Posted on 06/18/2005 11:59:46 PM PDT by TexKat
U.S. Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, patrol through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, June 14, 2005. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Robert R. Attebury
U.S. Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, patrol through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, during the early morning hours, June 14, 2005. The Marines are preparing to move from house to house in search of weapons and/or insurgents. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Robert R. Attebury
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 18, 2005 – Operation Spear continues in Iraq's Anbar province. Marines and Iraqi soldiers are making good progress, according to a Marine press release issued today. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and sailors from Regimental Combat Team 2 of 2nd Marine Division, Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi soldiers from the 1st Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Brigade launched the offensive, called Rohme in Arabic, in the early hours of June 17.
In addition, Marines launched Operation Dagger in the Southern Lake Thar-Thar region of Anbar province.
Operation Spear is centered on the city of Karabilah. The area, near Iraq's border with Syria, has been a hotbed of insurgent activity, Pentagon officials said. Coalition leaders said that foreign fighters are using the area to infiltrate the country. They receive clothing, identity cards, weapons and instructions at safe houses in the area. The foreigners then spread out through Iraq. Pentagon officials said groups in the area are part of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist network.
The operation is aimed at rooting out anti-Iraqi forces and foreign terrorists, and disrupting their support systems. Marines and Iraqi soldiers continued operations through the night securing key objectives in and around the city while conducting "presence patrols," intended to hamper terrorists' movements.
While clearing an objective, Marines and Iraqi soldiers discovered four Iraqi hostages who had been beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker located in central Karabilah. They also found and destroyed several small weapons caches. Weapons found included a complete mortar system and a number of prefabricated improvised explosive devices. Marines have found and destroyed vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in Karabilah.
An Iraqi company and reconnaissance unit, along with Marines came under heavy small-arms fire while conducting operations within the city June 17. Iraqi soldiers, supported by U.S. Marines, routed the terrorists without suffering any casualties.
Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed targets in the city. "Only buildings occupied by terrorists firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed," Marine officials said in a release. "Three buildings were confirmed destroyed."
There were some civilian casualties when insurgents seized their homes and fired on coalition forces. Marines evacuated four civilian casualties injured in the day's fighting to a nearby military medical center for treatment.
Marine officials said they do not know how many of the terrorists in the region are foreigners. There are no official estimates of the number of terrorists killed or captured, nor are there any reports if coalition casualties.
Regimental Combat Team 2 contains elements from the 1st Tank Battalion, the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 2nd and the 4th Assault Amphibian Battalions.
Operation Dagger is centered around 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division. Iraqi security forces are also participating.
The operation is focused on locating hidden weapons caches and denying terrorists sanctuary in an area 85 kilometers northwest of Baghdad that is a suspected logistical hub.
This is the second Marine operation in the area. Marines participating in Operation Pitchfork recently searched the area east of the Lake Thar-Thar region. During that operation Marines located over 50 hidden weapons caches and an underground bunker in the vicinity of a rock quarry.
In March, 42nd Infantry Division soldiers and Iraqi security forces engaged and killed a large number of terrorists at a training camp in the area.
(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq news releases.)
A U.S. Marine walks passed the site of a suspected car bomb factory in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. During Operation Spear, Marines have killed some 50 insurgents during battles in this Iraqi-Syrian border town. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
U.S., Iraq Forces Battle Insurgents
By JACOB SILBERBERG, Associated Press Writer
KARABILAH, Iraq - Helicopter gunships and fighter jets streaked across the desert sky Saturday as American and Iraqi forces battled insurgents near the Syrian border, killing at least 50 militants in two massive offensives to stanch the flow of foreign fighters from Iraq's western neighbor.
The U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers, killed north of Baghdad during an attack as they were taking a captive to jail.
Intelligence officials believe Iraq's western Anbar province is the main entry point used by extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq, to smuggle in foreign fighters. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.
On Thursday, a U.S. general called Syria's border the "worst problem" in terms of stemming the flow of foreign fighters.
The next day, about 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by battle tanks launched Operation Spear in the desert wastes around Karabilah and Qaim. The offensive entered its second day Saturday in Karabilah, a dusty, blistering hot town about 200 miles west of Baghdad, is considered an insurgent hub.
About 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital. Three U.S. troops have been wounded and about 100 insurgents have been captured, the military said.
U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Michael Gehrz of St. Paul, Minnesota, eats lunch at the cafeteria at a U.S. Marine base in Qaim, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. In its second day, Operation Spear killed some 50 insurgents so far during battles in nearby Karabilah. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
Dozens of buildings in Karabilah were destroyed after airstrikes and shelling, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
An Iraqi soldier inspect the remains of a building where an arms cache was hidden in Karbilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. U.S. Marines destoyed the building and its contents during Operation Spear, in this Iraqi-Syrian border town. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
"The goal is not to seize territory," said Marine Col. Stephen Davis, of New Rochelle, N.Y. "This is about going in and finding the insurgents."
Karabilah's streets were empty, and the military said about 100 people fled the town. At one home, a family gathered on their porch, hanging a white flag from the roof to signal U.S. jets not to bomb their home.
Troops searching the town found four Iraqi hostages beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker, Davis said.
Some of the men were believed to be Iraqi border guards. Troops searching the bunker found nooses, electrical wire and a bathtub filled with water for electric shocks and mock drownings, Davis said.
A U.S. Marine patrols outside a building where Marines believe insurgents tortured four men who were found handcuffed at the wrists and ankles and blindfolded in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. During the second day of Operation Spear, Marines rescued the four men, found a noose, equipment for electro-shock torture and equipment to simulate drowning. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
Later, Marines and Iraqi soldiers took fire outside a mosque and a small band of insurgents fled inside, Pool said. Three militants were killed.
The U.S. military also reported incidents of insurgents breaking into homes and using families as human shields, resulting in injuries to 10 civilians.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a bomb-making factory in the town, Pool said. It contained blasting caps, cell phones and other materials to make roadside and car bombs, he said. Troops also found sniper rifles, ammunition and a mortar system.
U.S. Marines inspect the site of a suspected car bomb factory in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. During Operation Spear, Marines have killed some 50 insurgents during battles in this Iraqi-Syrian border town. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
A nearby schoolhouse believed to be used for training terrorists had instructions for making roadside bombs written on a chalkboard, Davis said.
A second offensive of similar size, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday, targeting the marshy shores of a lake north of Baghdad. About 1,000 Marines and Iraqi troops, backed by fighter jets and tanks, took part.
Operation Dagger seeks insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the Lake Tharthar area, 53 miles northwest of Baghdad.
On March 23, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed about 85 militants at a suspected training camp along Lake Tharthar and discovered booby-trapped cars, suicide-bomber vests, weapons and training documents.
The insurgents captured then included Iraqis, Filipinos, Algerians, Moroccans, Afghans and Arabs from neighboring countries, officials said.
The western region has been flush with militant fighters in recent weeks. Marines carried out June 11 airstrikes that killed about 40 of them after a nearly five-hour gunfight on the outskirts of Karabilah.
Insurgents in the area also killed 21 people believed to be missing Iraqi soldiers. The bodies, including three that were beheaded, were found June 10.
U.S. Marine Pfc. Nicholas Lindsay of Fort Lee, New Jersey drinks from a water bottle, wrapped in a wet sock to keep it cool, in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 18, 2005. During Operation Spear, Marines have killed some 50 insurgents in battles in this Iraqi-Syrian border town. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
Marines carried out two major operations near Qaim last month, killing 125 insurgents in Operation Matador and 14 in Operation New Market. Eleven Marines were killed in those actions, which targeted insurgents using the road from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad.
U.S. soldiers take cover as they deploy after a roadside bomb, targeting a US military convoy, exploded and killed a 10-year-old Iraqi girl and injured two other Iraqi civilians Saturday June 18, 2005, hospital officials said. No Americans were reported injured in the attack. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier offensives. This time, they fought alongside the Americans and used their language skills and local knowledge to spot foreign fighters, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the Second Marine Division.
Separately, the U.S. military said Saturday that two soldiers were killed and one was wounded after fighting with insurgents late Friday while transporting a detainee near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. A civilian and the detainee also were killed, and five Iraqi police officers were wounded.
At least 1,718 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In other violence, gunmen killed two Iraqi police officers in western Baghdad as they headed to work Sunday morning, an official said. The policemen were on their way to Diyala Bridge police station in the capital when the shooting occurred, Iraqi army Capt. Usama Adnan said.
Separately, a second band of gunmen killed an electrical engineer who was on his way to work at the Dora oil refinery in southern Baghdad Sunday, said Dr. Muhanden Jawad of the capital's Al-Yarmouk hospital.
On Saturday, insurgents also killed at least four people in Baghdad, including two Iraqi soldiers and a 10-year-old girl, hospital and police officials said. Twenty-one people — including an Iraqi journalist — were wounded in the suicide bombings and shootings.
The girl was killed and two people were wounded when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy, said Dr. Muhand Jawad of Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk hospital.
A suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army convoy in the Yarmouk neighborhood, killing two soldiers and wounding six near dangerous road leading from downtown to the airport, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
Also, a farmer found seven corpses in a field in eastern Baghdad, police said. The men, wearing civilian clothes, were shot in the back of the head and had their hands bound.
The body of a Sunni tribal leader also was found Saturday outside Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Sheikh Arkan Shaalan Jassim al-Edwan, who had been shot, was sprawled on a fallen roadside portrait of Saddam Hussein, police Lt. Adnan Abdullah said.
More than 1,100 people have been killed since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
US President George W. Bush defended the war in Iraq, telling Americans the United States was forced into war because of the September 11 terror strikes.(AFP/File/Tim Sloan)
Bush says US is in Iraq because of attacks on US
WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush defended the war in Iraq, telling Americans the United States was forced into war because of the September 11 terror strikes.
Bush also resisted calls for him to set a timetable for the return of thousands of US troops deployed in Iraq, saying Iraqis must be able to defend their own country before US soldiers can be pulled out.
"We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.
Bush began a public relations offensive to defend the war as his approval rating has dropped well below 50 percent with Americans expressing skepticism about the invasion.
The centerpiece of the campaign will be a speech on June 28, exactly one year after the US-led coalition officially handed over sovereignty to a hand-picked Iraqi provisional government.
"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," said the president.
"These foreign terrorists violently oppose the rise of a free and democratic Iraq, because they know that when we replace despair and hatred with liberty and hope, they lose their recruiting grounds for terror," he argued.
"Our troops are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so you will not have to face them here at home."
Bush, who was to welcome Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari for his first visit to the White House on Friday, ruled out any hard and fast timetable for withdrawing the 130,000 US soldiers currently deployed in Iraq and made it clear that it will not be anytime soon.
Terrorists "know there is no room for them in a free and democratic Middle East, so the terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat," he said.
"Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people."
A June 13 USA Today poll showed that almost six of 10 Americans, 59 percent, want a full or partial pullout of US troops from Iraq.
In a New York Times/CBS News poll among 1,111 adults, Bush's approval rating dropped to 42 percent while 59 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq.
Lawmakers from both parties, opposition Democrats and Bush's own Republicans, have called for a time frame for withdrawing from Iraq. More than 1,700 US soldiers have been killed there since US and British troops invaded in March 2003.
But the Bush administration has insisted that Iraqi troops must be ready to defend their own country before US troops can return to the United States.
"I am confident that Iraqis will continue to defy the skeptics as they build a new Iraq that represents the diversity of their nation and assumes greater responsibility for their own security," Bush said. "And when they do, our troops can come home with the honor they have earned."
"This mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight. We're fighting a ruthless enemy that relishes the killing of innocent men, women, and children," he said.
"By making their stand in Iraq, the terrorists have made Iraq a vital test for the future security of our country and the free world. We will settle for nothing less than victory."
The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Erik R. Heldt, 26, of Hermann, Mo.
Capt. John W. Maloney, 36, of Chicopee, Mass.
Both Marines died June 16 when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Ar Ramadi, Iraq. They were assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. During Operation Iraqi Freedom their unit was attached to 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 619-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Christopher N. Piper, 43, of Marblehead, Mass., died on June 16 at the Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, from injuries sustained on June 3 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle in Orgun-E, Afghanistan. He was assigned the 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C.
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 621-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Spc. Anthony S. Cometa, 21, of Las Vegas, Nev., died June 16 in Safwan, Kuwait, when his HMMWV rolled over. He was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1864th Transportation Company, 106th Transportation Battalion, Henderson, Nev.
DoD Identifies Marine Casualty No. 618-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Chad B. Maynard, 19, of Montrose, Colo., died June 15 when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Ar Ramadi, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was operating with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, which was attached to 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).
The Taliban said they had captured 11 Afghan soldiers, a senior police officer and a district chief in Kandahar, just days after U.S.-led and Afghan forces staged a joint operation there against the guerrillas. Taliban commander Mullah Rahim said the 13 were captured in a raid on Mian Nishin district in the southern region of Kandahar on June 16, 2005. (Reuters Graphic)
Attacks Raise Fears of Taliban, al-Qaida
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR Afghanistan - Three rockets smashed into this southern Afghan city early Sunday, jolting residents but causing no casualties, the latest in a string of attacks across the south that have raised fears that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies are regrouping.
One of the rockets hit an empty lot near the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar which now houses U.S. special forces troops, said Gen. Salim Khan, the deputy police chief. The other two hit elsewhere in the city.
Khan blamed Taliban rebels for the attack, which occurred at about 3 a.m.
"The one rocket hit right next to Mullah Omar's home, and two other rockets hit fields in Kandahar city," said Khan. "The Taliban did this. Nobody else would do such a thing."
U.S. troops cordoned off the area next to Mullah Omar's old home, keeping residents and journalists a good distance away.
Meanwhile, a purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for an ambush of a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, and said insurgents had killed a district police chief after taking him captive. Mullah Latif Hakimi said the man was killed for collaborating with the U.S.
Ten other officers taken captive in the ambush on Thursday were still alive, he said.
Hakimi often calls news organizations to claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the Taliban. His information has sometimes proven untrue or exaggerated, and his exact tie to the group's leadership is unclear.
In other violence, rebels attacked a government office Saturday in Zabul province's Daychopan district and an ensuing two-hour gunbattle left four insurgents dead, said provincial spokesman Ali Khail. The attackers fled after U.S. helicopters arrived to back up the Afghan troops on the ground, he said.
On Friday, rebels detonated a bomb hidden next to a road in nearby Helmand province as a government vehicle was passing, said Mohammed Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. A soldier in the vehicle was killed, he said.
In Kandahar province's Shah Wali Kot district, fighting Friday between Afghan soldiers and Taliban rebels left two insurgents dead, local army commander Gen. Muslim Amid said.
Attacks across the country have increased since March, when snow melted on mountain passes used by the insurgents. About 240 suspected rebels and 29 U.S. troops have been killed in the recent violence, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
19 Jun 2005 07:29:06 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Peter Graff
KARABILA, Iraq, June 19 (Reuters) - U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi forces and U.S. and British aircraft, pushed into the northern section of a town near the Syrian border which they say has become a stronghold for foreign fighters.
Karabila, a near deserted town that was once home to 60,000 people, and other areas around the city of Qaim, are the focus of Operation Spear, one of two offensives launched in three days in the western desert against Sunni Arab rebels fighting the U.S. presence and new, Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.
Along with Operation Dagger, closer to the capital near Tharthar lake, the high-profile assaults took place as U.S. President George W. Bush, absorbing new criticism of his strategy in Iraq, asked Americans to show patience on what he called a "central front in the war on terror".
U.S. aircraft and helicopters were in action overnight. The U.S. military said Britain's air force has also taken part.
A hundred or so people waving white flags walked out from northern areas of Karabila at dawn on Sunday after loudspeaker warnings that Marines were about to seize the district.
Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Mundy, whose men found what they called a car bomb factory, Iraqi hostages and a torture house for captives on Saturday, told reporters invited to witness the operation that he also expected to find at least six houses in northern Karabila that were bases for foreign militants.
A report by Marine spokesman Captain Jeff Pool said 10 civilians were wounded as a result of guerrillas firing from their homes. He said about 50 insurgents had been killed.
SUNNI ACCUSATION
A leading organisation for Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein, accused U.S. forces of killing women and children and destroying homes, schools and other civilian buildings around Karabila and Qaim.
"Operation Spear...will break on the rock of Iraqi solidarity," the Muslim Clerics Association said in a statement, reflecting anger at U.S. military tactics.
The chief doctor at the area's main hospital in Qaim, Hamdi al-Alusi, said he had seen 10 bodies and treated 17 wounded. Most of those hurt were women and children, he said.
Iraq's al Qaeda group, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, said no insurgents had been killed in the strikes. "They are lying...their bombs fell on the Muslim public," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.
U.S. commanders believe Zarqawi may be operating in the Euphrates River valley, cutting through the western desert from the Qaim area towards Baghdad. Although only a small component of the rebel forces, they say, foreigners appear to be responsible for some of the deadliest attacks such as suicide car bombings.
The U.S. military command blames Zarqawi for a surge in violence since the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated government took office in April, since when more than 1,000 Iraqis and some 120 U.S. troops have been killed in rebel attacks.
The insurgents remain elusive, however. U.S. forces mounted a similar offensive, Operation Matador, near Qaim last month.
"It's like hunting birds," said Colonel Steve Davis of the U.S. Marines as he surveyed the ruins of what he said was an insurgent base in Karabila on Saturday. "You shoot a few, the rest fly away. You shoot a few again, the rest fly away again."
BUSH APPEAL
Bush said the U.S. overthrow of Saddam had been followed by Islamist guerrillas coming to Iraq to fight Americans.
"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power," he said in a weekly radio address, after a poll showed 51 percent of voters now thought invading Iraq a bad idea. "But all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror."
At least 1,718 U.S. troops have been killed in 27 months in Iraq.
General William Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, and Brigadier General Jaleel Khalaf, commander of the first Iraqi army brigade given charge of its own section of the city, said a month-long sweep known as Operation Lightning had succeeded in halving the number of car bombings in the capital.
About 1,200 suspects, of whom about 50 were foreigners, had been detained, they told a news conference on Saturday.
However, Webster said the operation would go on, as insurgents remained capable of mounting deadly assaults.
"Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point," Webster said.
Near Tikrit, Saddam's home town north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded nine on Sunday when he drove his car at an army patrol, police said.
(Additional reporting by Majid Hameed in Qaim and Walid Ibrahim, Luke Baker and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad)
Firefighters examine a destroyed house in Wagna, in Austria's southeastern province of Styria, June 18, 2005. Two children in the age of four and five years were killed when an explosion hit a restaurant on Friday night in the small village of Wagna, Austrian police said on Saturday. The cause of the explosion has not yet been confirmed. REUTERS/Stringer
Explosion Kills 2 Children in Austria
VIENNA, Austria Jun 19, 2005 — An explosion ripped through a pizzeria in a town in the southeastern province of Styria, killing two children and injuring seven, in a blast that may have been the result of an attack, authorities said.
The explosion Saturday touched off a fire and gutted the building in Wagna bei Leibnitz, a small town in Austria's wine-growing region, Austria Press Agency reported. Several surrounding buildings were damaged.
The two dead children were between ages 4 and 5. The injured, including an 18-month old child, were hospitalized.
Police combed the collapsed structure hours after the 2:40 a.m. blast in hopes of determining the cause, though by mid-afternoon authorities discounted the possibility that leaking gas was to blame. "It looks at the moment like it was probably an attack," Fire inspector Guenter Peterka told state television.
The Egyptian family that operated the restaurant had been involved in a dispute with others in the building over the noise from the restaurant.
By FRANK GRIFFITHS - Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq A suicide bombing ripped through a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant at lunchtime, killing at least 23 people and wounding 36 Sunday as insurgents stepped up attacks nationwide, defying two major U.S.-led offensives aimed at routing foreign fighters.
The U.S. military also announced that a Marine died Saturday during Operation Spear _ the first American death reported in the twin offensives.
The bomber detonated a vest laden with explosives at about 2:45 p.m. in the Ibn Zanbour restaurant, just 400 yards from the main gate of the heavily fortified Green Zone and is especially popular with Iraqi police and soldiers.
The explosion killed seven police officers, while the injured included 16 police officers and the bodyguards of Iraqi Finance minister Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi, police Lt. Col. Talal Jumaa said. The minister was not in the restaurant.
Elsewhere, militants staged attacks that killed at least nine people, despite two joint U.S.-Iraqi offensives _ operations Spear and Dagger _ that began earlier this week with about 1,000 U.S. forces and Iraqi soldiers each.
Insurgents also exploded a water pipeline in the capital, and Mayor Alaa al-Timimi said the city of 5 million people would suffer a 24-hour water shortage.
Nearly 60 insurgents have been killed and 100 captured so far in the offensives, which are aimed at destroying militant networks near the Syrian border and north of Baghdad, the military said. Three Americans have been wounded.
The Marine who was killed Saturday by small-arms fire during Operation Spear had been assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division. At least 1,720 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Troops participating in Operation Spear _ in its third day in the Anbar province town of Karabilah _ fired Hellfire missiles overnight at two homes where insurgents holed up after shooting mortars at coalition forces, said Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. The military said they believed four or five militants may have been killed in the counterattack.
A battle tank killed a suspected suicide truck bomber, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital. The vehicle exploded, and the tank crew observed secondary blasts from explosives rigged to it.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been shouting through loudspeakers to residents of the western town to leave their homes with white flags and head to a safer area. But most homes already are empty, said Marine Capt. Christopher Goland of Lima Company, a unit of the 3rd Battalion.
Dozens of buildings in Karabilah, 200 miles west of Baghdad, were destroyed after airstrikes and tank shelling, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Intelligence officials believe Anbar province is a portal used by extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group, to smuggle in foreign fighters. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.
The majority of the region's residents are Sunni Arabs, who are believed to make up the core of an insurgency that has killed at least 1,131 people since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
On Saturday, troops searching the town found four Iraqi hostages beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a torture center, the military said. Some of the men were believed to be Iraqi border guards who had been held for three weeks.
Troops searching the bunker found nooses, electrical wire and a bathtub filled with water for electric shocks and mock drownings.
In the basement, troops found automatic rifles, ammunition, terrorist training manuals and DVDs showing insurgents beheading captives, Pool said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a bomb-making factory with blasting caps, cell phones and other materials. They uncovered sniper rifles, ammunition and a mortar system. A nearby schoolhouse believed to be used for training terrorists had instructions for making roadside bombs written on a chalkboard.
The second offensive, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday, targeting the marshy shores of a lake north of Baghdad. Dagger seeks to eliminate insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the Lake Tharthar area, 50 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Both operations come on the heels of two other major offensives in the same areas that killed about 125 militants earlier this month and in March. Iraqi troops did not participate in earlier offensives in the area.
In other violence, a suicide car bomber killed two Iraqi soldiers and two civilian employees as construction workers were fixing the gate at a security checkpoint in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad, Army Capt. Muhanad Ahmed said. Eight soldiers and four civilians were wounded in the attack.
A bomb in a car parked near the Shiite al-Nawab mosque also exploded in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah, killing one civilian and wounding 27 people, police Maj. Falah al-Muhammadawi said.
Gunmen killed two Iraqi policemen in western Baghdad as they headed to work, while a second band of gunmen killed an electrical engineer going to work at an oil refinery in the capital.
In the northern city of Mosul, two mortar rounds missed the governor's building and landed at a butcher's market, killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding 14 people, hospital officials said.
Also Sunday:
_Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was one of eight former regime officials to be shown on a tape released by the Iraqi Special tribunal. The suspects were testifying before an investigating magistrate and signing statements. It was the third such tape released by the tribunal this month.
_The Iraqi government announced it had arrested a suspected member of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq, a man it claimed was responsible for building car bombs and carrying out more than 60 bombings around the capital. Musaab Kasser Abdul Rahman Hassan, known as Abu Younis, was arrested on May 26 during an operation in Baghdad, the government said in a statement.
_The U.S. military said American and Iraqi soldiers had captured six suspected insurgents in raids the day before around central and southern Baghdad _ including someone it described as "a specifically identified terror cell financier."
This image taken from video released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal Sunday June 19, 2005 shows former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan. The IST did not say when or where the tape was made. The former vice-president is under investigation over two alleged crimes of abusing religious parties and killing, arresting and relegating members of Kurd Ufaileein. It was the third such tape released by the tribunal this month. On June 15, the tribunal released a video showing the questioning of three former senior officials _ including Saddam's half brother Sabawi Ibrahim. Saddam himself had appeared on an earlier tape. No trial dates have been set for Saddam or any of the other former regime officials being held in custody. (AP Photo/Iraqi Special Tribunal)
'Chemical Ali' among latest Saddam aides questioned
By Luke Baker
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's feared cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," has appeared before Iraq's special tribunal as it steps up the process of questioning former regime loyalists over war crimes.
Majid was one of eight aides to the former president to be questioned by investigators this week, officials said on Sunday, raising to at least 12 the number interrogated in the past 10 days. Majid last appeared before a judge in December.
The new Iraqi government, facing fresh elections by the year's end, is keen to put Saddam and others on trial soon. But officials with the independent Tribunal, set up 18 months ago, say the process cannot be rushed and no trial date has been set.
Majid, who acquired his nickname after Iraqi forces dropped poison gas on Kurdish villagers in 1988, was questioned on Thursday about the suppression of religious political parties and the killing and detention of Fayli Kurds, a Shi'ite Muslim minority among the mostly Sunni Kurds.
Also questioned on the same accusations were Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam's former vice-president, and Saadoun Shaker, interior minister early in Saddam's rule, who was also asked about the killing of Shi'ite villagers from Dujail in 1982.
The killings in Dujail -- more than 140 villagers were killed after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam as his motorcade passed -- may be key to an early trial of Saddam, who was questioned about the incident himself a week ago.
Though minor compared to the genocide and crimes against humanity with which the former president may be charged, government officials say it may be easier to prove Saddam's personal responsibility for ordering the alleged retribution.
"Dujail is a discrete case and not as factually complex as some of the others," a source close to the Tribunal said on Sunday, explaining that made it easier to investigate.
Five Saddam lieutenants -- including Ramadan and Saddam's half-brother Barzan -- have already been questioned in connection with Dujail, along with three other Baathists.
Sources close to the Tribunal said that the investigative stage of the Dujail case could be completed within a month or so, at which point evidence would be presented to a trial judge who would decide whether the case goes ahead.
According to tribunal rules, there must be at least 45 days between the referral of a case to trial and the trial itself, but in theory if Saddam ended up being charged in the Dujail case, he could be tried before the end of the year.
RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION
Senior Iraqi officials have in recent weeks expressed their hope that Saddam will come to trial within the next couple of months, but the Tribunal has been adamant in saying justice must not be rushed.
At the same time, over the past two weeks the Tribunal has questioned around a dozen suspects and released muted video of several of them, including Saddam, being questioned, clearly keen to show it is pushing ahead with the judicial process.
Also interrogated this week with Majid was Abid Hamid Mahmud, Saddam's secretary, who ranked fourth in a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted figures after the fall of the old regime.
Mahmud was also questioned about the suppression of religious parties -- a reference to parties representing the Shi'ite majority which were forced underground by the 1980s.
Two other, less-well-known defendants were questioned on the "events of 1991," in reference to the suppression of Shi'ite and Kurdish uprisings after the Gulf War.
A further two were questioned about oppressing political parties, one with reference to religious parties, the other secular parties. Saddam's Sunni Arab-dominated Baath party eliminated all opposition including the Shi'ite Dawa Party and the Iraqi Communist Party. Many of their leaders were killed.
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald)
A photo handed out by the U.S. Marines shows an Iraqi man with welts and lacerations across his back and arms from being tortured with electricity while being held captive, June 18, 2005. This man and three others were rescued by Iraqi Security Forces and Marines from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment who discovered an insurgent torture chamber in the city of Karabilah, Iraq during Operation Romhe, and anti-insurgency operation in Western Iraq. EDITORIAL USE ONLY Picture taken June 18, 2005. REUTERS/HO/USMC Cpl Neill A. Sevelius
Iraq Restaurant Blast Kills 23, Hurts 36
By FRANK GRIFFITHS Associated Press Writer
June 19, 2005, 2:10 PM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide bombing ripped through a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant at lunchtime, killing at least 23 people and wounding 36 Sunday as insurgents stepped up attacks nationwide, defying two major U.S.-led offensives aimed at routing foreign fighters.
Blood, shoes and debris cover the floor of an Iraqi restaurant Baghdad. At least 23 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy kebab restaurant near Baghdad's Green Zone, one of a string of attacks across the country that claimed a total of 43 lives.(AFP/Karim Sahib
The U.S. military also announced that a Marine died Saturday during Operation Spear -- the first American death reported in the twin offensives.
A US soldier secures the scene where a car bomb exploded in Baghdad. At least 23 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy kebab restaurant near Baghdad's Green Zone, one of a string of attacks across the country that claimed a total of 43 lives.(AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)
The bomber detonated a vest laden with explosives at about 2:45 p.m. in the Ibn Zanbour restaurant, just 400 yards from the main gate of the heavily fortified Green Zone and is especially popular with Iraqi police and soldiers.
Iraqi police inspect the site of a bombing at a Baghdad cafe frequented by the police June 19, 2005. A suicide bomber blew himself up in the busy cafe at lunchtime killing 12 people, including 4 policemen and leaving 27 injured, including 9 policemen. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
The explosion killed seven police officers, while the injured included 16 police officers and the bodyguards of Iraqi Finance minister Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi, police Lt. Col. Talal Jumaa said. The minister was not in the restaurant.
An Iraqi soldier gestures to civilians as they stand among the wreckage of an Iraqi restaurant Baghdad.(AFP/Karim Sahib)
Iraq's most feared terror group claimed responsibility for the attack but said it was targeting a different restaurant.
Elsewhere, militants staged attacks that killed at least 12 people, despite two joint U.S.-Iraqi offensives -- operations Spear and Dagger -- that began earlier this week with about 1,000 U.S. forces and Iraqi soldiers each.
Insurgents also exploded a water pipeline in the capital, and Mayor Alaa al-Timimi said the city of 5 million people would suffer a 24-hour water shortage.
Nearly 60 insurgents have been killed and 100 captured so far in the offensives, which are aimed at destroying militant networks near the Syrian border and north of Baghdad, the military said. Three Americans have been wounded.
The Marine who was killed Saturday by small-arms fire during Operation Spear had been assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division. At least 1,720 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Troops participating in Operation Spear -- in its third day in the Anbar province town of Karabilah -- fired Hellfire missiles overnight at two homes where insurgents holed up after shooting mortars at coalition forces, said Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. The military said they believed four or five militants may have been killed in the counterattack.
A destroyed house is seen in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 19, 2005. About 1,000 U.S. Marines are participating in Operation Spear near the Iraqi-Syrian border, destroying dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
A battle tank killed a suspected suicide truck bomber, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital. The vehicle exploded, and the tank crew observed secondary blasts from explosives rigged to it.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been shouting through loudspeakers to residents of the western town to leave their homes with white flags and head to a safer area. But most homes already are empty, said Marine Capt. Christopher Goland of Lima Company, a unit of the 3rd Battalion.
Dozens of buildings in Karabilah, 200 miles west of Baghdad, were destroyed after airstrikes and tank shelling, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Intelligence officials believe Anbar province is a portal used by extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group, to smuggle in foreign fighters. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.
The majority of the region's residents are Sunni Arabs, who are believed to make up the core of an insurgency that has killed at least 1,131 people since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
On Saturday, troops searching the town found four Iraqi hostages beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a torture center, the military said. Some of the men were believed to be Iraqi border guards who had been held for three weeks.
A U.S. Marine runs through the front gate of a house as the dust settles from explosives used to blow the lock open in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 19, 2005. About 1,000 U.S. Marines are participating in Operation Spear near Iraqi-Syrian border town. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)
Troops searching the bunker found nooses, electrical wire and a bathtub filled with water for electric shocks and mock drownings.
In the basement, troops found automatic rifles, ammunition, terrorist training manuals and DVDs showing insurgents beheading captives, Pool said. U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a bomb-making factory with blasting caps, cell phones and other materials. They uncovered sniper rifles, ammunition and a mortar system. A nearby schoolhouse believed to be used for training terrorists had instructions for making roadside bombs written on a chalkboard.
The second offensive, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday, targeting suspected insurgent training camps and weapons caches on the marshy shores of Lake Tharthar, 50 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Both operations come on the heels of two other major offensives in the same areas that killed about 125 militants earlier this month and in March. Iraqi troops did not participate in earlier offensives in the area.
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Baghdad restaurant bombing and said the attacker was from Qaim, a town near the Syrian border and the area targeted by Operation Spear.
The group claimed the man blew himself up in a restaurant located next door to the one that was actually attacked.
"The restaurant is only frequented by the officers, police, spies and collaborators in the Green Zone. It was their lunch time," the group said in a statement on an Islamic Web site. The statement's authenticity couldn't be verified.
In other violence, a suicide car bomber killed two Iraqi soldiers and two civilian employees as construction workers were fixing the gate at a security checkpoint in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad, Army Capt. Muhanad Ahmed said. Eight soldiers and four civilians were wounded.
A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi police patrol in northern Baghdad also killed three civilians and wounded 30 people, including two Iraqi police officers, said U.S. Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad.
A bomb in a car parked near the Shiite al-Nawab mosque also exploded in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah, killing one civilian and wounding 27 people, police Maj. Falah al-Muhammadawi said.
Gunmen killed two Iraqi policemen in western Baghdad as they headed to work, while a second band of gunmen killed an electrical engineer going to work at an oil refinery in the capital.
In the northern city of Mosul, two mortar rounds missed the governor's building and landed at a butcher's market, killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding 14 people, hospital officials said.
Also Sunday:
* Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was one of eight former regime officials to be shown testifying and signing statements on a tape released by the Iraqi Special tribunal.
* The Iraqi government announced the arrest of a suspected member of al-Qaida in Iraq who it said was responsible for building car bombs and carrying out more than 60 bombings around the capital. Musaab Kasser Abdul Rahman Hassan, known as Abu Younis, was arrested on May 26 in Baghdad, according to a statement.
* The U.S. military said American and Iraqi soldiers had captured six suspected insurgents in raids the day before around central and southern Baghdad -- including someone it described as "a specifically identified terror cell financier."
A US CH-47 Chinook helicopter flies in Charikar north of Kabul. United States warplanes killed 15 to 20 suspected Taliban rebels in southern Afghanistan in the latest attack in a renewed wave of violence to hit the country, the US military said.(AFP/File/Shah Marai)
U.S. Airstrikes Kill Afghan Militants
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 19,10:53 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. warplanes and attack helicopters opened fire on a group of suspected rebels in southern Afghanistan Sunday after the ambush of a coalition convoy, killing as many as 20 militants, the U.S. military said.
The airstrikes occurred in southern Helmand province after rebels had pinned down coalition ground troops with rocket and small-arms fire, the military said in a statement.
The fighting is the latest in a string of attacks and battlefield engagements across the south that have raised fears that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies are regrouping.
"Initial battle-damage assessments indicate 15 to 20 enemies died and an enemy vehicle was destroyed," the military said. No U.S. soldiers were injured.
Spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the fighting began at about 10 a.m. and more U.S. and Afghan forces had been sent to the area.
"We are not going to let up on them. There is not going to be a safe haven in Afghanistan," he said.
Elsewhere in Helmand province, gunmen shot to death three civilians — a judge, an intelligence worker and an employee of the provincial education department, said Haji Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the governor.
He said it was not clear whether the Taliban or some other armed group was behind the Saturday night attack.
Some 260 suspected rebels and 29 U.S. troops have been killed in the surging violence, according to Afghan and U.S. officials. About three dozen Afghan police and soldiers also have died in that time, as have more than 100 civilians.
Afghan and American officials have warned they expect more bloodshed ahead of key parliamentary elections scheduled for September.
In other violence Sunday, three rockets smashed into the southern city of Kandahar, jolting residents but causing no casualties.
One of the rockets hit an empty lot near the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, which now houses U.S. special forces troops, said Gen. Salim Khan, the deputy police chief. The other two hit elsewhere in the city.
Khan blamed Taliban rebels for the attack, and U.S. troops cordoned off the area next to Mullah Omar's old home.
"The one rocket hit right next to Mullah Omar's home, and two other rockets hit fields in Kandahar city," said Khan. "The Taliban did this. Nobody else would do such a thing."
A huge plume of black smoke is seen above the site in the densely packed Karte Ariana district of Kabul, where an enormous tire and industrial goods warehouse caught fire on Saturday June 18, 2005. The cause of the fire was still unknown while investigation on the casualties and damaged facilities was going on. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Hou Jun)
Also Sunday, the defense ministry announced that Hazrat Ali, the former Taliban intelligence and information chief, was captured Friday in a national army operation this past week in central Ghazni province. Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Murat said no soldiers were injured in the operation.
Elsewhere, a land mine exploded on a road in Khost, damaging a vehicle. Mohammed Ayub, chief of police in the province, said the mine was rigged to explode via remote control and the target was a U.N. vehicle. But Adrian Edwards, the United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan, said no U.N. vehicles were in the province at the time of the attack early Sunday.
A purported Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the ambush of a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, and said insurgents had killed a district police chief after taking him captive.
Mullah Latif Hakimi said 10 other officers captured in the Thursday ambush were alive. He said the police chief was killed for collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition.
Hakimi often calls news organizations to claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the Taliban. His information has sometimes proven untrue or exaggerated, and his exact tie to the group's leadership is unclear.
___
Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
See picture following post 3 !
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A photo handed out by the U.S. Marines shows an Iraqi man with welts and lacerations across his back and arms from being tortured with electricity while being held captive, June 18, 2005. This man and three others were rescued by Iraqi Security Forces and Marines from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment who discovered an insurgent torture chamber in the city of Karabilah, Iraq during Operation Romhe, and anti-insurgency operation in Western Iraq. EDITORIAL USE ONLY Picture taken June 18, 2005. REUTERS/HO/USMC Cpl Neill A. Sevelius
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