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31 minute audio tape posted today. "He called Iraqis cooperating with the occupation forces to repentance and assured them that they would not be subjected to reprisals during Ramadan"

Is the United States provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on its August recess? One recalls that it was in August 1964, after the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred. Twice it was said, on Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in international waters. The U.S. Senate responded by voting 88 to two to authorize President Johnson to assist any Southeast Asian nation whose government was threatened by communist aggression. The bombing of the North began, followed by the...

Excerpt - US and Iraqi forces have killed a senior al-Qaeda leader believed to have been behind the kidnapping of the American journalist Jill Carroll and the murder of an American peace activist. There was a swirl of confusion surrounding the killing of Muhared Adbul Latif al-Jebouri in an ultra-violent area of Baghdad, with Iraqi officials initially identifying him as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, a coalition of extremist Sunni militant groups that has declared a Caliphate in the lawless areas north of Baghdad. US officials said al-Jebouri’s body may even have been mistaken...

Excerpt - BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed the head of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaeda-led militant group that has claimed many major attacks in the country, Iraq's deputy interior minister said on Thursday. Hussein Kamal said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi had been killed in a battle north of Baghdad. He declined to say when but said authorities had recovered Baghdadi's body. "Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was killed north of Baghdad by Iraqi and American forces. He died as a result of wounds sustained in clashes. The Interior Ministry has his body to...

Iraqi and American forces captured leader of the so-called Iraq Islamic State near Baghdad Monday, part of a wide-scale offensive against hideouts of Iraqi Islamic State militias. Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, the Amir of the Iraqi Islamic State, and four of his aides were arrested near Baghdad, security sources, requesting anonymity, told KUNA. Iraqi and American forces were carrying out military operations against hideouts in southern and northern Baghdad, said the sources. Head of the national center for general command in the interior ministry brigadier Abdulkareem Khalaf refused to confirm the arrest but said "the next hourrs will witness interesting details."...

A suspected leader of the group Islamic State in Iraq, which has ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was detained in northern Iraq on Sunday, Iraqi security forces reported. Muharib Mohammed Abdullah, aka Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was arrested in a joint raid by Iraqi and US soldiers in the city of Duluiya. "This is a great success for the Iraqi security forces, comparable to the killing of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi," the Salaheddin provincial administration in the town of Tikrit said in a statement. Abdullah is a former legal expert from the city of Balad, north of Baghdad. The Islamic State...

CAIRO, Egypt - A key insurgency leader in Iraq said the U.S. killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a "great loss," but one that will strengthen the militants' determination, according to an audio tape broadcast Friday. The Al-Jazeera network said the voice on the tape was that of Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq. But the authenticity of the tape couldn't immediately be verified. "This is a message to the enemies of God, the crusaders, the rejectionists and the renegades," the voice says, referring respectively...

Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi Talks of America's Annihilation and the Muslim Conquest of the World; Declares Support for Nuclear Bombs for Muslim and Arab Countries The following are excerpts from speeches and interviews with Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on May 5, 2006, on Syrian TV on May 3, 2006, and on ANB TV on April 14, 2006.TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1135. "The Mujahid Iraqi People... Has Shattered the American Plan, Not Only in the Region, but Throughout the World"Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi: "Jihad in Islam, from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, is of two...