil tankers in the past to disrupt supplies to the US-led forces. They had also warned Pakistani drivers against carrying supplies for the US forces.
Wednesday, 8 June, 2005, 04:11 GMT 05:11 UK
A cache of weapons was found at the Iraqi embassy in London after the Baghdad regime change, it has emerged.
The new Iraqi ambassador made the discovery, along with other evidence of espionage activities, in a safe inside the building, BBC News has learned.
The embassy was left abandoned by its staff in 2003 as war loomed.
A safe in the building was recently opened revealing submachine guns, handguns and listening devices.Police say investigations are continuing.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a number of weapons were handed over to them, although no arrests have been made.
A year-and-a-half after the embassy was abandoned, new ambassador Dr Salah Al Shaikhly opened up the building for the first time.
He found that burglars had ransacked the site but were unable to crack a number of safes.
The building currently remains empty, but BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera says that it is expected to be renovated and eventually returned to being used as Iraq's embassy.
By Rowan Scarborough The Washington Times Published June 7, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is discussing war-strategy changes for defeating Islamic terrorists that would place more emphasis on killing, capturing or discouraging midlevel operators who enable top al Qaida leadership to function.
Interviews the past week with Bush administration officials show that policy-makers are thinking the only way to ultimately win the war is to take down the lower-level operators who form the networks that support Osama bin Laden and scores of other al Qaida lieutenants around the world.
President Bush, in assessing progress in the war, often cites the statistic that 75 percent of known al Qaida leaders have been killed or captured. The strategy has been generally that if you cut off the head of al Qaida, the body will eventually die.
But more than three years into the war on terrorism, some officials are leaning toward a new policy that would place just as much emphasis on taking foot soldiers off the street.
"DOD is pushing a strategy of going after the al Qaida network," a well-placed administration official told The Washington Times. "Getting the leadership alone is not going to do it."
The source said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is "putting pressure on the system" to come up with new ideas, but has not endorsed a new plan.
One official, who asked not to be named, said the recent arrests of two American al Qaida planners are examples of how the United States can methodically disable terrorist cells, leaving chieftains with few to carry out their orders.
Another change being discussed in an ongoing interagency review by the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and White House National Security Council is a strategy that emphasizes this is a war that targets Islamic extremism, not Islam itself.
"We have to convince Muslims that al Qaida is their mutual enemy," said the administration official.
There is a belief by some officials that the phrase "war on terror" is not specific enough, said a second official.
And a third topic is finding new ways to discourage Muslim clerics from preaching hate and encouraging violence.
The Washington Post first reported last week that the Bush team is re-evaluating its anti-terror strategy. The Times subsequently conducted interviews to learn details of some of the ideas.
Officials told The Times there is some frustration at the review's slow pace. One called it a "complicated process" and blamed the National Security Council staff at the White House for delays in pushing all sides to agree.
"The Pentagon has been trying to overcome a lot of resistance," said the second Bush official. "Anytime they make their case, they get resistance."
That official said the Pentagon wants the intelligence community to put more emphasis on signal intercepts to identify al Qaida foot soldiers.
The United States is essentially fighting a three-front war: Iraq, Afghanistan and the global theater.
U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, Fla., was designated by Mr. Rumsfeld in 2003 as the combatant command in charge of global counterterror operations. Socom has set up a relatively new structure, the Center for Special Operations, to do the battle planning.
Two defense sources said Socom has struggled to set up the battle-planning staff and coordinate with regional commands.
"Trust me," said one of the sources. "Changing from supporting to supported and getting cooperation from the regional commands have been difficult, at best." "Supported" refers to a command, such as U.S. Central Command, that plans and carries out its own missions. Until 2003, Socom was a "supporting" command, meaning it carried out missions dictated by others.
Said Col. Samuel T. Taylor, a command spokesman, "I disagree with anyone's assertion that Socom is struggling. A major transition, such as the one we are undergoing, requires extensive planning and coordination. ... We are moving forward in the right way, at an appropriately rapid pace."
Soldiers from the 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division and Iraqi troops, assisted by close combat air support, search for insurgents near Samarra. Photo by Kim Allain.
Staff Sgt. Tom Dow, a B Company, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry Regiment drill sergeant, wears the dark lenses available in the combat eye protection set. His company is testing three CEP sets for possible issue Armywide. by Melissa House
Army testing new types of eye protection
By Melissa House
FORT BENNING, Ga. (Army News Service, June 7, 2005) – About 400 Infantry trainees and cadre are testing several different types of combat eye protection that might eventually be issued to all Soldiers.
Col. Chuck Adams, the senior optometry consultant for the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General, said the goal is to achieve a “culture change” from vision correction for some Soldiers, to eye protection for all.
“We’re talking about putting eyewear on half a million Soldiers,” Adams said. “And it’s not so much about which product we choose, but the training. Combat eye protection is embraced for deployed Soldiers. We need to embrace it for all Soldiers.”
Eye injuries represent almost 16 percent of all injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003, according to statistics from the Office of the Surgeon General.
As part of the Military Combat Eye Protection Program, the OTSG and the team from PEO-Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Va., are hoping the Soldiers in B Company, 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry Regiment, and D Co.,1st Bn., 329th Inf. Regt., will have some good feedback on three sets of spectacles.
“Eye injuries hit the radar post-1972 and the Arab-Israeli Wars,” said Lt. Col. Emery Fehl, chief of optometry at Martin Army Community Hospital and the post’s MCEPP liaison. In subsequent years, the Army researched and developed spectacles and goggles designed to combat a laser threat by blocking certain wavelengths. That, he said, is where the Army’s current offerings, with their multiple lenses, came in. But the eyewear adopted in 1994 and issued in 1998 didn’t pass muster with Soldiers.
Sarah Morgan-Clyborne, who has been working the eyewear issues with PEO-Soldier for about 12 years said the second generation items, intended to provide spectacles and goggles that would share lenses, provide ballistic protection and support prescription lenses, was unsuccessful.
“We did not design a frame that was acceptable to Soldiers,” Morgan-Clyborne said. “Protection was important, but not a motivating factor.”
The missing factor? “It was a great product,” Adams said, “but it doesn’t look like an Oakley and doesn’t look cool.”
So the Army entered the formal contracting process with several commercial vendors, Morgan-Clyborne said, and also receives unsolicited proposals.
“We evaluate (the eyewear) for industry safety standards and ballistic fragmentation protection, then rank the products and place them on an authorized protective eyewear list,” she said.
Individual commanders can select eyewear for their unit from that list.
Right now, the ballistic protection piece is more important than the laser threat, Fehl said. Of the 345 eye injuries evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan after March 2003, three Soldiers are totally blind and 44 have total loss of vision in one eye.
But eye injuries aren’t limited to combat operations.
Adams said one of his first patients as a young doctor in Germany was a sergeant with a prosthetic eye because of an accident on a range.
“We want to protect Soldiers’ vision,” Adams said, and one of the ways to do that is by issuing CEP to every Soldier.
Fort Benning is the only installation conducting the CEP test, and Fehl said the end number of around 400 makes this test more valid.
“This is the right place to do this testing,” Fehl said. On April 8 and 9, the two companies received a mass issue of the first set of CEP, the UVEX XC. Soldiers wore them during field training for two weeks, then critiqued them.
In May, Soldiers from B Co., 1st Bn., 50th Inf. Regt. put the second set — ESS ICE 2 spectacles — through the paces on the range. The Soldiers have yet to see the Revision Sawfly, the third set they’ll test. Based on the data, the company will wear the preferred CEP during their seven-day capstone field exercise.
Pvt. Duncan Kiruthi, a B Co. Soldier, doesn’t normally wear eye protection. In the first day on the range, Kiruthi had reservations.
“I’m not feeling confident,” he said. But Kiruthi thought since it was his first time firing a weapon it would get better and didn’t expect the eyewear to be a factor. One of the company’s drill sergeants, Staff Sgt. Jefferson Negus, said the Soldiers, and some of the cadre, have been putting the CEP on every time they don their Kevlar and equipment.
“The glasses are getting a full set of abuse,” Negus said. “We’ve had breakage, but we haven’t seen a pattern. They seem to be fitting the durability standard. He said he felt much more protected and the two glasses he’s tried are light enough not to bother him. Negus, a combat veteran who served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, said his unit had eye protection, but it was a personal choice whether or not to wear it.
“That’s what we’re trying to change,” Adams said. “We want to instill the feeling that something’s missing when they walk outside (without eyewear). Soldiers are willing to walk around garrison with a little bit of blur, but out in the desert, they want the best possible vision. They must train as they fight.”
Training as they fight means Soldiers would be issued CEP, frame of choice and protective mask inserts for those Soldiers needing corrective lenses, and CEP for those without a need. The Army currently only issues S-9 glasses to initial entry Soldiers who need vision correction.
Issuing the CEP to all Soldiers is a move Negus thinks is long overdue.
“I don’t think the Soldiers see the value in them yet, “ Negus said. But another of B Co.’s Soldiers likes the idea and said the glasses are working well for him.
“They have saved me a couple of times already from getting an eye injury,” said Pvt. Joseph DeLair, “especially during land nav walking through the woods and bushes.”
While the CEP will cost between and average of $16 to $40 per Soldier, Adams said it will be partially offset by no longer issuing the S-9 glasses Soldiers don’t like.
“It’s tough to talk numbers,” Adams said. “But the important point is — if you lose one eye, the Army pays a Soldier upwards of $1 million for disability.”
(Editor’s note: Melissa House writes for the Bayonet newspaper at Fort Benning.)
Col. William Ottenbacher, Dr. Safaah Al Ameed and Col. Roger Gerber discuss the Najaf Teaching Hospital reconstruction effort. The Najaf Teaching Hospital is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reconstruction project worth just over $ 15 million. Tom Clarkson
Army engineers help transform Najaf Teaching Hospital
By Lt. Col. Stan Heath
NAJAF, Iraq (Army News Service, June 7, 2005) – The Najaf Teaching Hospital has been transformed over the past nine months from a run-down facility that harbored militia into a full-time operational clinic, under a project managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In September, insurgents used the hospital during the battle for Najaf and the building sustained considerable damage. It is one of 20 hospitals in Iraq under renovation and nine have already been completed.
The Najaf hospital was built in 1982 and is a 420-bed facility with 13 operating theatres capable of surgical specialties for eyes, thoracic, cancer treatment and dialysis.
“The hospital contains 200 medical school students, 50 pharmacy students and 100 residence doctors,” said Dr. Safaah Al Ameed, hospital manager. “We employ 1,250 people here.”
This transformation from a September battleground to a viable patient facility is a result of a lot of hard work and renovations.
“Dr. Safaa has been a close partner in all that we have done since we took over the management of this project.” said Val Schaffner, project manager on the hospital. “I knew it would be a great relationship when the first time I met him he turned over to me his entire and only set of 20-year- old original plans for the entire building.”
Phase one of the project began in September 2004 and was completed in February 2005. It was a major cleanup of the basement and first floor. Parsons Inc. repaired walls, ceilings and floors, said Capt. Josh Miller, Camp Hotel resident engineer who oversees the hospital project.
Phase two repaired heating, air conditioning, plumbing and mechanical components that serve the hospital’s 1st floor, provided security grills on windows, and a vehicle access control gate, Miller said. He said the goal for phase two was to quickly advertise and award a local contractor a small 30-day, competitively bid contract, including repairs needed to outpatient services to open to the public again quickly. The outpatient clinic opened to the general public April 18.
Phase three is undergoing contract bidding now and will repair and renovate the hospital’s basement (includes industrial kitchen, laundry, and mechanical rooms), 2nd through 7th floors, major utility penthouses on the 8th and 9th floors, and as many out-buildings in the hospital campus as we can do with funds available. Outlying buildings include a 4 story doctors’ residence facility, morgue, sewer treatment plant, workshop and storage building, garage, entrance gate and other options.”
The total cost of the Najaf project is just over $ 15 million.
Col. John Ottenbacher, the Camp Hotel surgeon, also plays a key role to assist Dr. Saffaah and Najaf. He has been working directly with Saffaah since Feb. to help him find key instruments that are missing from the hospital’s inventory.
“The hospital needs surgical supplies such as endoscopes, cancer treatment medications, and cardiac monitoring equipment,” Ottenbacher said.
Ottenbacher meets with Saffaah and other hospital officials every Wednesday to help them with patient advice and services.
The hospital’s outpatient clinic has seen approximately 200 patients daily since it opened last month. By fall Saffaah expects 1,500 patients per day.
“Our clinic will feature specialists in the areas of General Surgery, Orthological Surgery, Dental Surgery, Breast Clinic, Diabetes Clinic, Cancer Clinic, Neurology, Endoscopy, Ultrasound, X-rays, Plastic Surgery, Ear/Nose and Throat, Medical Rehabilitation, and Laboratory Services,” Saafa said.
“We appreciate the assistance from all of the agencies that helped us so far [by supplying equipment and medicine], to include the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Higher Education. And we are ready to cooperate with anyone willing to assist the hospital in the future,” he added.
Funding for the hospital facility rehabilitation does not include funds for the hospital equipment, so these items are being pursued through other avenues.
(Editor’s note: Lt. Col. Stan Heath is the public affairs officer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division. Requests for more information can be sent to Stanley.N.Heath@tac01.usace.army.mil. For more information on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, visit www.grd.usace.army.mil.
Good morning Gucho!!. I thought that I would have the opportunity to say goodnight last night, but I went down again while in the middle of trying to post one last article.
2 Americans Killed in Afghan Mortar Attack
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two U.S. forces were killed and another eight wounded in a mortar attack Wednesday at a base in eastern Afghanistan, the military said.
The attack occurred in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan. The wounded were rushed to nearby U.S.-led coalition bases for treatment.
Initially, a military statement said only one service member had been killed, but spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara later raised the number to two, with eight wounded.
The mortar landed in the base near Shkin while the victims were preparing to unload supplies from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, the military said.
Coalition aircraft were deployed to the area but could not locate the insurgents, the statement said.
"This is a tragic loss for all of us," said Army Brig. Gen. James G. Champion, Combined Joint Task Force-76 deputy commanding general for operations.
The names of those killed were withheld until their families are notified.
After a winter lull, loyalists to the ousted Taliban regime and other militants opposed to the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai have ramped up their insurgency with bombings and other attacks.
Jalal Talabani (L), the first Kurdish President of Iraq
Iraq's Kurdish Leader Backs Shiite Militia
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Kurdish president backed his Shiite allies Wednesday by openly supporting a militia that Sunni Arab leaders have accused of killing members of their minority.
Clashes in Baghdad and other attacks around Iraq killed at least eight people as the Sunni-dominated insurgency pressed on with its campaign against the Shiite-led government.
The bloody wave of violence that broke out after the April 28 announcement of Iraq's new Shiite and Kurdish dominated government has killed more than 874 people. During the spree, more than 10 Sunni and Shiite clerics have been killed in apparent tit-for-tat slayings that raised fears the country was on the verge of civil war.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an indirect fire attack on their military base in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, late Tuesday, while another was killed by roadside bomb north of the capital, the military said Wednesday. As of Wednesday, at least 1,679 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
President Jalal Talabani's backing of the Badr Brigade came at a time when Sunni leaders have not only demanded that it be disarmed, but have complained that the militia provides intelligence and support for some Shiite-dominated special security units.
A poster of Shi'ite cleric and leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) Abdul Aziz al-Hakim hangs over a Badr organization meeting in Baghdad June 8, 2005. The Badr Brigade was the military wing of the SCIRI but the group now performs social and political functions, the party said. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani today voiced his support for the Badr Brigade, which Sunni Arabs say is involved in killing members of their group. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
The Badr Brigade was the military wing of the country's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Republic in Iraq, or SCIRI. The party claims the Badr Brigade is no longer a militia but performs social and political functions.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Shi'ite cleric and leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), attends a Badr organization meeting in Baghdad June 8, 2005. The Badr Brigade was the military wing of the SCIRI but the group now performs social and political functions, the party said. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani today voiced his support for the Badr Brigade, which Sunni Arabs say is involved in killing members of their group. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
"May those who describe the heroes of Badr and their Kurdish brothers as militia be doomed to failure," Talabani, himself a Sunni Kurd, said during a conference marking the second anniversary of the Badr Brigade's transformation from a solely military body to a political one.
"You and your (Kurdish) brothers are the heroes of liberating Iraq," Talabani added. "You, my brothers, march on without paying attention to the enemies' claims because you and the (Kurdish militia) are faithful sons of this country."
There are no accurate figures on the size of the brigade, but it is thought to be smaller than the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, estimated at 100,000. The Peshmerga has been largely exempted from efforts to disband militias because of its close ties to the United States and its supporting role during the 2003 Iraq war.
Sunni criticism of Talabani's remarks was swift, with Abdul-Salam al-Qubeisi, spokesman of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, saying Talabani was acting in line with "U.S. policies to prolong the struggle in Iraq and turn it into an Iraq-Iraq conflict."
Al-Qubeisi accused the Badr Brigade of providing intelligence to units such as the feared Wolf Brigade, an elite commando unit from the Interior Ministry that is headed by a top SCIRI member.
"We do not have problems with this party or another, we only have problems with the chasing and killing of Sunni clerics and their followers," al-Qubeisi said. "Even the militia elements who have joined the Iraqi army have been heavy-handed during army operations."
On Tuesday, Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, told reporters that the new Iraq had "no place for militias" and that such forces could be incorporated into the police and army.
The complaints came a day after a Sunni Arab politician said two insurgent groups were willing to negotiate with the government, possibly opening a new political front in embattled Iraq.
Former electricity minister Ayham al-Samarie told The Associated Press that the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of Mujahedeen — or holy warriors — were ready to open talks with the Shiite-led government aimed at eventually joining the political process. The groups account for a large part of the Sunni insurgents and were responsible for attacks against Iraqis and foreigners, including assassinations and kidnappings.
The effort to begin talks comes at a delicate time for the government, criticized by Sunni Arab groups for deliberately targeting the minority in counterinsurgency campaigns such as the ongoing Operation Lighting in Baghdad.
The association said the operation, which has led to nearly 900 arrests, could spark sectarian strife. Now in its second week, the campaign involves thousands of Iraqi security forces and 7,000 U.S. troops, according to the U.S. military.
In Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, insurgents attacked a supply convoy carrying supplies to an American base, and local reporters said they saw at least seven bodies, all of which appeared to be Iraqi men in their 20s and 30s. The U.S. military and American diplomats said they were not aware of any Americans in the convoy.
A masked insurgent walks by a truck destroyed in attack in Habaniyah, 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, a town located between the restive towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, Tuesday June 6, 2005. Convoy is believed to be carrying supplies to a U.S. military base in Habaniyah when it was attacked by insurgent. At lest seven men, beleived to be Iraqi drivers, were killed in the attack. (AP Photo/Abdul Qadir Saadi)
Reporters who returned to the scene early Wednesday saw an additional four bodies, which did not appear to be Iraqi. The other bodies were still there and armed men were also present at the scene.
A South African diplomat confirmed that one of his country's nationals was part of the convoy that was attacked. Mbulelo Mtilwa, first secretary of the South African Embassy in Jordan, said officials didn't know if he had been killed, captured or wounded.
In other violence Wednesday:
• Gunmen killed two industry ministry officials in a drive-by shooting in the capital's New Baghdad neighborhood.
Iraqi policemen remove bodies of two people killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad Wednesday June 8, 2005. The two were believed to have been bodyguards of Rosh Noori Shawesh, the Iraqi vice-president. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
• One police officer was killed and six injured in clashes between Iraqi police and gunmen in northwest Baghdad after gunmen attacked a police car.
• In Mosul, police Col. Nashwan Hadi was killed in a drive-by-shooting near his home. The attackers then fired a rocket at his house, injuring five people — including two children.
Sattar Mohammed carries his nine year old nephew Murtada Mazen to al-Sadr hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City Wednesday June 8, 2005. Murtada Mazen was injured when his home came under attack by unknown gunmen killing his grandfather and wounding his father. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
A woman grieves beside the body of her husband, the father of an Iraqi police officer, who was shot dead in Baghdad's Sadr City June 8, 2005. Mazin Mohammad Jadem, a Ministry of Interior police officer, said he received unknown death threats three months ago to quit his job. Jadem ignored the threats and as a result gunmen shot dead his father and injured his two younger brothers. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem
• An officer was shot and killed in eastern Mosul.
Relatives of four Shiites from Baghdad's north-eastern region of Rashidiyah cry during a funeral of their four family members Wednesday, June 8, 2005, who were found dead in the northern city of Mosul, Tuesday. The four went missing 8 days ago and their mutilated bodies were found on a street in Mosul yesterday. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Relatives carry the coffins of four workers who were shot dead in Mosul eight day