Operation Phantom Fury--Day 270 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 165

Tue Jul 26, 8:04 AM ET - Submarines belonging to the East China Sea Fleet detachment participate in a military exercise in the East China Sea on an undisclosed date in July, 2005. The drill is part of activities to celebrate the 78th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army on August 1. (CHINA OUT REUTERS/China Newsphoto)

Pentagon increasingly unsettled by China buildup

Pentagon officials are still talking about a recently released report on Chinese military power that highlighted worrisome developments.

Officials said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's June 4 speech in Singapore laid out key concerns of Pentagon and military planners.

Rumsfeld said China is secretly building up its forces without having any threats, an indication it has offensive designs. He also said China is rapidly building up its missile forces.

The U.S. is also closely watching Chinese submarine programs.

U.S. sets process to transfer control of cities in South

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

BAGHDAD — Iraq is preparing to assume security responsibility for several cities in the Shi'ite south.

Iraqi officials said Iraq and the U.S.-led coalition have agreed to a plan in which the government in Baghdad would launch a series of steps to acquire security responsibility throughout the country. They said the first target would be southern Iraq.

The plan was discussed in a meeting of a new joint council established to discuss parameters of the handover of authority to the government and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The parameters would establish the capabilities of Iraqi forces and the level of the Sunni insurgency, Middle East Newsline reported.

Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq Al Rubaie said the government was preparing to accept control over five cities in the first stage of a security handover. Al Rubaie cited Diwaniya, Karbala, Najaf, Nasseriya and Samawa. Officials said these cities have been the quietest in Iraq over the last year. Najaf was the scene of heavy fighting between U.S. troops and the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army in August 2004.

In 2005, the coalition has transferred security responsibility for areas in and around Baghdad to the Iraq Army. Officials said areas of northern Iraq would also be handed over to the army by the end of the year. They could include the cities of Irbil and Suleimaniya.

U.S. ambassador in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said Baghdad and Washington have agreed to a seven-point plan for Iraqi development. Among the points were the defeat of the insurgency and improvement in the capability of Iraqi ministries.

Khalilzad did not confirm the assertion of Al Rubaie regarding the choice of Iraqi cities to be relayed by the coalition. He said the joint committee, to include Iraq's defense minister, would reach such a decision.

"We are working to build up Iraqi capabilities so that the security that is needed to be provided, is provided by the Iraqi forces as soon as possible," Khalilzad said. "But we know that that takes time. Therefore we're working through this joint committee as to how this transition from the coalition could take place, that Iraqis take more and more responsibility for security in those areas. And we're going to develop an integrated, agreed-upon, prudent plan of action on how to move forward."

First Suspect in July 21 Bombings Charged

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

Aug 3, 2005

LONDON - British police filed their first charges in the London terror investigations Wednesday, accusing a 23-year-old man of withholding information about the July 21 transit bombers.

Police say that in the week after the attack, Ismael Abdurahman of southeast London had information he knew might help police capture suspects involved in "the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism."

He was charged under antiterrorism legislation and is to attend a hearing in London on Thursday.

The charges could mark an important step forward for police seeking to build cases against the 17 people in custody in connection with the July 21 assault, in which bombs planted on three subways and a bus failed to fully detonate.

Police also are trying to uncover the larger network that may have supported those attackers, who struck exactly two weeks after four suicide bombers — also on three trains and a bus — killed 52 victims on July 7.

One of the suspected July 21 bombers, Hamdi Issac, has been charged in Italy with association with the aim of international terrorism. Britain is seeking to extradite him. Italy also has two of Issac's brothers in custody, and Britain is holding 14 suspects.

No suspects are being detained in connection with the July 7 attacks.

Police pursued international links Wednesday — to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Zambia — as they hunted for possible conspirators in the bombings and tried to determine whether the two sets of attackers were linked.

Zambia announced it was deporting Haroon Rashid Aswat, a British citizen of Indian descent, to Britain, and President Levy Mwanawasa said he was an alleged terrorist. However, it was unclear whether Britain suspected him of involvement in the London bombings.

British newspaper reports, citing security sources, have said in recent days that investigators don't believe he was linked to the London attacks. But Zambian authorities have questioned him about 20 phone conversations he reportedly had with some of the suspected bombers.

News reports have said suspects in both attacks worshipped at the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, known as a hotbed for Islamic radicals. They may have gone whitewater rafting in Wales weeks before the attacks, although The Times newspaper reported Wednesday that investigators had discounted the possibility.

Also, a Pakistani official said authorities there were trying to determine whether Ethiopian-born Muktar Said Ibrahim, a suspect in and possible ringleader of the July 21 attacks, may have been in Pakistan at the same time as two of the suspected July 7 attackers.

"Our immigration officials are checking whether he arrived here," said the official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about the investigation.

Investigators believe that any confirmation of a visit by Ibrahim to Pakistan would strengthen the theory of a link between the two groups. London's Metropolitan Police declined to comment.

Pakistan's Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi said there was no evidence that any of the London suicide bombers visited religious schools in Pakistan.

Police have also been pursuing a possible Saudi connection. The Sunday Times newspaper said Ibrahim took a month-long trip to Saudi Arabia in 2003, telling friends he was to undergo training there.

British investigators told their Italian counterparts that Issac made a call to Saudi Arabia before his arrest in Rome, according to Italy's anti-terror police chief Carlo De Stefano. Issac apparently was trying to get a number for one of his brothers, De Stefano said.

Many have questioned how Issac was able to slip out of Britain on the Eurostar train from London's Waterloo Station.

Sky News reported Wednesday that one of its journalists had traveled by train from London to Paris using a colleague's passport. The Home Office declined to comment on the report directly but said it was working closely with police on checks of those leaving the country.

In Zambia, Aswat told investigators he used to be a bodyguard for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, according to a Zambian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to communicate with journalists.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Aswat — from the same town in northern England as one of the bomb suspects — was wanted in the July 7 attacks. The Foreign Office said only that British consular officials in Zambia were seeking a meeting with a Briton detained there.

The United States also reportedly wants to question Aswat about possible links to a plan to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

" The List " of Islamic Terror Attacks Since September 11th, 2001

8/3/05

(Very comprehensive)

Thanks for the ping on the dailies, TexKat. Hard day today.

Gucho, thanks for all that you do.

Rest in peace, brave, BRAVE Leathernecks.

Bump - Thank you.

The Incident Near Tinker Air Force Base – My Conversation With The Eyewitness

“My Life Will Never Be The Same”

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

Updated August 2, 2005: For over an hour today, I interviewed the eyewitness to the incident that took place just outside of Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 13, 2005. For those who do not know the story, a man claimed to have seen three Middle Eastern males standing outside of a vehicle parked near the Tinker AFB property. One of the men was holding what appeared to be a 4-6’ long olive or drab green tube resembling a rocket launcher or shoulder-fired missile launcher at shoulder height. A second man was holding a camera, while the third appeared to be watching the surroundings. Without a doubt, the men were obviously out of place and acting in a very suspicious manner. This witness told me other facts as well, many that I was able to substantiate through independent investigation.

I should note here, however, that the witness corrected two inaccuracies contained on the initial police report. He stated that he made a mistake on two facts as frankly, he was aghast at what he was seeing and at that point, he stated to me, suffering from “information overload.” I believe him. As a 20 year investigator who has interviewed thousands of witnesses, I firmly believe everything he related to me in our conversation. I found the man to be extremely credible; I even verified much of his personal information he provided to me prior to our interview, and everything he told me checked out. I have no doubt this man witnessed exactly what he described, and what he observed was an attempted breach of our national security. But the story does not end here – it gets worse – much worse.

After he related the incident to me, he stated that his life would never be the same because of this incident. Not because this incident left an indelible impression on him from three menacing looking Middle Eastern males holding what appeared to be a missile launcher, but for what happed afterward. After providing all the facts to the proper authorities, the federal authorities began to interview him. Then the interviews graduated to interrogations, and from there, outright harassment. Not only harassment of him, but of his family, friends and business associates. The federal authorities told him that he ”did not see what he witnessed” at a location he least expected them. As one would expect, the situation unnerved him, but also angered him. What has happened to America?

The incidents he described to me in intimate detail reminded me of the story of Patrick Knowlton, the man who found the body of Vince Foster in Fort Marcy Park. The events, attempts to intimidate and discredit him were nearly identical. The blatant harassment of Mr. Knowlton was witnessed and described by Christopher Ruddy, the author of the book The Strange Death Of Vincent Foster. This witness, ten years later, is suffering the same fate – and it is not right. Ironically, it is also ten years after the Oklahoma City bombing - and the way the FBI handled the witnesses who provided sworn statements that they saw Middle Eastern men in the company of Timothy McVeigh. Sadly ironic.

For those who do not believe what happened outside of Tinker Air Force Base, you would if you spoke to this witness. And I suspect you will be hearing more from him because he is an American, a patriot who loves this country, and a man of conviction. He is an unimpeachable witness, and that is why this story refuses to die. And that is why we will not let this story die.

Sean Osborne contributed to this report.

Click Police Report, Additional Information

2 August 2005: Update to Above Article: Having investigated the entire chain of reports regarding this matter, we note that the confusion about the authenticity of this report stems from locations that do not match the area in question. We found that those locations that cast doubt on the validity of the initial report were purposely added by an individual AFTER the initial report was filed. We identified the individual and note that those statements served their purpose well to confuse and cast doubt on the veracity of the initial report as well as the witness.

Click Today's Afghan News

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Afghan workers build a kiln to fire bricks on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005. As Afghanistan struggles to rebuild itself, some brick factory owners say demand for their products has dropped in recent years because of the arrival of new building materials such as concrete.(AP Photo/Tomas Munita)

U.S. Military Presence in Paraguay Stirs Speculation

Alejandro Sciscioli, Inter Press Service (IPS)

Wed Aug 3, 2005 - 8:34 PM ET

ASUNCION, Aug 3 (IPS) - Despite the government's continued denials, analysts and activists have raised the alarm over the possible installation of a U.S. military base in Paraguay, especially after Congress granted permission for U.S. armed forces contingents to remain in the country for 18 months at a time.

Rivarola said that the United States is keeping a particularly close eye on the tri-border area where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet. The region is home to a large Arab community, which various intelligence services have identified as a source of financing and shelter for Islamic fundamentalist groups.

There has yet to be any solid proof put forward of activities of this kind in the area, which is however well-known as a hotspot for arms trafficking and the smuggling of counterfeit goods that primarily end up in Brazil.....Excerpts.........more

Eyewitness: Khartoum violence

Rival gangs targeted the city's houses and shops

Updated: Thursday, 4 August, 2005, 02:03 GMT 03:03 UK

By Jonah Fisher - BBC News, Khartoum

The death of Sudan's first vice-president and southern leader John Garang was announced just before 0800 on Monday.

Three hours later I left my office to go the short distance into town. Reports were coming in of southerners taking to the streets and I headed towards the plumes of smoke rising over central Khartoum.

Having been blocked by a hastily constructed police checkpoint, I left my car and went on foot to speak to some of the people standing in the streets.

In the last few months Khartoum's residents had almost always been happy to speak into a microphone and give their opinions on what they usually saw as Sudan's bright, peaceful future.

Now these same people shied away. The shock of Garang's death and the violence happening just a few hundred metres away had suddenly made them suspicious and afraid.

Ambush

Every time I tried to walk down dusty side-streets, my path was stopped by armed men in plainclothes. Having watched from a distance as bricks were thrown and windows smashed, I got in my car to head back to my office.

Troops are now deployed throughout the capital

Unfortunately, I drove straight into a street where a gang of southern Sudanese had seized control of a roundabout. My car was forced to a halt and I was pelted with bricks. Two of them smashed the windows of my car.

These young men and the other southerners in central Khartoum weren't picking their targets. They were lashing out at anything that moved or could be broken.

Cars were set on fire and the security forces fired live ammunition. Up to 42 people died in that first day of violence.

Revenge attacks

By Tuesday afternoon the riots had changed in character.

Arab traders and civilians were carrying out revenge attacks in southern Sudanese areas.

At least five children died in the Kalakala suburbs as a southern school there was burnt down. Within a few hours the imam of the local mosque was dead.

Numerous other revenge attacks were reported as groups of civilians - both Arab and southern Sudanese - roamed the city.

Clubbed to death

A second curfew on Tuesday night failed to calm the situation.

Early reports of bloodshed in Khartoum's southern suburbs were confirmed when the International Committee of the Red Cross gained access to the central morgue.

Eighty-four bodies were laid out - Arab and southern Sudanese. Many of them died of gunshots or were clubbed to death.

Attempting to drive across Khartoum on Wednesday, the mood of the city had clearly soured.

Groups of men loitered on street corners with long sticks in their hands. Every 15m there was an armed soldier fingering his Kalashnikov.

As we attempted to pass the city's airport, traffic came to a halt in central Khartoum and people began reversing at speed.

Pickups mounted with machine guns sped past us. There was obviously a confrontation going on further up the road.

Empty city

Rumours were sweeping town that Paulino Matip, the leader of the pro-government southern militia and a sworn enemy of John Garang, had been killed.

Tensions rose again as the security forces used tear gas and a helicopter hovered over central Khartoum.

Cars filled the roads as people headed home or stocked up on water and food.

Two hours later, Mr Matip was on Sudanese television confirming that he was alive.

But by that time central Khartoum had already emptied of people.

Wed Aug 3, 3:55 PM ET - Sudanese police(L) patrol in Khartoum. Deadly violence flared in Khartoum for a third day, prompting appeals for calm from Sudanese and foreign officials.(AFP/Khaled Desouki)

August 04, 2005

In Britain, growing objections to multicultural society

By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

LONDON – When terrorists bombed London twice last month, the response from authorities was unequivocal: they would not change our way of life.

Yet one aspect of British society is being pressed to change: multiculturalism. The social model that shuns assimilation and encourages ethnic groups to retain their cultural practices is under fire.

Some critics are now asking: Is Britain too laissez faire?

Those who want a more robust response to terrorism argue that multiculturalism fosters an aloofness dangerous to social cohesion that has ultimately led young men from ethnic minorities to turn on their own society.

"Britain has a proud history of tolerance towards people of different views, faiths and backgrounds," opined David Davis, the senior opposition Conservative member of Parliament (MP), Wednesday. "But we should not flinch from demanding the same tolerance and respect for the British way of life." Another MP, Gerald Howarth, said if some Muslims "don't like our way of life, there is a simple remedy: go to another country, get out."

But even as government officials Tuesday began their campaign to reach out to Britain's sizeable Muslim community, those who believe in the multicultural dream say it is already being eroded by the response to the attacks.

Race crime has soared 600 percent in London since 7/7, with more than 250 incidents. Individuals report discrimination on the basis of their appearance. The police hunt for would-be bombers has homed in on ethnic minorities.

The problems facing multiculturalism have been underscored by the arrests that followed the failed July 21 attacks in London. The suspected bombers are east Africans who settled here in the early 1990s. Some took British citizenship. But the suspicion is that none really took to the British way of life. East African communities here are known for being particularly close-knit, in part because of the huge cultural barrier they face in settling here.

"[Somalis] face a language barrier, barriers to employment, difficulties accessing mainstream services like health and education," says Adam Hassan, a former refugee from Somalia who gained British citizenship in 1994 and now helps his countrymen settle here. "As a result there is a great deal of underachievement which could have implications for the incidents we have seen recently. Children leave school without qualifications. Some loiter on the streets and become petty criminals. Others go to the mosque and become indoctrinated by radical mullahs."

All immigrants who want British citizenship must remain in the country five years and then pass a language test and a short quiz on British culture that could include questions on everything from the Magna Carta to what to do if you spill someone's drink in a pub.

About 90,000 are successful each year, and pass through a citizenship ceremony where they swear allegiance to the queen and pledge to uphold British values.

But that is the easy part. It is what happens next that is stoking debate.

Other European countries such as France expect greater assimilation from their newcomers. Britain has taken a more hands-off approach, and its ethnic communities tend to be highly segregated, as a demographic map of London shows: Indians in northwest London; Caribbeans in Brixton; Koreans in New Malden; and whites in the suburbs.

Some community leaders insist that multiculturalism still works, that it has nothing to do with terrorism.

At its best, they say, it enables immigrants to settle more comfortably, retaining customs and culture while obeying British law. And it celebrates the diversity of Britain's population.

"It enables society to celebrate the best of the religion and culture that they have," says Khalid Mahmood, one of four British Muslim MPs. He says it doesn't necessarily mean isolation, pointing to a recent surge of involvement by the Asian community in political and professional life.

But terrorism experts say it's becoming counterproductive. Ethnic ghettos and a laissez faire attitude toward the "hate preachers" who operate in them has made Britain vulnerable, explains Bob Ayers, of London's Chatham House think tank.

"This promulgation of separateness tends to make people form themselves into 21st-century ghettos with their own cultures and socio-economic practices," he says, warning that this risks promoting "an environment that is capable of producing people who turn on their own country."

The problem then emerges of how much integration one expects. Most people on both sides of the argument say that learning English is an important requirement for immigrants. A modicum of cultural knowledge is also a reasonable expectation, they say.

But then opinion diverges. Recent arguments have raged here about whether girls should be permitted to wear hijab in schools; about whether a play deemed offensive to Sikhs should be allowed to be staged; about whether radical interpretations of certain faiths should be permitted to be preached openly.

There are, moreover, certain aspects of British culture that some minorities actively strive to avoid.

"There is a tradition here of going clubbing on a Friday night and getting punch drunk," notes Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain. "That's something many Muslim parents would not want for their children. Also, there were 185,000 abortions here last year - again not something that Muslims are happy with.

"Some traditions and values in Islam can be enormously beneficial to Britain, just as there are British values that Muslims would do well to learn from," he says, adding that this is one of the beauties of multiculturalism.

Another problem, community leaders say, is that minorities are expected to embrace a local culture that still discriminates against them and does not always represent their worldview.

A BBC survey last year found that minorities were far less likely to be invited to job interviews than white indigenous people. Unemployment is particularly rife among some parts of the Muslim community. An undercover documentary recently highlighted a strong racist current within the police.

"A fundamental point is about making minorities feel part of this society," says Bunglawala. He welcomed the government's initiative, launched Tuesday, to travel the country and meet with communities to hear their concerns.

"They will hear that many Muslim youths are not identifying with our government and our country because of some of our policies in the Muslim world," he says.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0804/p07s01-woeu.html

Mauritanian Army Announces Overthrow of President Taya

Wed Aug 3, 4:52 PM ET - Mauritania's President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya is seen in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in this May 28, 2005 file photo. Mauritania's armed forces have set up a military council to rule the country and put an end to the 'totalitarian regime' of Taya, a statement on the state news agency said on Wednesday. (REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/Files)

By Gabi Menezes Abidjan

03 August 2005

Military overthrew President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya's government; announced on state-run news agency it would rule country for up to two years

Mauritania's military overthrew President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya's government and announced on the state-run news agency it would rule the country for up to two years.

In a statement issued in the name of the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, the Mauritanian military announced the armed forces have decided to end what they call the "totalitarian activities" of President Ould Taya and take power for up to two years.

President Ould Taya, who at the time was out of the country attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Fadh, returned to the region and landed in nearby Niger.

Heavily armed soldiers surrounded strategic buildings at dawn in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, taking control of the airport and the national radio. Roads leading to the presidential palace were also blocked.

Racine Sy, who was on Nouakchott's streets, said that everything was calm and the only gun shots were heard earlier around nine o'clock. He said soldiers had surrounded strategic military points in the city, including army barracks.

"The civil places are blocked, like the ministries, and the presidential palace is also blocked," he said. "But people are going round doing everything they want without any worries."

He said that people in the country believed that it was Mr. Ould Taya's National Guard that led the coup against him.

President Ould Taya came power in a bloodless coup in 1984, and his government claims to have foiled several attempts to overthrow him. In a coup attempt two years ago, the military attacked the presidential palace and sparked two days of violent street battles.

A West Africa analyst, Olly Owen, for the research group Global Insight, says that previous coup attempts have been accompanied by fighting among different factions of the military.

"The Presidential Guard which was the instigator in this case has been used to put down previous coup attempts," he said. "There have been purges of the army after previous coups attempts, a lot of officers imprisoned, but it doesnt seem to have had the desired effect."

President Ould Taya has established links with Washington, as well as with Israel, angering many Arabs in the country. He has also cracked down on Islamic militants and his political opposition during recent years.

Listen to audio report

Iraq Airline Inaugurates Iraq-Turkey Route

August 3, 2005

The Associated Press

ISTANBUL, Turkey An Iraqi Airways plane landed at Istanbul airport on Wednesday and then took off again for Baghdad, inaugurating its Iraq-Turkey route after a 14-year hiatus.

The Boeing 737-200 plane carried 70 passengers, including Iraqi officials, on its inaugural flight and landed at Ataturk Airport, the airport announced on its Web site. The carrier will fly two weekly commercial trips between Baghdad and Istanbul.

Iraqi Airway's Turkey representative Gokhan Sarigol said there was a great demand for both cargo and passenger flights. Prices for a one-way ticket on the 2 hour, 10 minute flight are around $400, more than a quarter of which is for security insurance, Sarigol told the Anatolia news agency.

Routes to Amman, in neighboring Jordan, and to the Syrian capital of Damascus resumed last September, also for the first time in 14 years. Iraqi Airways is also planning to start direct flights to Dubai next month with three trips a week.

Earlier this year, the national carrier also restarted domestic flights to the southern city of Basra as well as Irbil and Sulaimaniyah in the north.

Iraqi Airways jets were forbidden from flying outside the country by international sanctions imposed in 1991 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein.

2005 Associated Press

Thanks for the ping and the link.

Prayers for the families of our fallen heroes.

Militants Halt Rocket Attacks to Israel

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant stands close to a shop in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005. The Islamic Jihad group promised Wednesday it would fire no more rockets at Israelis with the approach of Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this month, after a barrage accidentally killed a 5-year-old Palestinian boy late Tuesday. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

Wednesday August 3, 2005 8:16 PM

By IBRAHIM BARZAK - Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - A major Palestinian militant group promised Wednesday it would fire no more rockets at Israelis with the approach of Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this month, after a barrage accidentally killed a 5-year-old Palestinian boy.

The promise by Islamic Jihad came as international mediator James Wolfensohn called on Israel and the Palestinians to finish their coordination talks on issues like border crossings. Wolfensohn had a series of meetings Wednesday with officials on both sides.

Officials said Israel's Cabinet will approve the removal of three isolated Gaza settlements in a vote Sunday. The settlements are Netzarim, southwest of Gaza City; Kfar Darom in central Gaza; and Morag in the north, the officials said. However, the government still could decide instead to remove three other settlements in northern Gaza in the first stage.

The pullout is to begin Aug. 17. The Cabinet has approved it several times, but it must vote separately for each group of settlements to be removed.

Islamic Jihad's statement was a sign that the pullout might proceed calmly. The group and its larger militant counterpart, Hamas, denied firing three rockets toward an Israeli demonstration across the Gaza fence late Tuesday. One of the rockets hit a Gaza house and killed the child, wounding nine other people.

Maintaining calm during the Israeli exit is a vitally important goal for the Palestinian Authority in its desire to show that it can control the volatile territory. Militant groups, on the other hand, are trying to demonstrate that they are driving the Israelis out by force.

After a short hiatus with the start of a truce in February, militants have resumed pelting Gaza settlements and Israeli towns just outside the territory with rockets and mortars on a daily basis.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan said Tuesday's attack hurt Palestinian interests. He threatened to use force if necessary to stop such activity.

``What took place last night is a national scandal,'' Dahlan said. ``This is unfortunately not the first time that Palestinian victims are being killed. ... We should put an end to this by any means, by force, or by pursuing and convincing.''

The Palestinian Interior Ministry called on all militant groups to halt attacks and commit themselves to the cease-fire.

The target of the three rockets was Sderot, where about 15,000 Israeli opponents of the Gaza pullout were demonstrating.

Following a scenario agreed on with police, the demonstrators spent the night in another town, Ofakim. Police deployed in force to prevent them from reaching their stated goal - storming into Gush Katif, the main bloc of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

After a rally in Ofakim, the demonstrators were expected to try to break through police lines and head for Gaza, about 20 miles away, and police were arrayed in several cordons to stop them.

During the afternoon, police arrested 20 protesters who tried to sneak into Gaza, according to police spokesman Avi Zelba. He said five were juveniles.

In another protest, extremist Israelis blocked the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway with burning tires during evening rush hour, witnesses said.

Explaining his ``disengagement'' plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that maintaining 21 small settlements in Gaza among 1.3 million hostile Palestinians is untenable, and the pullout would solidify Israel's hold on its main West Bank blocs, where most of the territory's more than 200,000 settlers live.

Settlers and their backers oppose any pullout as a dangerous precedent, and the Orthodox Jewish settler leadership opposes giving up any part of the biblical Promised Land.

Bump

Four Iraqi Soldiers Killed by Insurgents

Thursday August 4, 2005 - 12:31 PM

TARMIYAH, Iraq (AP) - Unidentified gunmen attacked an Iraqi army patrol Thursday in a town north of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi troops, Iraqi military officials said.

The attack occurred about 8 a.m. in the town of Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, said Brig. Ali Kadhim.

Insurgents have regularly targeted Iraqi security forces in an attempt to further destabilize the country after the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Hussein is expected to go to trial next month in the first of about 12 criminal cases being filed against him.

The former president, and three other former regime officials, are accused of the July 1982 massacre of an estimated 150 Shiites in Dujail in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on him.

Jordan uncovers Al Qaeda plot to attack US troops

(Reuters)

4 August 2005

AMMAN - Jordan has arrested 17 militants linked to the Al Qaeda network in Iraq and an affiliated Saudi group who were plotting to attack US military personnel in the kingdom, security sources said on Thursday.

They said interrogations of the suspects revealed that six of them had ties to Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, head of the Al Qaeda network in Iraq, while the others belonged to an underground Saudi group known as the Brigades of the Holy Shrines.

“They were planning attacks on foreign officers in the kingdom,” said one security source, referring to a plot to attack US military personnel who frequent five-star hotels while on leave from duty in neighbouring Iraq.

The arrests came after an investigation that used informers to hunt Jordanian militants allied to Zarqawi who help recruit Arab militants to fight against US troops.

“The interrogations revealed their membership of these underground groups. They were recruiting terrorists for Al Qaeda in Iraq and collecting donations for the organisation,” said another security source.

Security sources say the militants are part of several Sunni fundamentalist underground cells that have been uncovered in recent months in Jordan.

Prosecutors were expected to issue a formal indictment against the militants, who come from the Sweileh neighbourhood of Amman, an impoverished Islamist stronghold, by the end of the month.

They will be charged with conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, which carries the death penalty.

Tragic end to a war reporter's bracing story

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer of The Christian Science
Monitor

Thu Aug 4, 4:00 AM ET

BAGHDAD - In three articles for this newspaper over the past month, Steven Vincent deftly captured the criminal-induced confusion of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, the jockeying for power between rival militias within government departments, and the growing use of political assassination that foreshadowed his own murder Tuesday.

The body of the 49-year-old American reporter and author was recovered shortly after midnight in the southern city of Basra, where he'd based himself for the past three months writing about the Shiite militias, and rampant corruption among local politicians and cops.

He's the first American journalist killed in Iraq since the US-led occupation - others have died of illness or in accidents. A resident of New York City, Mr. Vincent witnessed the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, and in his horror he felt inspired at a later age to become a war correspondent, says his wife, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent. Last year, he wrote "In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq."

"He watched the World Trade Center burn and collapse, he saw people jumping to their death from the north tower, and he wanted to do something to help the war on terror," says Ms. Ramaci-Vincent, his wife of 13 years. "He was too old to enlist. He thought he could go to the war zone and try to open people's eyes to what was happening."

At around 6:30 p.m. he and his Iraqi translator Nouraya Itais Wadi (also known as Nour al-Khal) left a money-changer's shop on bustling Istiqlal Street. Then, police say, four gunmen jumped out of a white car (Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi told Associated Press that it was a police car, something confirmed by eyewitnesses) and hustled the pair inside, shouting to bystanders, "Don't interfere, we're the police," according to witnesses interviewed by an Iraqi journalist, who has worked for American news media and feared retribution if he was identified in this story.

Mr. Vincent had told his wife in recent weeks that he was growing increasingly concerned for his and Ms. Wadi's safety. He was getting strange phone calls with no one there, and Nouraya had been approached on the street and berated for working with an American.

"He was digging deeper and deeper into this weird tangle of criminal gangs, and Iranians coming over, and the corruption, and he told me he was starting to get worried,'' says Ramaci-Vincent, said her husband was planning to leave the city soon. "In his time there he had developed a real affinity for the Iraqi people, as trite as that may sound. He really loved them."

Vincent and Wadi were then taken to a house somewhere on the city's outskirts and were held and questioned for roughly five hours, according to a Basra police officer, who requested anonymity. Then, blindfolded and with their hands bound behind them, they were taken to Al Rebaat neighborhood in Basra and shot repeatedly. Ms. Wadi survived the attack and is now in serious condition at the Basra Teacher's Hospital.

She has been interviewed by the local police, and the police official said the murderers had beaten them, and shouted at her for working with a foreigner, something they said was un-Islamic. Lubna Abdul Hamid, an Iraqi woman working for the National Democratic Institute, a US-based nongovernmental organization, was murdered on Monday. Iraqi journalists interviewed by phone in Basra say they believe the murder was motivated by her American ties.

In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Aug. 1, Vincent wrote about Shiite political parties that maintain their own militias in the city, and he reported allegations that off-duty police are used to assassinate former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and other political opponents.

"An Iraqi police lieutenant confirmed to me the widespread rumors that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations - mostly of former Baath Party members - that take place in Basra each month," Vincent wrote. "He told me that there is even a sort of 'death car': a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment."

In a city like Basra - where members of the city's most notorious kidnap-for-ransom gang are now major political players, and Shiite gangs have taken to ad hoc beatings and harassment of women to enforce their views of Islamic law - there is a long list of possible suspects in the Vincent murder: The police, or a faction within the police; a Shiite militia either angry at his reporting or for his association with an Iraqi woman; or common criminals, who run kidnap-for-ransom rackets.

"We know that common street criminals often masquerade as police, we also know that insurgents have used military uniforms to conduct their acts of terror,'' says a US Embassy official in Baghdad, who requested that his name not be used. "So rather than draw a conclusion that the police force is infiltrated, we're going to wait and see what the investigation turns up. We have complete confidence in the professionalism of the Basra police force."

In a scathing review of police training efforts at the end of last month, the US General Accounting Office found that "too many" Iraqi police recruits are "marginally literate, show up for training with physical or mental handicaps, [and] some recruits allegedly are infiltrating insurgents."

In Iraq's overwhelmingly Shiite south, Basra has been one of the safest regions in the country for foreign troops; roadside bombings and suicide attacks are rare. Iraq's Shiites, who were second-class citizens under the Sunni-dominated Hussein regime, were enthusiastic about his ouster. Shiite religious parties - outlawed under Hussein because many had ties into the Shiite theocracy in Iran - have since taken the reigns of power in the city.

Iraqi journalists say, and Vincent also reported, that criminal gangs prowl the city's outskirts - some now paid by the government to "protect" electricity infrastructure and other government installations - and the gun has played a blossoming role in the city's developing politics.

But today, militants connected to the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fought the US for control of the Shiite shrine city of Najaf last fall, are just one of the religious gangs who roam the streets, forcing women to cover their hair. Liquor shops have been firebombed and most are closed now, as have been stores that sell Western pop music and DVDs.

Basra's Police Chief, Gen. Hassan al-Sade, told The Guardian newspaper in March that about half of his 13,750-member force were moonlighting for Shiite political parties and some were involved in assassinations. He was removed from his post soon after by Basra's governor Mohammed Masabih al-Waali, whose Fadhila Islamic Party is dominant in the province's politics and is loyal to the Shiite cleric Mohammed Yaqubi, a former student of Mr. Sadr's deceased father. Though Sadr and Mr. Yaqubi are sometime rivals for power, Fadhila shares his puritanical religious convictions and has gunmen of its own.

At this time, Iraqi police say they're starting to gather evidence about the case, and don't know who might have killed Vincent. But in his last story for this paper, Vincent chronicled the travails of the Basra Police Criminal Identification Division, which processes criminal evidence. It has one computer for 101 men, and frequent shortages of materials for collecting fingerprints or analyzing bloodstains, and only processes 40 percent of the evidence it receives each month.

Journalists in War Zones
Iraq has been one of the most dangerous war zones for journalists in recent history. At least 12 have died in 2005 alone.

IRAQ: At least 66 journalists and media support workers killed, 29 journalists kidnapped.

VIETNAM: 63 journalists killed between 1955 and 1975, a period of 20 years.

ALGERIA: 57 journalists killed between 1993 and 1996 during the civil war.

THE BALKANS: 49 journalists killed between 1991 and 1995 during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Sources: Reporters without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, International Press Institute

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/csm/20050804/ts_csm/ovincent

Three more members of National Guard's 48th killed in Iraq

August 04. 2005 - 7:26AM

The Associated Press

Three more soldiers from a Georgia National Guard unit have been killed in Iraq -- bringing the total to eleven from that unit in less than two weeks.

Military officials says the three, who were members of the guard's 48th Brigade, were killed yesterday in a car bomb attack. Another was seriously wounded.

Identities of those killed have not been released.

The incident marks the third time in ten days that the 48th Brigade has suffered multiple fatalities from attacks in Iraq.

The 48th Brigade is the largest combat unit of the Georgia National Guard to deploy since World War Two. The brigade, which arrived in Iraq in May, has 27-hundred members from across Georgia, and is augmented by about 16-hundred others from Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.