Posted on 05/31/2005 12:28:50 PM PDT by TexKat
Iraqi soldiers from the al-Karar battalion of the Interior Ministry's elite Wolf Brigade prepare to raid a house in the al-Azamiyah area of Baghdad, Iraq Monday, May 30, 2005 on the second day of Operation Lightning, a massive Iraqi-led anti-insurgent offensive in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Iraqi soldiers from the al-Karar battalion of the Interior Ministry's elite Wolf Brigade detain a suspect as they raid a house in the al-Azamiyah area of Baghdad, Iraq Monday, May 30, 2005 on the second day of Operation Lightning, a massive Iraqi-led anti-insurgent offensive in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Didn't we give them any helmets?
We don't need no steenkin' helmets, senyoor!
Interior Ministry Wolf Brigade Special Forces go out on patrol in Baghdad. About 1,000 US and Iraqi troops launched a new raid against insurgents in Iraq after reports that the country's most wanted man, Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded.(AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)
By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The kidnapped governor of volatile Anbar province was found dead after a fierce battle between U.S. forces and foreign fighters, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
In Washington, President Bush said Baghdad's fledgling leadership is "plenty capable" of defeating insurgents whose attacks on Iraqis and U.S. soldiers have intensified since the new Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
"I think the Iraqi people dealt the insurgents a serious blow when we had the elections," Bush said at a news conference. "In other words, what the insurgents fear is democracy because democracy is the opposition of their vision."
The insurgency, which is believed to be strongly backed by radical Sunni extremists, has killed more than 760 people in the past month.
Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that fighting in Iraq will end before the Bush administration leaves office in 2009.
"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live." "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
The body of the governor of Anbar province, Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, was found Sunday in Rawah, about 175 miles northwest of Baghdad, said government spokesman Laith Kuba.
Al-Mahalawi, who was abducted May 10 near Qaim, a town near the Syrian border, was killed by rubble that fell when the house where he was held became the focus of the gunbattle between U.S. forces and foreign fighters, Kuba said.
The confirmation of al-Mahalawi's death ended a lingering mystery surrounding his whereabouts. Relatives and a government official said May 15 that al-Mahalawi's kidnappers released him, but U.S. military officials maintained he had not been seen until his body was discovered Sunday.
Kuba said al-Mahalawi had never been released, but instead had been handed from one terrorist cell to another.
Maj. Wes Hayes, a military spokesman, said Sunday's battle began after foreign fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at coalition forces from a house. Coalition troops returned fire, killing four foreign fighters and wounding three others, and then found the body of al-Mahalawi, which had been chained to a propane tank and had suffered a blow to the head, he said.
Al-Mahalawi's body was taken Monday to Qaim, where his family identified him.
The kidnappers had previously told his family they were holding him until American forces left Qaim, the scene of Operation Matador, a weeklong U.S. offensive targeting insurgents 200 miles west of Baghdad.
U.S. forces killed about 140 militants, mostly in and around Qaim, during its two military offensives in western Iraq in May. A total of 11 Marines were killed in the campaigns near the Iraqi-Syrian border.
In an audio tape purportedly of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the insurgent leader said Qaim "was the battlefield where the youth of Mohammed have proved their valiance after 10 days of fighting."
"It was one of the greatest battles of Islam," the speaker said, addressing Osama bin Laden. "Our dear emir, if you want to know our news, we would like to assure you that we are continuing on the path of jihad, we are committed to our pledge. We will either win or die trying."
In the recording, carried by a Web site frequently used by militant Islamic groups, the voice purportedly belonging to al-Zarqawi addressed reports that he had been injured in battle, and he said he suffered only "a light wound, thank God."
A U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, "We believe the tape to be authentic."
Four Italian troops were killed overnight in the crash of the Italian AB-412 helicopter that spokesman Lt. Col. Fabio Mattiassi told the ANSA news agency was likely an accident.
The helicopter went down about eight miles southeast of Nasiriyah, killing its two pilots and two passengers, all attached to the army, Mattiassi said. Most of Italy's 3,000 troops are based in Nasiriyah, and 25 have been killed.
A day earlier, an Iraqi single-engine plane crashed near Jalula, about 80 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing the four Americans and the Iraqi pilot, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Fred Wellman. The aircraft, one of seven used by the Iraqi air force for surveillance and personnel transport, was heading to Jalula from a Kirkuk air base, the military said.
In addition, a U.S. Marine was killed Monday in fighting with insurgents near the city of Ramadi in western Iraq, the military said Tuesday.
At least 1,662 U.S. military personnel have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In new violence, gunmen killed Jerges Mohammed Sultan, a journalist for Iraqi state TV channel Al-Iraqiya, in the northern city of Mosul, said Dr. Baha-aldin al-Bakri of al-Jumhouri hospital. Insurgents have targeted both the station and its employees.
A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqi soldiers at an army checkpoint near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, said Diyala provincial police spokesman Ali Fadhil.
Five gunmen fired from a car on a police patrol in eastern Baghdad's Doura district, wounding four policemen, Capt. Firas Qaiti said.
Residents of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, found the bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi soldiers who served under Saddam Hussein and had been kidnapped last week, one of the victim's relatives said.
In Baghdad, the anti-insurgent campaign known as Operation Lightning was in its third day, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari praised its success. The operation, in which more than 40,000 Iraqi security forces are to be deployed, aims to rid the capital of militants and, in particular, suicide car bombers.
"We have so far achieved good results and rounded up a large number of saboteurs, some are Iraqis and some are non-Iraqis," al-Jaafari said without elaborating.
On Monday in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, at least 27 policemen were killed and 118 wounded after two suicide bombers struck as hundreds of commandos protested a government move to disband their special forces unit.
In an apparent claim of responsibility, al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly said in an Internet statement that one of its members attacked "a group of special Iraqi forces." The same group claimed responsibility for a Feb. 28 attack on police recruits in Hillah that killed 125 people.
Militants regard Iraqi security forces as prime targets in their campaign against the U.S. military, which hinges its eventual exit from Iraq on the ability of local soldiers and police to protect the country.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, meanwhile, told CNN that authorities expected to put Saddam on trial in the next two months.
Saddam's lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, expressed surprise at Talabani's comment.
"I was not informed officially that they are speeding up the trial, but any way I will check," he told The Associated Press by telephone.
Speaking in English, Talabani told CNN he would have to await the outcome of the trial process, "but the Iraqi people from now are starting to ask for executing Saddam Hussein and for sentencing him for death."
"Saddam Hussein is a war criminal," Talabani said in his office in Doukan, in northern Iraq, noting that the ousted leader had committed "crimes against Iraqi people" in Kurdistan as well as Shiite areas of southern Iraq and in Baghdad.
Good afternoon Gucho. If you don't see me after 5ish, you can go ahead and start tomorrow's thread some time tonight if you like. I am still having internet problems at home. Was not able to access the internet at all after 2:30 p.m. yesterday and its still down or at least it was when I left home this morning. The tech is scheduled to come out tomorrow. However if they can't fix it, or will not try a new or different modem, then they can have their service.
U.S. Marine Killed Fighting Insurgents
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Marine was killed in fighting with insurgents in western Iraq, the military said Tuesday.
The Marine, who was assigned to the 5th Regiment, 2nd Division, was killed Monday near the city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad.
At least 1,662 U.S. military personnel have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Iraqi Amin Lokman Mohammed is led into the courtroom by police officers at the start of his trial in Munich, southern Germany, in this April 19, 2005 file picture. Amin Lokman Mohammed, suspected of raising money and recruiting members for the Ansar al-Islam terror group was to go on trial in April, but the hearing was postponed until Tuesday May 31, 2005, after prosecutors said they were waiting for more evidence. (AP Photo/Uwe Lein)
Iraqi on trial in Germany denies links to Ansar al-Islam group
(AFP)
31 May 2005
MUNICH - An Iraqi man on trial in Germany denied on Tuesday he was a member of the Kurdish guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam which is believed to have links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man.
Lokman Amin Mohammed, 31, is accused of being the mastermind of the group’s cell in the southern German city of Munich and a key part of its European network.
It is the first time a suspect has been tried in Germany on charges of belonging to a terrorist group which is active abroad.
The German penal code was changed to include the charge in 2002 following the September 11 attacks on the United States the previous year.
Mohammed admitted he had helped Iraqis to enter Germany in 2002 but said he wanted to help them escape persecution by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
One of his defence lawyers said the Iraqis in question were mainly women and children, but federal prosecutors maintain that Mohammed was a member of Ansar al-Islam until November 2002 and say that the Iraqis he brought into Germany were Kurdish fighters who were planning to carry out attacks in Europe.
He is also accused of helping to evacuate a badly injured high-ranking Ansar al-Islam explosives expert from Iraq and arranging for him to have medical treatment in Britain.
Based in northern Iraq, Ansar al-Islam ran a network of fundamental Muslim guerrillas until their bases were destroyed by Kurdish and US forces during the US-led invasion.
US commanders believe they are still active in the Iraqi insurgency and have links to Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq.
Mohammed came to Germany in 2000, had valid residency papers, and led a seemingly normal life, working on the production line of carmaker BMW.
He was arrested in Munich in December 2003 on a people smuggling charge before the investigation deepened.
His trial opened in April but was immediately adjourned after new evidence came to light from telephone taps.
In this photo provided by the Palm Beach Sheriff's Department, shown is Rafiq Abdus Sabir, a Boca Raton, Fla., physician, date and location unknown. Sabir, and Tarik Shah, a self-described martial arts expert in New York, were both charged in Manhattan federal court with conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York. (AP Photo/Palm Beach Sheriff's Department)
Americans charged with backing terrorism held without bail
The Associated Press
May 31, 2005, 1:29 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- A pair of alleged al-Qaida loyalists, one in New York and another in Florida, were in federal custody Tuesday after separate hearings where both were ordered held without bail.
Tarik Shah, 42, of New York, waved and smiled at supporters and appeared relaxed at his preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz.
In Fort Pierce, Fla., Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 50, told U.S. District Court Judge James Hopkins that he had yet to hire an attorney, and the judge set the next hearing in the case for June 6.
Neither defendant has yet entered a plea on the charge of conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida.
According to prosecutors, the two American citizens had sworn a formal oath of loyalty to al-Qaida as they conspired to use their skills in martial arts and medicine to aid international terrorism.
At Sabir's next hearing, the Florida judge will consider whether he will be sent to New York for prosecution, and whether he will continue to be held without bond until trial. Prosecutors requested that Sabir remain in custody.
Outside court, spokesman Dan McBride of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton defended Sabir as a man who frequently traveled between the United States and Saudi Arabia to earn enough money to support his wife and their two sons.
"He's a broke doctor," McBride said. "He has no money. He works over there, then comes back and lives over here." The men were arrested Friday; if convicted, each could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
The one-count complaint details a sting operation from 2003 to 2005 in which the two men took an oath pledging their allegiance to al-Qaida.
Prosecutors said Sabir, an Ivy League-educated doctor, agreed to treat jihadists, or holy warriors, in Saudi Arabia. Shah, a jazz musician and a self-described martial arts expert, allegedly agreed to train them in hand-to-hand combat.
Shah's mother, Marlene Jenkins of Albany, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the charge against her son is ridiculous and insisted he's not a terrorist. Sabir's former wife, Ingrid Doyle of New York, told the newspaper he was a good father and husband, and a hardworking man.
An 18-page complaint unsealed Monday repeatedly described Shah's zest to train "brothers" for urban warfare. It alleged both men pledged their allegiance to al-Qaida during a May 20 meeting in the Bronx.
Shah went with an informant to a windowless Long Island warehouse to see if the location would be adequate as a training site, unaware FBI agents were secretly videotaping the visit, the papers said.
He discussed a desire to open a machine shop to make weapons so fellow enthusiasts would not have to rely on anyone else to get guns, the complaint said.
"Shah indicated that his 'greatest cover has been' his career as a 'professional' jazz musician," wrote Brian Murphy, the FBI agent who prepared the complaint.
At one point, the informant told Shah he was going to take him to Plattsburgh, N.Y., to introduce him to an undercover FBI agent posing as a recruiter from the Middle East.
Murphy said Shah was eager to introduce Sabir -- a "very, very, very close friend" he had known for more than 20 years -- to the recruiter.
Shah also discussed a desire to start a martial arts school only for Muslims and said he hoped to be trained in chemicals, explosives, firearms, AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, the complaint said. The defendant allegedly discussed martyrdom with the informant, saying he and Sabir had been persecuted for many years.
Zarqawi thumbs nose at US in latest message
Tue May 31,12:35 PM ET
DUBAI (AFP) - Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has thumbed his nose at the Americans, in a message attributed to him on the Internet, and played up the threat of his alliance with Osama bin Laden.
Zarqawi said he was "lightly" wounded but still battling alongside his fighters in Iraq, in the message posted late Monday.
"This is a message from a soldier to his emir," he said in a serious but confident voice, addressing Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden who named him in December as leader of his terror network's operations in Iraq.
While the insurgency battles on despite joint US-Iraqi operations aimed at its destruction, Zarqawi appears to have taken the battle back to the frontlines of the propaganda war.
"The latest message looks more like propaganda," said Dhia Rashwan, an Arab expert in Islamist groups. "Zarqawi and bin Laden turn to each other whenever they feel in difficulty."
Zarqawi, with the United States trying to close the net, has "turned to the strategic potential of bin Laden to scare the Americans".
As for last week's Internet announcement by his group that Zarqawi had been wounded, that "could have been a ploy to cover up his movements in Iraq", according to Rashwan.
"In any case, the announcement was a tactical coup because it showed that the enemy has no specific information on him," he said.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said Sunday that Zarqawi had probably been wounded but the American military did not know where he was or if his injuries were serious.
Asked by CBS whether the Jordanian-born Zarqawi was still in Iraq, Myers said: "We don't know that."
A Saudi journalist specialised in Al-Qaeda affairs, Fares ben Hizam, said that Zarqawi, "whose injury could be serious despite the effort he made in the latest message", was issuing a call for new volunteers among Al-Qaeda ranks.
A double suicide attack killed at least 25 people south of Baghdad on Monday as insurgents struck back against a massive operation by Iraq to try to restore security in the capital.
Zarqawi's group said its attack was a reply to the "aborted encirclement plan in Baghdad," a reference to the Iraqi security net that was launched the same day.
Insurgent attacks nationwide killed a total of around 700 people in May, following the swearing-in of Iraq's first democratically elected post- Saddam Hussein government.
Ben Hizam said the latest voice message also contained a "coded" operational message to bin Laden, who like the equally elusive Zarqawi has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head.
"I think (this) drawn up plan has reached you or is in the process of being delivered," said Zarqawi, who signed off his message to bin Laden with the words, "your little brother".
Iraq's Foreign Minister said on May 31 2005 Syria was a key transit route for 'foreign terrorists' as well as remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and urged Damascus to do more to stop this. A Syrian security border officer stands at the sand barrier that separates Syrian and Iraqi borders of Abu Kamal about 600 km Northwest Damas, November 6, 2004. (Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters)
Iraqi minister asks Syria to watch its border
By Evelyn Leopold
Tue May 31, 1:16 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraq's Foreign Minister said on Tuesday Syria was a key transit route for "foreign terrorists" as well as remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and urged Damascus to do more to stop this.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari was addressing the U.N. Security Council to express support for the continued presence of the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq of some 160,000 foreign troops.
The U.N. mandate for the force is up for review and Baghdad, which can request its withdrawal, wants it to stay.
Zebari said he anticipated what he called the "campaign of destruction and intimidation" by insurgents, which has intensified since the formation of an Iraqi government on April 28, would continue, especially during the drafting of a new constitution in the coming months.
Zebari, a Kurd, acknowledged a statement by Syria's U.N. envoy, Fayssal Mekdad, last week that Damascus had stopped more than 1,200 people from entering Iraq in the last few months.
"We welcome this action but note that it confirms our long-held view that Syria has been one of the main transit routes for foreign terrorists, as well as for remnants of the previous regime," Zebari said.
"Here we would like to urge our brothers in Syria to do more to prevent the movement of extremist elements from entering our country," he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stepped up criticism of Syria, accusing it of allowing insurgents to stage operations against Iraq, which Damascus has repeatedly denied.
Syrian officials said last week military and intelligence cooperation between Damascus and the United States had ended after a slew of American accusations that Damascus was not doing enough.
Zebari said the United Nations should bolster its assistance in helping Iraq draft a new constitution, due by Aug. 15, which he called "the most critical test for the future of our country."
"We are aware that the U.N. is moving to extend its technical assistance and we urge that this process is accelerated," Zebari told the council.
U.N. officials, however, said they sent seven experts to Iraq in April but Baghdad's formal request for their help on a constitution had just arrived.
The constitution will serve as a foundation for the new Iraq state and has to be approved by parliament and in a referendum at the end of the year.
Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador, said there was no "specific timeline" for the withdrawal of multinational forces. But she said the foreign troops would not stay any longer than necessary and could not leave "until the Iraqis can meet the serious security challenges they face."
By Angela Woodall
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Washington, DC, May. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. lawmakers and former military officers are backing Mujahedin-e Khalq, an Iranian opposition group, despite its inclusion on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations and its role in the killing and wounding of U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970s.
Supporters acknowledge the status of the group, once funded by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, as well as its role in the killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970s in Iran when it was allied with Ayatollah Khomeini, but say the MEK has shed its past activities and is a potential ally against the theocratic regime in Iran.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, responded in a written statement saying he supports the MEK because it is an "asset to U.S. intelligence" and "the most reliable source of information for the region."
In recent years the MEK's political branch, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has provided information about Iran's nuclear facilities, which the Bush administration contends are being used to secretly make nuclear weapons.
Tancredo's press secretary, Carlos Espinosa, said it is not "too unusual" for members of Congress to support a group listed as a foreign terrorist organization, citing Sen. Ted Kennedy's support for the Irish Republican Army as an example.
JERUSALEM - Two-thirds of Israel's Ein Gedi nature reserve was destroyed by fire Tuesday, causing considerable damage to animal and plant life in the lush oasis sandwiched between the harsh Judean Desert and the Dead Sea.
Residents of Kibbutz Ein Gedi nearby said the fire covered the kibbutz in smoke, the Haaretz daily reported.
Tourists were evacuated from the area, but no injuries were reported.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
Animal life in the reserve includes the deer-like ibex and hyrax, which resembles a guinea pig, as well as two species of fox, wolves, striped hyenas, and four leopards. It's an important location for migrating birds, too.
The reserve also is a crossroads of several Mediterranean, African and Asian plant communities, including the northernmost distribution of some Sudanian flora.
Also at risk are archaeological sites, including ruins from the Chalcolithic period about 4,000 B.C., when inhabitants first began to use copper. During the Byzantine period, the Jewish residents of the area built a synagogue there. Ein Gedi also is mentioned in the Bible.
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