Posted on 06/11/2005 7:01:18 PM PDT by TexKat
A mortar team from 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, dig fighting positions while on patrol in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. Photo by Joseph Collins Jr.
Capt. Jody S. Guidry, from the 256th Brigade Combat Team, searches the home of a suspected terrorist in Baghdad, Iraq. Photo by Jorge Rodriguez.
Huma Aamir Malik - Arab News
ISLAMABAD, 12 June 2005 — The arrest of two suspected Al-Qaeda agents in California raises new concerns about the existence of Al-Qaeda training camps inside Pakistan, according to a special report for the US and Pakistan.
Citing an FBI affidavit, the report showed in a news channel accused opposition Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leader Fazlur Rehman of running an Al-Qaeda camp near Rawalpindi. It said that Rehman is a fundamentalist, and is known for his close ties to Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime.
Authorities in the United States and in Pakistan are investigating whether the opposition leader is the same man identified by the Al-Qaeda suspects.
According to an FBI affidavit, one of the suspects, Hamid Hayat, 22, admitted he had trained at an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan for six months in 2003 and 2004 where he others were trained on “how to kill Americans,” an FBI agent stated in an affidavit.
Hamid’s father, Umar, 47, who drives an ice cream truck, acknowledged paying for his son’s flight and giving him a $100 a month stipend knowing he was going to a “jihadi training camp,” according to the affidavit.
Hamid was arrested upon returning to the United States from Pakistan late last month.
Videotapes shown in the course of the report contain the only known images of Al-Qaeda training camps inside Pakistan.
The tape shows fighters conducting a variety of exercises with automatic weapons, as they once did at similar camps in Afghanistan. The fighters are identified as coming from nine different countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Earlier this year, President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan Army had attacked and shut down such remote Al-Qaeda sanctuaries. ‘They are now on the run in the mountains, in small groups,’ said the president.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri said in Washington on Friday his country had not been contacted by the US government regarding claims by the man with suspected Al-Qaeda ties that he was trained at an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan.
“Our government has not been contacted,” Kasuri told reporters after meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for more than an hour.
“And if we are contacted, it goes without saying that we will provide cooperation,” he added. Pakistan on Thursday denied that there were any Al-Qaeda training camps on its soil.
By DAVE WOODSON - Staff Writer
Saturday, June 11, 2005
ELKO - U.S. Marine Sgt. Sean A. Coons believes in what he is fighting for in one of the most remote regions of western Iraq that is hotbed of insurgent operations.
"Our military presence suppresses terrorist activity," he said. "We are making it safer for the people of Iraq to get on their feet and run their own country."
Coons is a 1999 graduate of Elko High School who enlisted in the Marines on June 6 of that year, missing his high school graduation because he was in Marine boot camp.
He is the son of Elko resident Jack Coons and Cindy Wood, who now lives in Trinity, Texas.
Iraq may not be old hat to Coons but he has "been there, done that" during the war.
"This is my second trip in less than a year," he said.
His unit, the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, redeployed to Iraq earlier this year to conduct stability and security operations along the insurgent active Iraq-Syria border.
Coons is attached to Marine Attack Helicopter Squadron 775 in airframe quality assurance.
"I am a quality assurance representative," he explained. "I ensure that the highest standards for maintenance are in accordance with Naval Aviation standards."
It is a hands-on job for the 25 year old Marine.
"I work with the actual air frame of the helicopters plus all the flight controls and hydraulics," he said.
When not deployed in operations in Iraq, Coons' squadron is based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Gunnery Sgt. Shannon Arledge said that the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing employs both rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft.
"The air wing supports counter-insurgency operations to isolate and neutralize anti-Iraq force and support the continued deployment of Iraq security forces," Arledge said.
He said the airwing is comprised of approximately 6,000 Marines and U.S. Navy personnel.
Coons said he is proud to be a Marine.
"Marines throughout history have always answered their nation's call and this is no different," he said.
Gunnery Sgt. Shannon Arledge in Al Asad, Iraq contributed to this story.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report from Pakistan
June 11, 2005, 6:37 PM (GMT+02:00)
The biggest refugee repatriation operation in the world is underway. It is the cover for Pakistan’s mass-export of al Qaeda operatives back to where they came from – Afghanistan.
The UN refugee agency reports that from 2002, nearly 2.4 million Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan. This week, General Pervez Musharraf gave the remaining estimated 400,000 until June 30 to leave the country or face expulsion.
Most live along Pakistan’s northwestern border. Islamabad explains its action on the grounds that the tribal belts of North and South Waziristan have been sanctuaries for hundreds of al-Qaeda linked terrorists and the Taliban. The presence of the refugees complicates the hunt for them and adds to Pakistan’s security problems.
Pakistani authorities claim terrorists are buried among these Afghan refugees and the expulsion order will deport them too.
DEBKAfile’s correspondent quotes diplomatic sources in the capital as referring to the belief of US intelligence agents that al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives who took shelter in Pakistan as refugees are now regrouping and moving back into Afghanistan. Their numbers are small but are expected to swell, posing fresh dangers to the Karzai government’s stability in Kabul. American military strength in Afghanistan is not nearly large enough to deal with any major influx.
The early trickle has generated deadly rocket attacks in recent months against the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The government in Kabul has been unable to gain effective control of the Afghan countryside and large numbers of returning terrorists will aggravate the threat.
Until recently, al-Qaeda appeared to be trying to shift its base of operations from Afghanistan to Pakistan, with many of its leaders finding sanctuary either in the remote tribal regions along the Afghan border or in cities. In the tribal region of Waziristan, al-Qaeda operatives found support from sympathetic local leaders eager to defy Pakistan government’s efforts to crack down on Islamic radicals.
The Pakistan government’s decision to evict the Afghan refugees by June 30 this year will be conveyed through traditional drum-beating and radio to the thousands of Afghan refugees living in camps in North Waziristan. They will be told to repatriate to their native provinces in Afghanistan as a first choice. If they refuse, they will be accommodated in a camp set up for them in the Bannu district of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). South Waziristan was earlier cleared of Afghan refugees.
Some of fled their country from Soviet invaders in the early 1980s when Pakistan under General Zia ul Haq opened its borders and actively encouraged the jihad against Red Army occupation. Many stayed on and became entrenched in the social and economic life of North Waziristan. Some Pakistanis resented the large refugee colony claiming it was the source of a crime, drugs and sectarian strife. A jihad culture took root in Afghanistan and Kashmir as a dissident weapon in which successive governments in Islamabad took n interest.
Pakistan was severely jolted in the wake of September 11, 2001 attacks on America, when Washington declared Afghanistan the epicenter of international Islamic terrorism. It took time for the Musharraf government to wonder about the size and makeup of its Afghan colony. Its presence made it easy for people from different nationalities to move in and out of the Pakistan-Afghan border districts and Pakistan found itself becoming a global recruitment center for jihadists. Finally, earlier this year, Islamabad ordered the first census of Afghan refugees in the country, realizing that as long as they were uncounted, it was not possible to prevent terrorists and insurgents making free of its soil.
Still, since 9/11, Pakistan has apprehended and killed over 1,000 foreign activists of al-Qaeda and the Taliban from various parts of the world. Fleeing from Afghanistan they had sought shelter in Pakistan among the largest single largest refugee population anywhere in the world.
According to Guenet Guebre-Christos, United Nations High Commission for Refugees Representative in Pakistan, the census found that 1,861,412 Afghan refugees live in the North West Frontier Province, 783,545 in Baluchistan, 136,780 in Sindh, 207,754 in Punjab, 44,637 in Islamabad and 13,097 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Northern Areas.
Then in May, Pakistani ordered he closure by the end of June 2005 of over a dozen refugee camps in the belief that they also harbored hundreds of foreign terrorists from Afghanistan, Chechnya and Uzbekistan. Many of the refugees are desperate to return home but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been urging them not to return immediately, since Afghanistan is not ready to receive them. Returnees face attacks by rival tribal warlords and hunger. Jobs and food are also both in short supply in a country where six to seven million people are reported to live on the brink of starvation.
“The UNHCR teams will visit all the refugee camps in North Waziristan in the first two weeks of June 2005 to register those families wishing to avail themselves of the refugee agency’s assistance package for voluntary repatriation”, Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told media persons in the capital, Islamabad, on June 9, 2005.
After that date, the heads of the families will have to travel to Bannu some 40 km away, to claim Voluntary Repatriation Forms (VRFs) for assistance. The UNHCR standard repatriation assistance package includes a travel grant of US $3 to $30 per person depending on the distance to the recipient's destination in Afghanistan and another $12 per capita to re-establish themselves in their homeland. Redden agreed that the UNHCR staff cannot distinguish between a genuine Afghan refugee and a terror operative belonging to either al-Qaeda or Taliban who now want to cross over to Afghanistan to escape arrest or join the assaults on coalition forces and the Kabul government.
The humanitarian problem is multiplied by the Afghan refugee flight from Pakistani Army operations in Waziristan to hunt al Qaeda operatives. Over 25,000 crossed into Afghanistan’s troubled southeastern provinces overnight, many leaving Pakistan after decades with only the possessions they could carry, aid workers said. They landed in a hotbed of Taliban-led insurgents from which Afghanistan officials, United Nations staff and most aid organizations have pulled out fearing attacks on their workers.
These refugees were and still are caught in the crossfire.
Pakistani intelligence sources told DEBKAfile’s sources that, even after the Afghan refugees are gone, North Waziristan will be a tough proposition because it has provided al Qaeda and the Taliban with a stronger base than did South Waziristan. This base is supported by a large number of seminaries established there and around 70 percent of the local population.
From correspondents in Bangkok, Thailand
June 11, 2005
THREE people have been shot dead and one critically wounded as police found four bombs in the latest flare-up of violence in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, police said today.
The attacks cap a bloody week in which at least nine people died, bringing to about 700 the number killed since January 2004 when a violent uprising erupted in Thailand's three southernmost provinces.
Buddhist construction worker Phuang Sungsakul, 49, was shot three times early today as he drove his motorcycle to work in Muang district of Yala province, police said in a report. He died in hospital.
Muslim villager Abdulroya Torloh, 39, was shot dead by unknown assailants late Friday at his house in Sungai Padi district in Narathiwat province.
A third victim, Buddhist Prachuab Srikrien, 42, was shot late Friday by suspected militants who ambushed his car. He died at the scene of the attack, in Narathiwat's Rangae district, police said.
Police also neutralised four bombs in Narathiwat and Pattani, two of the most violence-plagued provinces of the deep south.
They included a 15-kilogram bomb planted in a fire extinguisher at a public works service office in Sungai Padi that was defused by a bomb squad yesterday.
A remote-control bomb uncovered at a local health office in Pattani's Nong Chik district was detonated today in a controlled explosion which severely damaged the building.
"Police suspect these attacks were the work of militants waging an unrest campaign," the police report said.
Also today, suspected militants shot and injured the elder brother of a former Yala provincial governor, Yuthasit Kittichokewattana, police said.
Authorities blame the unrest on a mix of Islamic separatist insurgents, organised crime and contraband smugglers.
They originally targeted security forces and government officials but have spread to teachers and other civil servants, Buddhist monks and civilians such as farmers and shop owners.
Blackanthem.com
SAMARRA, IRAQ, June 10, 2005 -- In the middle of the night, a loud explosion rips through the darkness. A few seconds later, and a few kilometers away, the ground is lit up by a light in the sky.
Enemies who were depending on the cover of darkness now have no place to hide. This is made possible by Soldiers of B Battery, 1st Battalion, 41st Field Artillery Regiment.
"Tonight we are going to fire two different kinds of rounds," said 1st Lt. John Dorffeld, a B Battery 1/41 FA platoon leader. "We have two guns we are taking with us, and each one will fire in a different direction, giving us a good lateral spread."
"We were given a mission to supply illumination coverage for the (Iraqi Ministry of Interior) during Operation Forsyth Park," said Sgt. 1st Class Mark Lowry, B battery 1/41 platoon sergeant.
Illumination coverage lights up the area for ground troops so they have more situational awareness, Lowry said. "We were taking back the night from the terrorists."
The illumination round has several different purposes, the most important being the identification of enemy targets, Lowry said.
"We had a good function of all the illumination rounds, with chief coverage of a grid area. We have an observer out there with sight of six or eight kilometers," Lowry said. "When the round bursts he uses it to identify targets. We also use the round as a distraction for the enemy. The enemy will look up and watch the round. It also gives us an idea of who is doing something wrong. You can’t really hear the round until it is right over you, and by then it is too late for them to disguise what they are doing."
The artillery Soldiers got the intelligence for their area of fire from a group of special scouts who observed the area well before the fire mission. "We were firing on predetermined targets," Lowry said. "Our fire support element got information from the (long range surveillance detachment) that there was high insurgent activity in the area."
After the illumination rounds, 1/41 tested 15 rocket- assisted projectiles. A RAP goes beyond what a regular round could reach due to the rocket propulsion.
"It will go two or three kilometers further, depending on the size of the charge, which increases our range," Lowry said. "Not only does this keep our Soldiers safer, but it saves time on having to move forward to engage targets that under normal circumstances would be out of our range."
The platoon command team considered the mission a success for several different reasons.
"It was a very successful night," Lowry said. "For one, it was a different operation that we don’t normally get to do. Our main mission is terrain denial and counter-fire so this was a morale booster for the Soldiers."
Artillery elements are powerful and destructive, so a great deal of preparation goes into a fire mission. Soldiers make every effort to avoid damaging anything not expected in the impact area.
"We have to go out there and observe an area and make sure we don’t kill a guy trying to repair an irrigation ditch. We are trying to make allies, not enemies and if we make the whole country suffer we aren’t going to be able to accomplish that. Neither can we do that if we are causing damage to Iraqi property."
Blackanthem.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 10, 2005 -- It was 2 a.m. - roughly 12 U.S. Soldiers and about 20 Iraqi Soldiers jump out of their vehicles. With their M-4 carbines and AK-47's at the ready, the dismount of determined Soldiers follows a dirt drive way illuminated by dim moonlight to an unlit house.
Several chemlights are thrown at the front door " the Soldiers quietly organize a tight line before several blasts of a shotgun throws the front door open.
"COME OUT, HANDS IN THE AIR, GET DOWN," echoes from the voices of multiple Soldiers though the empty rooms, before the team surrounds a middle-aged man, clutched in the arms of his family, not ready to accept the responsibility for his actions.
In response to growing Improvised Explosive Devices being located and detonated on Main Supply Route Tampa, American and Iraqi Soldiers lead an early morning raid May 31 with the assistance of multiple tips.
"[Our Troop] was going after an IED cell operating in the Muhatta area, located at the intersection of MSR Tampa and Alternate Supply Route Amy," Capt. Joel Jackson, commander of Troop A, said.
Soldiers of Troop A, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and Soldiers of B Company, 203rd Iraqi Army Battalion, 3rd Brigade stormed three houses outside Logistical Support Area Anaconda with the hopes of securing high value targets suspected of being responsible to MSR Tampa's IED problem.
"We went out looking for 10 guys," Jackson said. "We got seven of those guys and got four more that were collaborating with the guys we caught."
Each house, which took about 45 minutes to an hour and a shotgun burst to the door to get in, turned up at least one suspect each as well as various contraband including multiple AK-47 magazines, excessive amounts of telephone wire, Anti-Iraqi Forces documents and photographs, and even a U.S. issued M-9 9mm Beretta Pistol.
"We take [all the evidence] in when we bring it to brigade, and label it according to where we found it," Jackson said. "The evidence follows the suspect (through the interrogation process)."
Intelligence which led to the raid was provided from various sources.
"You hope to have a multi-source intelligence, which is intelligence gathered from two or more people," 1st Lt. Jeffrey Sacks, 2nd platoon leader said. "Then the battalion puts together all the intelligence on the subject, and a platoon is giving the responsibility to get the subject."
The raid itself has an effect on the Soldiers involved as well.
Some times [the Soldiers] take a beating," Sacks said. "The raid we just did, we had three targets and it's like a sport you have to keep that adrenaline pumping, and keep the blood flowing, but it's rewarding in the end when you catch the guys you were looking for."
"Your heart rate goes up because you don't know what's in that house or building," Sacks added. "When you first step in it, they may have booby trapped the rooms, their yard or anything, it's a feeling that I won't ever forget."
Blackanthem.com
AL MUKHISA, Iraq - June 10, 2005
Soldiers, by the hundreds, surround the town of Al Mukhisa and move closer, tightening their grip on the anti-Iraqi forces living there. One by one, helicopters land and armored vehicles move in during the largest air assault mission since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom III.
"Our intent was to capture insurgents that have been operating in this area," said Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier, the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Task Force Liberty. "We are here to prevent them from becoming a coherent, organized force."
Children in tattered clothes and dirt on their faces line the streets as Bradley fighting vehicles rumble through the town. A little girl, no more than five years old, stands barefoot in the dirt as attack helicopters patrol the skies, the pink bow in her hair faded and torn.
"Elements from my battalion and the 205th Iraqi Army Battalion led the air assault," Cloutier said. "The ground assault was led by 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment and a scout platoon from the 205th Iraqi Army Battalion. We also had close air support from the Air Force."
Coalition Forces and Iraqi army soldiers conduct searches of houses looking for illegal weapons, explosives, anti-Coalition propaganda and any information that will lead them to the insurgents. As they walk from door to door, they pass out candy and smile at the children.
Lt. Col. Cloutier came with a clear message: help us, or help the terrorists. A large group of local townspeople gathered to hear what he has to say. "We are here to build you schools, we are here to build you hospitals and we are here to make sure your water is clean," Cloutier said holding out his hand. "We cannot do these things if you continue to harbor terrorists."
As he spoke, Bradley fighting vehicles rolled past the group. A U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jet does a fly-by of the area and all sound is drowned out from the jet engine roaring past.
"I will leave this town if you do not tell us where they are hiding." Cloutier said as he talked with them for several minutes trying to get them to cooperate. "You give me no choice." As he turned to leave, there was fear and doubt on the faces of the crowd.
"The local population appears reticent in cities that have a lot of insurgent activity," Cloutier said. "They are afraid because if they are seen talking with Coalition Forces, they, or their families will be targeted by terrorists after we leave."
Soldiers started to pull back and walk toward the edge of town, continuing to pass out pamphlets and handshakes as the children smiled and waved.
"A Soldier in Iraq has to be ready to fight one second and then transition to handing out leaflets, passing out candy, or just helping the local population," Cloutier said. "It is a challenge and we ask a lot from our Soldiers and I think they are doing a great job."
An Iraqi civilian steps forward with information about insurgents. He is quiet and nervous, but compelled by the freedom Coalition Forces are providing. "We came here expecting to fight," Cloutier said. "Anti-Iraqi-forces chose not to do that today and there was cooperation today from the local population. Many suspected insurgents were detained. Four of the 44 that we detained were on our high-valued individuals list."
As Coalition Forces prepare to leave, the Iraqi army continues to search houses and check identification cards. There is a calm in the air as the Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi army politely talk and cooperate with each other, taking steps toward a free Iraq.
"My Soldiers and the Iraqi army did phenomenally today," Cloutier said. "They were motivated, disciplined and well-trained." Hugs and handshakes are exchanged as the Iraqi army takes over the mission.
"This has been a particularly challenging mission," said Col. Steven Salazar, 3rd Brigade Combat Team commander. "Our intent was to come in and disrupt the operations of the anti-Iraqi forces. It is clear by this successful joint operation, that we have done this."
"Third Brigade works with the Iraqi army every day," he added. "As we conduct more and more operations in the future, they will continue to get better. The 205th Iraqi Army Battalion is the most proficient in Iraq."
Cloutier stated that he plans on coming back to this town to sit down and discuss future projects with the leaders of the town and the townspeople.
"The Iraqi people have spoken and they have chosen their government," Cloutier said. "I would tell the terrorists that it is time to come in from the cold. Fight your battles with ballots, not bullets."
12 June 2005
AMMAN — The daughter of former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, has failed to retrieve money said to have been stashed away in Jordanian banks by her husband when he sought refuge here in Amman about a decade ago.
Raghad Saddam Hussein made futile attempts to search and retrieve her husband's wealth, which was said to have been frozen as part of the Jordanian financial institutions’ response to the UN resolution which called for the freezing of monies of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen.
According to a report, no bank has ever admitted having an account in the name of the late Iraqi general, for Raghad and her four children to lay claim over it.
For the past two years since she arrived here, Raghad had been searching for the "lost treasure" in Jordanian banks with the help of an attorney. She was soon to benefit from the generosity of King Abdullah of Jordan who provided for her and her children "full care" including accommodation, money, protection and schooling for her children, but Raghad said she feels embarrassed and does not want to continue to be a burden on Jordan.
She has refused to seek financial assistance from anybody, including people she knows owe her father a lot. She even refused to accept money from the Libyan Leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who asked her to name the amount of money she needs.
Reliable sources who know the issue said none of the Jordanian or Iraqi personalities Saddam Hussein lavished with his generosity in the past reciprocated this gesture by coming to the aid of Saddam's family although Raghad, in particular, continues to face tough financial difficulties considering the high cost of living in Amman and the high-class schools Saddam's nine grandchildren go here in Amman.
Other members of Saddam's family, including those living in Gulf countries and Yemen, continue to face financial problems.
Defence lawyers of Saddam ‘may quit’
(DPA)
12 June 2005
AMMAN — The chief lawyer for Saddam Hussein issued an impassioned appeal on Friday to the world’s law bodies for help to pressure the Iraqi tribunal to supply the Amman-based legal panel with any documents needed to defend the former Iraqi leader.
Ziyad Khasawneh also warned that if the Iraqi tribunal continued to keep his team in the dark, the panel could be obliged to ‘quit’ the assignment.
“So far, the special Iraqi court has insisted on keeping us in complete blackout by failing to provide us with any document regarding the charges levelled against the president or the outcome of investigations conducted with him,” Khasawneh told DPA.
“The Iraqi lawyer who represents the president’s defence panel in Iraq, Kahlil Duleimi, also failed to get any papers from the tribunal. This runs counter to the preliminary rules of litigation. It is not a trial. It is a farce,” he said.
Khasawneh appealed to the world’s law bodies as well as to the international public opinion “to say their word on what is taking place”.
“They should come to our help, otherwise we could be forced to quit the job if we don’t have any other choice,” he said.
Khasawneh leads some 30 Arab and non-Arab prominent legal specialists who volunteered to defend the former Iraqi president.
The panel includes renowned lawyers such as former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Aisheh, daughter of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
In compliance with the Iraqi Bar Association rules, Saddam’s defence team appointed Duleimi to represent it in Iraq. The Iraqi lawyer succeeded in meeting Saddam at least twice over the past few months — the last time on April 27.
“President Saddam told Duleimi that he had complete confidence in the Amman-based in defence panel, but the problem is that the so-called special Iraqi tribunal refuses to provide us with any document. How then can we proceed with our job?” Khasawneh asked.
Saddam, whose regime was knocked out by a US-led multinational force in April 2003, was captured by an American force in December the same year at a hideout near his hometown, Tikrit.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that they managed to visit the former Iraqi leader several times under his US custody inside Iraq.
Saddam appeared in public for the first time before the Iraqi tribunal on 1 July 2004, but refused to respond to the charges list, saying he would not speak “without the presence of my lawyers”.
A series of declarations was made in Iraq over the past few weeks about an imminent resumption of Saddam’s trial.
The government’s spokesman Leith Kubba said earlier this week that the Iraqi court would bring only 12 charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam Hussein, although there were more than 500 possible cases against the ousted Iraqi leader.
“We are completely confident that the 12 fully documented charges that have been brought against him are more than sufficient to ensure he receives the maximum sentence (the death penalty),” Kubba said.
Saddam faces a flurry of accusations which might be brought against him, ranging from the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja and the forced repression of the 1991 Shiite rebellion in southern Iraq.
During a visit to Jordan last month, Iraqi President Jalal Talebani announced that he would not sanction the death penalty against Saddam if such a verdict were adopted by the court.
“All statements made by Iraqi officials are meaningless because the supreme authority lies with the American occupiers and they have the final say in this respect,” Khasawneh said.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2005/June/middleeast_June311.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
BAGHDAD, June 12 (KUNA) -- An insurgent responsible for financing insurgent groups in Mosul turned himself in to the Iraqi security authorities on Wednesday, said an Iraqi Government press release on Sunday.
It confirmed that insurgent Abu Hajji Ibrahim Hamid Khalaf turned himself in on Wednesday to the security authorities in the city of Mosul, northern Iraq.
It added that Abu Hajji Ibrahim is one of the financiers and planners of terror operations in the city of Mosul, who also has links to Al-Mullah Mahdi.
Meanwhile, the authority in charge of detainees' issues released 259 detainees after reconsidering their cases and proving them innocent of their accusations.
The concerned authority, formed of six representatives of the ministries of human rights, defense, and interior and three major officials in the security forces, studied more than 12,500 cases and recommended the release of 7,000 detainees.
Rescue workers are seen at the explosion site in Ahvaz, Iran, Sunday June 12, 2005. At least eight people were killed and 36 others injured Sunday in four bomb explosions that targeted government buildings and officials in southwestern Iran, state-run television reported. (AP Photo)
Bomb Explosions Target Iranian Elections
TEHRAN, Iran - Four bombs exploded in the capital of an oil-rich province on the Iranian border with Iraq on Sunday, killing at least eight people and wounding at least 36 in the deadliest explosions in the nation in more than a decade, state-run television reported.
At least four women were among those killed in the explosions in Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern Khuzestan province. At least two of the explosions were caused by car bombs, witnesses said.
Gholamreza Shariati, deputy provincial governor for security affairs, said the bombers were seeking to undermine public participation in Friday's presidential elections.
Television pictures showed the blast sites with heavily damaged buildings and blood on the ground. The force of the explosions also damaged cars in the streets. Shariati said 36 people, including eight police officers, were injured.
After the first three blasts, disposal experts tried to defuse a fourth bomb but failed, and it exploded, injuring one officer.
Amir Hossein Motahar, director of security at the Interior Ministry, said one bomb went off in front of the Ahvaz governor's office and another next to the city's housing department.
The third bomb blew up in front of the residence of the head of the provincial radio and television station, he said. The fourth bomb was placed near the same residence.
Shariati said intelligence and security officials were investigating the bombings, which targeted " Iran's territorial integrity as it was on the verge of presidential elections."
Ahvaz was the site of two days of violent demonstrations in April after reports circulated of an alleged plan to decrease the proportion of Arabs in the area. Officials at the time confirmed one death but opposition groups said more than 20 demonstrators had been killed. Some 250 were arrested.
The protests were sparked after copies of a letter allegedly signed by Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi circulated in the area. The letter ordered the relocation of non-Arabs to the Ahvaz to make them the majority population. Abtahi denied writing the letter.
Arabs make up about 3 percent of Iran's population of 69 million, Persians account for 51 percent and other minorities comprise the remainder.
Bomb explosions have been a rare occurrence in Iran since the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Sunday June 12, 2005 11:31 AM
AP Photo AVZ101
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - At least eight people were killed and 36 others injured Sunday in four bomb explosions that targeted government buildings and officials in southwestern Iran, state-run television reported.
At least four women were among those killed in the explosions in Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern Khuzestan province which borders Iraq. The blasts were the deadliest explosions in Iran in more than a decade.
Gholamreza Shariati, deputy provincial governor for security affairs, said perpetrators were seeking to undermine public participation in Friday's presidential elections.
Television pictures showed the blast sites with heavily damaged buildings and blood on the ground. The force of the explosions also damaged cars in the streets. Shariati said 36 people, including eight police officers, were injured.
Following the first three blasts, experts had tried to defuse a fourth bomb but failed, and it exploded.
Ahvaz was the site of two days of violent demonstrations in April after reports circulated of an alleged plan to decrease the proportion of Arabs in the area. Officials at the time confirmed one death but opposition groups said more than 20 demonstrators had been killed. Some 250 were arrested.
The protests were sparked after copies of a letter allegedly signed by Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi circulated in the area. The letter ordered the relocation of non-Arabs to the Ahvaz to make them the majority population. Abtahi denied writing the letter.
Arabs make up about 3 percent of Iran's population, Persians account for 51 percent and other minorities comprise the remainder.
Bomb explosions have been a rare occurrence in Iran since the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Railway cars of the derailed train traveling from the Chechen capital Grozny to Moscow are seen at the site of the accident, 150 kms (90 miles) south of Moscow, Sunday, June 12, 2005 in this image from the television. A train traveling from Grozny to Moscow on Sunday was derailed apparently by an explosion on the tracks, the Federal Security Service said. Twelve people were injured. (AP Photo/RTR Russian Channel)
Suspected Bomb Derails Moscow-Bound Train
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW - An explosion believed caused by a terrorist bomb derailed a train traveling from Chechnya to Moscow during Sunday's national holiday, injuring at least 15 people, officials said.
The blast occurred on the Day of Russia just hours before President Vladimir Putin held a reception and awards ceremony in the Kremlin. Many Chechen rebel attacks have been timed for significant Russian holidays.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said the train's driver reported an explosion on the tracks in front of the train shortly after 7 a.m., and a crater and wires were found at the site about 90 miles south of Moscow.
Deputy prosecutor general Nikolai Savchenko said a criminal case was opened on suspicion of terrorism and attempted murder, the Interfax news agency reported. He said investigators found signs of an explosion at the site, and FSB spokesman Nikolai Zakharov said investigators believe the blast was caused by a bomb containing the equivalent of more than 6 pounds of TNT.
FSB spokeswoman Diana Shemyakina said four cars of the train went off the tracks. Savchenko said 15 people were injured, Interfax reported. A conductor was hospitalized with a spinal injury that was not life-threatening, he said.
Interfax later quoted a Russian Railways company spokesman as saying five people were hospitalized, including a boy with a broken ankle, and a total of 42 people sought medical aid after the derailment.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, at the site, told NTV television that 15 people were injured, two of them seriously — an 18-month-old girl with second-degree burns and a man with a broken shinbone.
Putin did not refer to the bombing during the Day of Russia festivities. The holiday, formerly known as Independence Day, marks the Russian parliament's June 12, 1990, declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union.
Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who led Russia's independence drive and was elected president the same day in 1991, created the holiday 12 years ago.
Russian news agencies initially reported that the derailment was caused by an explosion, but they later quoted Moscow region authorities as saying a preliminary investigation indicated a technical cause. Then the FSB said it was an apparent explosion.
"According to the driver, there was an explosion on the track bed in front of the train," Shemyakina said.
There was a crater about 3 feet wide and 1 1/2 feet deep at the site, and authorities found wires attached to the right rail and a spot where the person who caused the blast might have been located, she said.
State-run Channel One television showed footage of the derailed cars standing at an angle. Authorities said none of the cars overturned.
Trains started traveling between the Chechen and Russian capitals only a year ago after a five-year interruption due to the war in the rebellious province. The city's central railroad station was destroyed early in the fighting, which began in September 1999, and nearby tracks were damaged.
The train, which takes two days to make the 1,000-mile trip, travels twice a week.
Revival of the route between the capitals was seen as part of a government effort to portray life in Chechnya as returning to a semblance of normality after a decade marred by two devastating wars. The southern region is still plagued by fighting, rebel attacks and abductions blamed widely on Russian and Moscow-backed Chechen forces.
Florence Aubenas, a reporter for French daily newspaper Liberation, is seen in this 2004 file photo. Aubenas and her Iraqi guide Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi have been freed after more than five months of being held in Iraq as hostages, the French Foreign ministry said Sunday, June 12, 2005. (AP Photo/Liberation/ Marc Chaumeil)
PARIS - French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant have been freed and are in good health after nearly five months in captivity in Iraq, officials said Sunday.
Aubenas, a veteran reporter for the left-leaning Liberation newspaper, was heading home to France and was expected to arrive at a Paris-area airport toward the end of the day. "We are mad with joy," the reporter's sister, Sylvie, told France-Info radio.
France's ambassador to Iraq, Bernard Bajolet, said Aubenas and Iraqi Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi were released Saturday and were in good health and high spirits. The ambassador did not say who had been holding the hostages or how they were handed over to French authorities, but he stressed that no ransom was paid.
"The first thing she told me was 'happy new year' because the last time we met was for Christmas at my house in Baghdad," Bajolet said. "She had lost some kilos (pounds) but was still so witty. She is a very impressive, strong person."
President Jacques Chirac went on television to thank French officials for "difficult, often dangerous" efforts to free the hostages. He said Aubenas was healthy and heading home.
"At the end of a long, painful, 157-day captivity that was shared by all French people, they will at last return to their families and loved ones, and I want to tell them of our joy," Chirac said. The government did not provide details of their release.
The Baghdad airport had been closed for two days because of a sandstorm, but Iraqi authorities made an exception to allow Aubenas' plane to leave, Bajolet said.
Al-Saadi returned home to southeastern Baghdad, where family and friends danced to a trumpet-led band and slaughtered a sheep to mark his homecoming.
The two had been missing since Jan. 5 and were last seen leaving Aubenas' hotel in the Iraqi capital. French officials have never identified the kidnappers, though authorities in both France and Iraq suggested they were probably seeking money rather than pressing a political agenda.
A Romanian journalist who was held in Iraq for nearly two months gave more clues Sunday.
Ovidiu Ohanesian, a reporter for the daily Romania Libera, told The Associated Press that he and two other Romanian reporters were kept for 51 days in a cellar alongside Aubenas.
"We managed to whisper together in English," Ohanesian said. "I have total admiration for Florence. She is the strongest person I have ever met."
The Romanians were freed May 22 by a group that identified itself as Maadh Bin Jabal.
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie thanked officials in the DGSE spy agency for their efforts in freeing Aubenas
Aubenas' January abduction came just weeks after the release of two other French reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were held captive for four months until Dec. 21.
The first and last public sign that Aubenas was alive came in a videotape — apparently recorded by her captors — that emerged on March 1. She looked pale and pleaded for help.
Aubenas' supporters in France, where the U.S.-led war in Iraq was widely opposed, organized constant concerts, rallies, balloon launches and torch-lit vigils. Each day, Liberation newspaper's cover had a count of how many days Aubenas and her guide had been captive.
Signs of optimism came last week when her newspaper said French authorities had established "stable contact" with the kidnappers through an intermediary.
Liberation's editorial director Antoine de Gaudemar said the release brought "the end of a nightmare."
"Apparently, she was well treated, as well as one can be under the circumstances," De Gaudemar told LCI television. "She suffered no ill treatment or harassment."
A celebration of the release was planned Sunday night at Place de la Republique in eastern Paris, where giant pictures of the captives hang.
Jacqueline Aubenas, the reporter's mother, said family and friends would greet Aubenas at the airport near Paris "with outstretched arms, plenty of kisses and plenty of tears."
"I thought I knew what the word happiness meant," she told France Info. "That was nothing. It's much better than I thought."
More than 200 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq; more than 30 of them were slain by their captors.
June 12, 2005
Insurgents in Iraq have kidnapped more than 200 foreigners:
HELD:
_Ali Musluoglu, 48, Turkish businessman. Kidnapped in Baghdad on May 19.
_Rami Daas, 26, a Palestinian student whose family said he was kidnapped May 9 by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul.
_Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old Australian engineer living in Alamo, Calif. The Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq claimed in a videotape released May 1 that it had abducted Wood.
_Jeffrey Ake, a 47-year-old contract worker from LaPorte, Ind. Abducted April 11 while working at a water treatment plant in the Baghdad area.
_Nabil Tawfiq Sulieman and Matwali Mohammed Qassem, Egyptian engineers for the firm Unitrak. Abducted on a road west of Baghdad according to a video that surfaced March 19 on an Islamic Web site.
_Ibrahim al-Maharmeh, a Jordanian businessman. Kidnapped in Baghdad on March 5.
_Joao Jose Vasconcellos, 55, an engineer from Brazil. Seized in an ambush Jan. 19 en route to Baghdad airport.
_Abdulkadir Tanrikulu, a Turkish businessman. Abducted by gunmen from the Bakhan Hotel in Baghdad on Jan. 13.
_Badri Ghazi Abu Hamzah, a Lebanese businessman. Abduction reported by Lebanese government. Lebanese media quoted his family as saying he was seized on the road to Tikrit Nov. 6, 2004.
_Sadeq Mohammed Sadeq, a Lebanese-American who formerly worked for SkyLink USA, a Virginia-based contractor. Kidnapped by gunmen around midnight Nov. 2, 2004, from his home in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood.
_Roy Hallums, a 56-year-old American, and Robert Tarongoy of the Philippines. Kidnapped Nov. 1, 2004, from their office in the Mansour district after a gunbattle kills an Iraqi guard and an attacker. A Nepalese and three Iraqis also were abducted but later freed.
_Aban Elias, 41, Iraqi-American civil engineer from Denver. Seized May 3, 2004, by Islamic Rage Brigade.
FREED OR ESCAPED:
_Florence Aubenas, a journalist for the French daily Liberation. Disappeared Jan. 5 after leaving her Baghdad hotel. Released along with her Iraqi assistant Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi on June 11.
_Romanian journalists Marie Jeanne Ion, 32, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci, 30, and Ovidiu Ohanesian, 37, and Mohammed Monaf, an Iraqi American who worked as their translator. Kidnapped March 28 in Baghdad. Released on May 22.
_36 Turks, 19 Jordanians, 19 Lebanese, 13 Chinese, 13 Egyptians, six Italians, five Japanese, five Chinese, four Americans, four Indonesians, three Kenyans, three Czechs, three Indians, three Poles, three Frenchmen, two Pakistanis, two Canadians, two Russians, a Sri Lankan, a Bangladeshi, a Swede, a Filipino, a Syrian, a Sudanese, a Nepalese, an Australian, a Briton, an Iranian, a Somali, a Syrian-Canadian, and an Arab Christian from Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050612/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_hostages_glance_1
People examine a damaged house following U.S. air strikes near the western Iraq town of Qaim, 450 kms (350 miles) northwest of Baghdad June 12, 2005. Hospital officials said three people were killed and 13 injured as a result of U.S. air strikes near the Syrian border. U.S. warplanes fired seven precision-guided missiles at insurgents near Qaim, according to U.S miltary officials. REUTERS/Ali Mashhadani
Poeple check a house destroyed in a US airstrike Saturday in Karabilah, an Iraqi village on the Syrian border, Sunday June 12, 2005. Seven precision-guided missiles were fired at heavily armed insurgents who were stopping and searching civilian cars at gunpoint near Karabilah, close to the volatile town of Qaim, the Marines said in a statement. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People check a house destroyed in a US airstrike Saturday in Karabilah, an Iraqi village on the Syrian border, Sunday June 12, 2005. Seven precision-guided missiles were fired at heavily armed insurgents who were stopping and searching civilian cars at gunpoint near Karabilah, close to the volatile town of Qaim, the Marines said in a statement. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People check a house destroyed in a US airstrike Saturday in Karabilah, an Iraqi village on the Syrian border, Sunday June 12, 2005. Seven precision-guided missiles were fired at heavily armed insurgents who were stopping and searching civilian cars at gunpoint near Karabilah, close to the volatile town of Qaim, the Marines said in a statement. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Good Morning Gucho, all!!
Happy Sunday!!
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi efforts to draft a new constitution are weakened by the lack of political experience within the minority Sunni Arab community, the prime minister's spokesman said Sunday. Laith Kuba said the process to draw up Iraq's first post- Saddam Hussein constitution will be hindered if any group is "marginalized."
Sunni Arabs, who enjoyed great influence when their patron Saddam ruled Iraq, have fallen from power and are calling for a greater say within a parliamentary committee that is drawing up a constitution. Their leaders claim they have lost out to Iraq's majority Shiite community and the U.S.-allied Kurds, who swept to power in historic Jan. 30 national elections.
Iraq's Kurdish community has enjoyed relative autonomy in the northern Kurdistan region since the early 1990s, under the protection of a U.S.-controlled no-fly zone barring Saddam's warplanes from flying over the area. The region has also established its own parliament-like assembly to control affairs.
Kuba said this has given Iraqi Kurds greater political experience than Sunni Arabs, which could be a disadvantage for the latter in trying to have a bigger say in the country's future.
"The most powerful (force in drafting the constitution) might be the Kurdish parties because they have had experience in this field, but the weakest side might be the Sunnis because it is the first time they entered true negotiations," Kuba said during a press conference.
He did not explain why he thought the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari had the necessary experience. Although Shiites make up an estimated 60 percent of the population, they were suppressed under Saddam's secular Sunni-dominated regime.
"I believe this might be the weak point in the constitutional process, which is Sunni parties might lack experience," he said.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said during the week that Sunnis may receive an additional 20 to 25 seats on the 55-member constitutional committee, which currently includes just two Sunni Arabs.
But there is widespread reluctance by many Shiite Muslim politicians to grant Sunnis more than 14 seats — the same number as Kurds.
Sunni alienation from the political process is seen as a driving force behind Iraq's raging insurgency, which has killed more than 930 people since the country's new Shiite-dominated government was announced April 28.
"It doesn't serve the interest of any side if any other party is marginalized," Kuba said.
Lance Corporal Alan Brackenbury, from Goole, East Yorkshire, died in Al Amarah when a roadside bomb exploded on May 29
Iraqis held after British soldiers' deaths
2.31PM, Sun Jun 12 2005
A group of insurgents suspected of killing two British soldiers in roadside bomb attacks have been arrested in Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence said "less than five" insurgents were detained in dawn raids near Al Amarah earlier.
Lance Corporal Alan Brackenbury, 21, from Goole, East Yorkshire, died in Al Amarah when a roadside bomb exploded on May 29 and Guardsman Anthony Wakefield, 24, of the 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards, was also killed in the area last month.
The MOD said the operations - carried out by Task Force Maysan - had also recovered 130 detonators and other bomb-making equipment. The troops encountered no hostile behaviour during the operations.
"Those targeted were suspected of being involved in recent attacks which claimed the lives of two UK soldiers, Guardsman Wakefield and Lance Corporal Brackenbury, in May 2005," said the MOD spokesman.
"The aim of the operation was to arrest a small number of specific suspects, all of whom are believed to be Iraqi citizens."
It's great - we keep reminding this scum that we mean business. Maybe eventually they'll get it.
Sun, Jun. 12, 2005
FBI SAYS IT STANDS BY LODI AFFIDAVIT
By Munir Ahmed - Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz denied Saturday that there are terrorist camps in Pakistan, and said he is seeking information from the FBI about a Lodi man accused of receiving jihadist training near Pakistan's capital.
``There are no such camps,'' Aziz said at a news conference, one day after a federal judge in Sacramento refused to grant bail to Hamid Hayat, 22, and his father, Umer Hayat, 47. They were arrested last week on charges of lying to federal investigators after what the FBI said was a yearslong investigation into possible connections between some of the 2,000 Pakistanis in Lodi, south of Sacramento, and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network.
``We have asked our embassy in Washington to get the necessary details,'' Aziz said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Steven Lapham argued that the younger Hayat, a U.S. citizen, traveled repeatedly to Pakistan, where he ``learned to kill Americans.''............(Excerpt)
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 591-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 11, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Sgt. First Class Victor H. Cervantes, 27, of Stockton, Calif., died June 10 in Orgun-e, Afghanistan, when he came under small arms fire while on patrol. Cervantes was assigned to the Army's 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 590-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Pfc. Douglas E. Kashmer, 27, of Sharon, Pa., died June 8 in Nippur, Iraq, when the wrecker in which he was a passenger was involved in a non-combat related rollover. Kashmer was assigned to the Army's 70th Transportation Company, Mannheim, Germany.
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 589-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Pfc. Emmanuel Hernandez, 22, of Yauco, Puerto Rico, died June 8 in Shkin, Afghanistan, when his helicopter-landing zone came under enemy fire. Hernandez was assigned to the Army's 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, Vicenza, Italy.
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 588-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Mark O. Edwards, 40, of Unicoi, Tenn., died June 9 at his forward operating base near Tuz, Iraq, from a non-combat related cause. Edwards was assigned to the Army National Guard's 2nd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Erwin, Tenn.
DoD Identifies Marine Casualties No. 584-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of five Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Dustin V. Birch, 22, of Saint Anthony, Idaho
Lance Cpl. Daniel Chavez, 20, of Seattle, Wash.
Lance Cpl. Thomas O. Keeling, 23, of Strongsville, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Devon P. Seymour, 21, of St. Louisville, Ohio
Cpl. Brad D. Squires, 26, of Middleburg Heights, Ohio
All five Marines died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations with 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Haqlaniyah, Iraq. Keeling, Seymour, and Squires were assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Akron, Ohio. Birch was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 4th Tank Battalion, 4th Marine Division, Boise, Idaho. Chavez was assigned to 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Unfortunately I'm not that optimistic Allegra. I don't believe these infidel hating, murdering mindset, islamic power domination seeking demons will ever get it.
They must be destroyed.
Carry on US Military!!
Mohammed al-Khawajah, one of four convicted murderers in Gaza, is seen at a Palestinian court in this September 11, 2000 file photo. The Palestinian Authority executed four convicted murderers on June 12, 2005, officials said, defying international calls to halt capital punishment as part of reforms considered key to securing future Palestinian statehood. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem/Files
Four Palestinians Executed in Gaza Strip - NY Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: June 12, 2005
JERUSALEM, June 12 - Four Palestinian men convicted of murder were executed by hanging and firing squad in the Gaza Strip today, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said.
The executions marked the first time in about three years that the death penalty has been implemented by the Palestinian Authority, which says it is trying to restore order in the territories under its control.
They also come at a time when the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is increasingly concerned with domestic security issues in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is under pressure to maintain a truce ahead of Israel's withdrawal from settlements in the Gaza Strip this summer, and to unify Palestinian factions, including the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, under the control of one government under one law.
The sentences were carried out after a period in which several days of shootings took place in Gaza City, the main city in the strip. The latest was on Saturday, when Palestinian security forces exchanged fire with militants, who shot up the house of the Gazan commander of preventive security, Gen. Rashid Abu Shbak, and launched a rocket-propelled grenade at it, witnesses said. Gunmen have also been protesting after being denied jobs in the Palestinian security forces.
News of the executions came in a statement from Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, the Interior Ministry spokesman, which was published on the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. Three of the men, Salah Khalil Musallam, Mohammad Owda Abu Azab, and Wael Shaaban al-Shubaki, were hanged at dawn. The fourth man, Mohammad al-Khawaja, was executed by firing squad.
Palestinian court in Gaza June 12, 2005. The Palestinian Authority executed four convicted murderers on Sunday, officials said, defying international calls to halt capital punishment as part of reforms considered key to securing future Palestinian statehood. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Iraq's first Kurdish President Jalal Talabani (L), head the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, walks with Massoud Barzani head of the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party at the opening of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous regional parliament in the northern city of Arbil.(AFP/Safin Hamed)
Kurd parliament elects Barzani as president
By Shamal Aqrawi ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - The Kurdish parliament in northern Iraq on Sunday elected veteran leader Masoud Barzani as president of the region, giving the group greater autonomy after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein.
Adnan al-Mufti, speaker of the Kurdish parliament, told a news conference that parliament unanimously elected Barzani, whose long-time rival Jalal Talabani, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), became Iraq's president earlier this year.
Barzani, head of the once rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), will be formally sworn in on Tuesday because poor weather prevented officials from flying to the region from Baghdad for a ceremony on Sunday, officials said.
After months of wrangling following an election at the same time as national voting on Jan. 30, the show of support for Barzani in the new post strengthens the Kurds' grip on the north of Iraq and may bolster their bid to ensure they maintain their autonomy once a new constitution is drawn up in Baghdad.
That independence came with U.S. military support after Saddam Hussein's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. It was jeopardized by a civil war between the KDP and PUK. But for a decade Kurds have enjoyed greater prosperity than other Iraqis.
The 20-percent Kurdish minority has joined Arab Shi'ites who make up more than half Iraq's population to supplant Saddam's Sunni Arab minority in power, stirring resentments among Sunnis.
Hundreds of Kurds celebrated in several cities in the north after Barzani was named president. Some waved Kurdish flags.
Kurdish flags are strung together as people get ready for festivities at a store in the northern city of Arbil. Iraq's three autonomous Kurdish provinces were preparing for the swearing-in of Massoud Barzani as the region's president.(AFP/Safin Hamed)
"Barzani's election is the beginning of the realization of the Kurdish dream of independence and the building of the Kurdish state in the region," said 24-year-old student Sara Ahmed in the city of Sulaimaniya.
SOME IRAQIS RESENTFUL
But in Baghdad, some Iraqis criticized the election of Barzani, son of Kurdish nationalist leader Mustafa Barzani.
"Having another Kurdish president is unacceptable to Sunnis like myself," said Tarek Adeeb, a transport company employee.
Firaas Maher, a Christian, said too much influence in the hands of one group threatened to exclude other communities.
"During Saddam's time he only helped the people closest to him while we were left to live in the dirt. I don't want that to happen again," said the mobile telephone shop employee.
The Kurds have been pushing for a fully federal Iraq, something the Arab majority is less keen on. Moreover, the Kurds want the oil center of Kirkuk as their capital, a demand that has angered Arabs and Turkmen also vying for influence in the city which lies south of the present Kurdish borders.
Iraqi Kurdish aspirations have also angered powerful northern neighbor Turkey, concerned over its own restive Kurdish population.
Barzani will lead one of Iraq's most peaceful regions.
But Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi consider Kurdish leaders infidel puppets of the United States.
A suicide bomber struck the offices of Barzani's party in Arbil in May, killing at least 46 people. Arbil also suffered heavy losses last year when twin suicide bombings hit the offices of the two main Kurdish parties, killing 117 people.
Kurds will also face internal challenges. Political rivalries have strained ties between Kurds and slowed efforts to build a regional government in the north and tensions between the PUK and KDP could surface again.
ISLAMABAD, June 12 (SANA): Al-Queda has become the loan provider for certain people in Pakistan and other Islamic countries. First they provide the loan and then when the borrower faces difficulty in repayment, they make them follow Al-Queda agenda. The concept came from age-old Afghanistan when men from Kabul used to travel to India and loan Indians money at very high interest rates.
The next wave of terrorism from Al-Queda can involve these secret clandestine Banking operations. People who cannot repay the loan can be made to provide shelter and do thinks that Al-Queda asks them to do.
According to media sources, Pakistan Army paid a massive sum of 32 million Rupees to some most-wanted militants in the tribal areas of South Waziristan to buy peace and enable them pay off debts taken from al-Qaeda, a media report said.
When Pakistani authorities initiated a dialogue with the tribesmen several months ago to buy peace and fight the al-Qaeda, they learnt that the tribals were "compelled to fight for al-Qaeda and against the Pakistan army because they had obtained huge loans from al-Qaeda," Pakistani magazine Newsline said in a report.
It said the tribesmen of South Waziristan had "no option but to offer its (al-Qaeda) militants shelter or work for their interests in the region."
Over 32 million Rupees were paid to some most-wanted militants to enable them pay off their al-Qaeda debts and surrender and sign peace deals with the army, the monthly said.
It quoted Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, in charge of the military operations in Waziristan, as saying the payments were made as part of a package after the militants said they needed "to settle debts with al-Qaeda".
Hussain said two of the militants, Haji Sharif and Maulvi Abbas, received 15 million Rupees each, while Maulvi Javed and Haji Omar were paid one million each. Another tribal militant, Nek Mohammad, who was killed in a rocket attack last year, is believed to have earned a fortune by providing logistic support to al-Qaeda militants in the tribal zones.
The magazine said documents seized from arrested Taliban leaders indicated that Nek Mohammad had distributed over 100 million Rupees to militants and arms suppliers to disrupt the afghan elections last year.
Sunday, June 12, 2005 Posted: 1:26 PM EDT (1726 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The bodies of 20 men were found buried southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi police said Sunday, the latest in a series of such discoveries.
All 20 had gunshot wounds, and some showed signs of torture, police said.
The men were found Friday in Nahrawain, a mixed area of Sunnis and Shiites 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the capital, police said.
The men have not been identified, and it's unclear when they died. Police said the bodies were partially decomposed.
On Friday, at least 17 bodies in civilian clothes were found near Qaim, a town close to the Syrian border, witnesses told The Associated Press.
Eleven of the bodies were bound and shot in the head, and one had been beheaded, the witnesses reportedly said.
Police also found three bodies under a bridge Sunday in northwest Baghdad, an official with the emergency police said. The bodies have not been identified.
They were blindfolded, with hands tied from behind, and there were signs of torture, the police official said.
Three other bodies were found in southeast Baghdad's al-Baladiyat neighborhood Sunday morning, a police official said.
An Iraqi Army soldier from the Second Battalion, Fifth Brigade, inspects an abandoned car during a patrol in the Rasafah District with U.S. Army soldiers from the Third Infantry Division in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 12, 2005. The Iraqi government claimed Sunday that some insurgent groups have agreed on the need to join Iraq's political life and called on them to lay down their guns. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
Insurgents Fire Mortar Rounds at Funeral
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents fired mortar rounds at a funeral for the mother of one of Iraq's most senior police generals on Sunday, killing two people, and the Shiite-led government pressed the need to open talks with insurgent groups.
Iraqi police dug up the bodies of 20 men who were shot to death and left in shallow graves east of Baghdad, while eight more bodies were found in the Iraqi capital.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced that four American soldiers were killed the day before in separate roadside bombings west of Baghdad, pushing the number of U.S. forces killed since the war started above 1,700.
In northern Iraq, the Kurdish Parliament elected veteran guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani the first president of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, prompting horn-honking celebrations by his supporters.
The mortar attack, which killed two people and wounded 11, took place Sunday evening in Baghdad's northern Hurriyah district during a funeral for the mother of Maj. Gen. Rashid Flaiyeh, who commands the Interior Ministry's elite police units, an official said.
A roadside bomb aimed at local police went off a few hundred yards from the funeral, police Lt. Ismael Abdul Sattar said.
Flaiyeh, who is also a security adviser to Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, was not injured, Abdul Sattar said. The Hurriyah district is predominantly Shiite but it was unclear if Flaiyeh was Shiite. Police are a favored target of Iraq's Sunni-dominated insurgency.
In other violence, a mortar barrage intended for an Iraqi army barrack in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar missed its target and slammed into a house, killing a 6-year-old child and wounding five other people, police Capt. Amjad Hashim said.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle outside Amiriyah, some 25 miles west of Baghdad. The other two died when their vehicle struck a bomb near Taqaddum, 45 miles west of Baghdad.
At least 1,701 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Freed French hostage Florence Aubenas, meanwhile, arrived home to a joyful welcome on Sunday, a day after she and her Iraqi assistant Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi were safely released from five months' captivity in Iraq.
President Jacques Chirac was among the crowd waiting to greet Aubenas at an airstrip in Villacoublay, west of Paris, where her flight touched down.
Lt. Ayad Ottoman said a shepherd found the bodies of 20 men Friday in the Nahrawan desert region, 20 miles east of Baghdad.
"All were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their backs and shot from behind," Ottoman said. "The assassins excavated a hole and buried them inside it and seven were found naked."
Witnesses claimed the slain men were Sunni Muslims, according to a statement from the influential Sunni Muslim organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars. No details were provided to back up the claim but the association launched an investigation.
Eight other slain men were found shot in the head Sunday in two different locations in Baghdad's northern suburb of Shula, police Capt. Majed Abdul Aziz said. The bodies could not immediately be identified.
The grisly discoveries came as Laith Kuba, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said some insurgent groups felt they no longer needed to carry out their "resistance" and called on them to lay down their arms.
Kuba said historic Jan. 30 national elections and the transfer a year ago of sovereignty from U.S.-led coalition authorities to an Iraqi government had encouraged some insurgent groups to lean toward joining the political process.
"Of course before the elections there were certain groups that used to say that Iraq is under occupation and they have a right to resist," Kuba said at a news conference.
"But now I believe this situation no longer exists, and many groups are agreeing on the concept to take part in the political process," he added. "So, now is the right time for any group to lay down their weapons and take part in the process."
Kuba was referring to Iraqi groups opposed to the continued presence of U.S.-led forces in the country, but not foreign extremists like Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the feared al-Qaida in Iraq group, and his Iraqi allies. The words "resistance" and "national resistance" are often applied to groups that only carry out attacks against U.S. forces.
"Groups who have carried out random killings and explosions will never enter into negotiations with the Iraqi government," Kuba said. "These are criminals and murderers who can't stop. They only want to kill."
Kuba's comments came days after the disclosure that U.S. officials are negotiating with Sunni Arab leaders to pull insurgents into Iraq's political process and recent announcements by influential Sunni and Shiite Muslim leaders that they have held similar discussions with insurgent groups.
The 111-member Kurdish assembly meeting in the northern city of Irbil unanimously chose Barzani, a Sunni Muslim Kurd and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, to a four-year presidential term.
The Kurdish region comprises three northern provinces and has enjoyed autonomy since the first Gulf War in 1991. The region is expected to remain autonomous even after Iraq drafts its new constitution, which will be put to a referendum later this year. Kurds hope the region will be part of a federal Iraq.
A swearing-in ceremony was postponed until Monday because a large sandstorm prevented various Iraqi officials in Baghdad from flying to Irbil, a city about 220 miles north of the Iraqi capital.
A man lets white doves free at the re-opening ceremony of Baghdad's al-Shaab stadium Sunday June 12, 2005. The stadium was previously used as a base for the US troops. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)
Iraqi children show their soccer skills at the re-opening ceremony of Baghdad's al-Shaab stadium Sunday June 12, 2005. The stadium was previously used as a base for the US troops. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)
Iraqi National Guard watch a soccer friendly at the Shaab Peoples' stadium in Baghdad June 12, 2005. The stadium was re-opened for the first time since the war ended and U.S. forces were stationed there. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber
06.12.2005, 02:27 PM
WASHINGTON (AFX) - Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who has been the subject of a worldwide manhunt since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, has been in and out of Iran several times over the past few years, said US Representative Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican.
Weldon is the author of a book on terrorism using an Iranian source dubbed 'Ali,' whose credibility was questioned by a Central Intelligence Agency agent.
Bin Laden 'has been in and out of Iran, and now we have military generals telling us that,' Weldon told NBC's 'Meet the Press.'
'Interestingly enough, the CIA totally refuted that when I first went to them. And by the way, the person who gave me this entire lead was a former Democrat member of Congress,' he said.
The lawmaker said he did not know whether bin Laden was in Iran today.
'I gave the CIA hits over the past five months that he was there twice, and I also told them two years ago he was in a small town in a southern part of Iran called Ladiz, 10 kilometers inside the border with Pakistan in Baluchistan,' he said.
'I'd say he's been in and out repeatedly.'
Weldon defended the Iranian source he used in his book 'Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information That Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America and How the CIA Has Ignored It.'
But Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris, told US newspapers he met four times with 'Ali' in Paris and that the source's information was not credible.
Weldon countered that he received a letter from the CIA last year which ended with: 'We welcome further information from Ali.'
Stories like these should be the headline news everyday. But alas, it is only a dream.
Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:16 PM BST
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is split over whether to close a U.S. jail in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Republican lawmaker said on Sunday, as a magazine reported a top al Qaeda suspect interrogated there was made to bark like a dog and kept awake with pop music by Christina Aguilera.
Some Bush administration officials want to close the facility to end a debate over allegations of prisoner abuse, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
The military detention camp for terrorism suspects has been criticized as a modern "gulag" by Amnesty International and it has become a hated symbol for many Muslims.
"I think they're divided. I think ... some members of the White House have come to the conclusion that the legend is different than the fact," said Hunter, a California Republican.
"And when that's the case, you go with the legend that somehow Guantanamo has been a place of abuse. And you close it down and you shorten the stories, you shorten the heated debate and you get if off the table and you move on," he said.
A classified log detailing the interrogation of Mohammad al-Kahtani, suspected to have been an intended September 11, 2001, hijacker, was published by Time magazine on Sunday and gave new details of interrogation methods at the camp.
The Pentagon said Kahtani's interrogation was conducted by "trained professionals," and yielded "valuable information" about al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.
After former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and others called for the camp's closure, President George W. Bush said last week he was "exploring all alternatives." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, however, said he knew of no one in the administration who was thinking of closing Guantanamo.
A White House spokesman, asked about Hunter's comments, said, "We should never limit our options."
Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News Channel, in an interview on Friday to be broadcast on Monday, there was "no plan to close" Guantanamo, but options were reviewed "on a continuous basis."
"The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people," Cheney said.
BARKING, NO PRAYER, AGUILERA MUSIC
Techniques used against Kahtani included inflicting a "sissy slap" with an inflated latex glove, forcing him to "bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog," and rejecting his request to pray, Time said, citing the log.
Interrogators also played Aguilera music to keep him from dozing off, Time said.
Kahtani, a Saudi citizen, is suspected to have been an intended fifth member of the team that hijacked United Airlines flight 93 on September 11, the Pentagon said in a statement. He was denied U.S. entry in August 2001, and was captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2002.
The Pentagon described the document in Time as a "compromised classified interrogation log," and said it had notified appropriate congressional committees.
Kahtani gave interrogators information on bin Laden's health and methods of evading capture, and on al Qaeda's infiltration routes, the Pentagon said. He also gave information on convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and suspected "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla, and about 30 of bin Laden's bodyguards held at Guantanamo, it said.
The log spanned 50 days in the winter of 2002 and 2003.
Time said water was poured on Kahtani's head to keep him awake in midnight sessions. He also was questioned in a room decorated with pictures of September 11 victims, was made to urinate in his pants, and forced to wear pictures of scantily clad women around his neck.
He once asked to commit suicide, and was connected to a heart monitor after he became seriously dehydrated from refusing to drink water and his heartbeat slowed, the magazine said.
By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The military announced the killing of four more U.S. soldiers on Sunday, pushing the American death toll past 1,700, and police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 28 people — many thought to be Sunni Arabs — buried in shallow graves or dumped streetside in Baghdad.
The bodies were discovered as the Shiite-led government pressed to open disarmament talks with insurgents responsible for a relentless campaign of violence, which has taken on ominous sectarian overtones with recurring tit-for-tat killings.
A crackdown by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and offensives carried out by U.S. forces in western Iraq have had only had a temporary effect in blunting the cycle of carnage in which at least 940 people have died since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his government six weeks ago.
Al-Jaafari spokesman Laith Kuba said many militant groups were reaching out to the government, seeking a place in the political process. He urged them to lay down their arms.
Some insurgents are motivated to end their resistance, Kuba argued, by the election of an Iraqi government which put the American presence in the background, although its military is still 140,000 strong.
"Now is the right time for any group to lay down their weapons and take part in the (political) process," he said.
The offer did not include foreign extremists such as Jordanian-born al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi because "they only want to kill," Kuba said.
Four American soldiers died Saturday in two roadside bombings west of Baghdad, increasing the number of U.S. forces killed since the war began in March 2003 to at least 1,701.
Al-Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for multiple suicide bombings, including Saturday's attack inside Baghdad's heavily guarded Interior Ministry headquarters. That attack killed at least three people and targeted the feared Wolf Brigade, a Shiite-dominated commando unit that Sunnis claim is killing members of their community, including Muslim clerics.
On Sunday, Gen. Rashid Flaiyeh, who runs all the Interior Ministry elite units including the Wolf Brigade, escaped an apparent assassination attempt when a mortar barrage rained down on his mother's funeral in northern Baghdad. Eleven mourners were wounded, including two seriously, Lt. Ismael Abdul Sattar said. Flaiyeh is Interior Minister Bayan Jabr's security adviser.
Lt. Ayad Othman said a shepherd found the bodies of 20 men on Friday in the Nahrawan desert, 20 miles east of Baghdad.
"All were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their backs and shot from behind," Othman said. "The assassins excavated a hole and buried them inside it and seven were found naked."
Witnesses claimed the slain men were Sunnis, according to a statement from the influential Sunni organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars. No details were provided to support the claim, but the association said it had begun an investigation.
Eight other slain men were found shot in the head Sunday in two different locations in Baghdad's predominatly Shiite northern suburb of Shula, police Capt. Majed Abdul Aziz said. The bodies could not immediately be identified.
"The interior minister keeps saying security is getting better, but everyday we hear of 20 bodies killed here and other 20 bodies found there," said Salih al-Mutlak, head of the prominent umbrella Sunni body, the National Dialogue Council.
The grisly discoveries were announced two days after 21 men were found slain Friday near Qaim, on the lawless Syrian frontier about 200 miles west of Baghdad.
It was feared the bodies may have been those of Iraqi soldiers who went missing Wednesday after leaving their base in Akashat, a remote village near Qaim, in a bus bound for Baghdad.
Last month, multiple batches of bodies turned up in various locations across Iraq. Many were killed in apparent revenge slayings that have raised fears Iraq was descending into sectarian civil war.
Despite the raging violence, there were several positive developments Sunday.
French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi were freed Saturday after five months in captivity.
Aubenas left Baghdad at noon Sunday on a French government plane in the middle of a sandstorm that had closed the capital's international airport for two days. Al-Saadi received a hero's welcome — hugs and kisses from more than 60 relatives and friends at his southern Baghdad home. A band of trumpets played Arab tunes and a sheep was slaughtered to celebrate his homecoming.
On her return to France, the veteran reporter for the Liberation newspaper said she had been held in an Iraq cellar in "difficult conditions," tied up and with little water. French officials said no ransom was paid.
In northern Iraq, the 111-member Kurdish Parliament unanimously elected veteran guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani to be the first president of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, prompting horn-honking celebrations by supporters. Barzani was elected to a four-year term and will also lead the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, which numbers an estimated 100,000 members.
Some 2,000 soccer fans tried to ignore the violence and watched two of Iraq's elite teams play at Baghdad's biggest sports complex, the 50,000-capacity Shaab Stadium. It reopened to the public Sunday after it was commandeered two years ago for a U.S. military base.
Zawraa, an ancient name for Baghdad, beat Shurta, Arabic for police, 2-0 in a game that many spectators feared could be marred by a mortar attack or suicide bombing — a regular occurrence in the capital.
"We were terrified at the beginning, but when the game started we had the chance to forget about the attacks, the bombs and the violence for a little while," said Shurta fan Ghazi Faisal, a police major. "For once there was some joy."
An office building at 50 Hammarlund Way, in Middletown, R.I., is pictured Thursday, May 12, 2005. The building houses the headquarters of Custer Battles. Former executives of Custer Battles _ an American firm accused of stealing millions from Iraq reconstruction projects and banned from further government contracts _ have continued doing contracting work and have formed new companies to bid on such projects, The Associated Press has learned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Banned Contractor Soliciting Iraq Deals
By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer
Sun Jun 12, 3:57 PM ET
Former executives of Custer Battles — an American firm accused of stealing millions from Iraq reconstruction projects and banned from further government contracts — have continued doing contracting work and have formed new companies to bid on such projects, The Associated Press has learned.
This may or may not be illegal, military officials say; Custer Battles officials deny any wrongdoing.
The new companies (there are at least three) are all headed by Rob Roy Trumble, who previously was operations chief for Custer Battles, according to state records.
The fledgling firms have different names but all are housed in the same office as Custer Battles — Suite 100 on Hammerlund Way in Middletown, R.I., 3,000 square feet on the ground floor of a squat building in an industrial park.
Meanwhile, Custer Battles' former chief financial officer Joseph Morris, accused of submitting fake invoices to the government, has been working for another American contractor in Iraq, according to interviews.
The military was not aware of either the new companies or Morris' new employment, a Pentagon official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity. Military investigators would have to decide whether these actions violate the suspension order.
Morris did not return phone messages or e-mail sent to his company and private addresses.
By itself, Custer Battles is already in a great deal of trouble. It is under investigation by the Pentagon for allegedly cheating the U.S. government out of tens of millions during the chaotic months following the Iraq invasion. In September 2004, the military banned Custer Battles and 15 of its subsidiaries and officials, including Morris, from obtaining government contracts while the criminal probe proceeds.
Custer Battles employees have also been accused of firing on unarmed Iraqi civilians, of using fake offshore companies to pad invoices by as much as 400 percent, and of using forgery and fraud to bilk the American government. Two former associates have filed a federal whistle-blower suit, accusing top managers of swindling at least $50 million.
Former Army Rangers Mike Battles and Scott Custer formed a limited liability corporation before the Iraq invasion to seek rebuilding contracts. Battles, a GOP campaign contributor and a former CIA case worker, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002 as a Rhode Island Republican.
The actions of Morris, their chief financial officer, were among the worst, according to the military's suspension order and the federal lawsuit. The order cites "serious improper conduct" by Morris which required immediate suspension, so he could not be "awarded new public contracts in Iraq and elsewhere."
But Morris has worked on subsequent reconstruction contracts, for an American firm called Sallyport Global Holdings. Executive John DeBlasio said Morris worked as a contracts consultant "off and on," for the past six months. "We employed him for that, for his expertise," DeBlasio said. "He's got a lot of knowledge about Iraq."
He didn't know Morris had been suspended, DeBlasio said.
DeBlasio is a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq and awarded reconstruction contracts for 13 months following the country's invasion. Custer Battles was one of the first CPA contractors.
The suspension order, and the ongoing criminal investigation, have been reported for months in the national and international media. The government maintains a Web site that lists all parties banned from contracting work.
After DeBlasio talked with the AP, a lawyer representing Sallyport e-mailed the AP saying Morris had signed a one-year contract with Sallyport in April 2004, before the suspension order was issued, and that work already underway was exempt.
"All government contracts that Mr. Morris had any involvement in while under contract with Sallyport were in effect prior to Mr. Morris being placed on the (suspension) list," wrote Washington, D.C. attorney David Cohen. Sallyport will not renew Morris' contract, Cohen said.
But a subcontractor now working in Iraq said Morris was a project manager for Sallyport from May until October, when word got out about his military suspension, and that Morris was involved with new contracts after his suspension.
"I asked him about it because I saw his name on the (government) Web site," said Nate Hill, a former Custer Battles midlevel manager who says he quit more than a year ago after becoming exasperated with management practices. "He told me he was a federal witness and had been exonerated."
According to federal regulations, individuals suspended by the military are banned from acting as principals on subsequent government contracts. Principals are defined as "officers, directors, owners, partners, and persons having primary management or supervisory responsibilities." Whether Morris' position was equivalent to those descriptions would have to be determined by military investigators.
Rob Roy Trumble, the former Custer Battles executive who heads the new companies, is not on the suspension list.
It is not a simple thing to track the ownership of two of his businesses, Emergent Business Services and Tarheel Training LLC.
They are affiliated with a Romanian company called Danubia Global Inc. Danubia, in turn, is owned by Security Ventures International Ltd., a British Virgin Islands firm, according to Bucharest incorporation records. Trumble cut short an interview with the AP, after saying he had "no idea" who owned Danubia. The web sites of his new companies are linked to Danubia's. Emergent's site says it is Danubia's employment recruiter and lists several contracting jobs open in Iraq.
Battles and Custer, through a spokesman, said they sold the remaining Iraqi assets of Custer Battles — including vehicles, computers and intellectual properties — to Danubia early this year. Several former Custer Battles employees have joined the Romanian firm. But the contractors refused to name the employees, or to identify Danubia's owners.
Trumble said his new companies "have nothing to do with Custer Battles" — though they share the same office. A Custer Battles e-mail, obtained by the AP, shows the recipient was instructed in January to send future Internet correspondence to Emergent, though the phone number and street address remained the same.
Emergent has bid on at least one government contract, according to federal records.
Tarheel Training was the name of North Carolina business development proposed by Custer Battles. In January, the deal to build a security training facility fell through amid growing controversy surrounding the contractor. That same month, Tarheel Training LLC was incorporated in Delaware and North Carolina with Trumble listed as manager.
Trumble denied he was the manager of Tarheel and said the 5-month-old company was going out of business because "they haven't been able to sign any contracts."
But the company's web site says the firm is more than a year old and has attracted more than 100 customers.
"We've been working with the specialists in Emergent Business Services for well over a year and they have provided comprehensive, professional services," says the web site, quoting Tarheel Chief Executive Officer Jack Donovan.
Donovan is a retired military colonel who told a North Carolina newspaper in November that Scott Custer "was one of my best soldiers. I got him a commission." He also is a former Custer Battles official.
"They're like mushrooms, they just keep sprouting up," said Franklin Willis, a former CPA official and Reagan administration member who testified in Washington that Custer Battles had defied government control and did what it wanted in Iraq.
"They are extremely clever. They are extremely brazen. They've never let truth get in the way of their economic ambitions."
___
Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Rhode Island, Alexandru Alexe and Alison Mutler in Romania, contributed to this report.
June 12, 2005
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