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The deputy commander of the Iraqi army in western Al-Anbar province was shot dead by US troops at a checkpoint Tuesday night, a police officer said. "The US forces opened fire at 8:00 pm on Brigadier General Ismail Swayed al-Obeid, who had left his base in Baghdadi to head home," police Captain Amin al-Hitti said. "They spotted him on the road after the curfew, which goes into effect at 6pm," the officer said in Baghdadi, 185 kilometres west of the capital. No immediate reaction was available from the US military. US forces have struggled to build up Iraqi security forces...

RAMADI, Iraq - The deputy commander of the Iraqi army in western Al-Anbar province was shot dead by US troops at a checkpoint Tuesday night, a police officer said. "The US forces opened fire at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Brigadier General Ismail Swayed al-Obeid, who had left his base in Baghdadi to head home," police Captain Amin al-Hitti said. "They spotted him on the road after the curfew, which goes into effect at 6 pm," the officer said in Baghdadi, 185 kilometres (142 miles) west of the capital. No immediate reaction was available from the US military. US...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen assassinated an Iraqi general and two companions in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad on Sunday, and election officials said an alliance of Shiites won the most votes in the Jan. 30 elections. On the military front, three U.S. soldiers were killed when their vehicle rolled into a canal Sunday, the military said. The men from Task Force Danger were on a combat patrol near the town of Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. command said in a statement. In violence in the north, insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy and a government building near the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces arrested a former general in Saddam Hussein's military whom they accuse of financing insurgents, including the makers of roadside bombs used against U.S. troops, the country's interim government said Sunday. Khamis Masin Farhan al-Ugaydi, also known as Abu Sabaa, was a brigadier general in the Iraqi army during Saddam's regime, according to a statement from the interim government. The 51-year old Arab was captured December 20 in Beiji, north of the capital, after elements of the Iraqi national guard and other security forces acted on a tip from Iraqis. The government did not...

ACCORDING to the logic of post-war Iraq, General Abdullah Hussein should be out in a field somewhere in the western deserts, sniping at US troops or setting road bombs. A Sunni army commander from Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, he fought the invading US forces until the day Baghdad fell, then saw his beloved army ignominiously defeated by the vastly better-armed US forces. Hundreds of officers, jobless and desperate, turned to the resistance in a confused search for justice or retribution. General Hussein, by contrast, will be running in Sunday's US-brokered elections. Not only that, he believes up to...

Iraq's top general Sunday rejected U.S. President George W. Bush's criticism that some Iraqi government troops were unwilling to fight insurgents and have deserted the battlefield, saying the president had been misinformed. In an interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari also said that the man who carried out Tuesday's attack suicide attack on a U.S. base in Mosul - in which 22 people died - was not a member of the Iraqi security forces. He spoke as the Ansar al-Sunna Army group, which has claimed responsibility for the Mosul strike, released a video on a website showing...

BAGHDAD, Oct 2 (AFP) - A former general in Saddam Hussein's armed forces was captured along with nine other people in counter-insurgency operations conducted by Polish, US and Iraqi troops in south-central Iraq on Saturday, the military said. "As a result of the operations, 10 suspects were detained, including a man who was a general in Saddam Husseins former army and is wanted by Iraqi police," the multinational force said in a statement, without identifying the general. Five of those detained were quickly released after questioning at the scene, it said. A cache of AK-47 rifles and ammunition was also...

U.S. Arrests Commander of Iraqi Nat'l Guard Sunday, September 26, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq — American troops have arrested a senior commander of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Guard (search) for alleged ties to insurgents, underscoring the obstacles toward building a strong Iraqi security force capable of taking over from U.S. troops and restoring stability to the country. Lt. Gen. Talib al-Lahibi (search), who previously served as an infantry officer in Saddam Hussein's army, was detained Thursday in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq. Boylan said Sunday that authorities...

Sufyan Maher Hussein, a senior commander of the former Iraqi Republican Guard was captured in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, the US military said Sunday.Sufyan was arrested on July 16, according to US Miliary spokesman Major Neal O' Brien.'He is suspected of planning and financing attacks against the Iraqi people, Iraqi security forces and multinational forces,' O'Brien said.The 201st Iraiq National Guard Battalion, backed by multinational forces, captured Hassan in a raid in Tikrit on Friday, he added.End item

Reported on Swedish Radio News 5.45 PM (GMT+1): After a two day search among the countless graves outside the Abu Greb prison 75 km west of Baghdad the headless body of the former Iraqi airforce general Ali Hussein Habib was found in a shallow grave. The body was identified by Habib's widow and brother in-law, Abu Haldoun. Habib was a retired air-force general who had been one of the persons in charge of the Iraqi chemical weapons program. General Habib was one of the few Iraqis who eventually agreed to be interviewed by UN weapons inspectors without any Iraqi government...

According to Knight-Ridder, the mysterious Iraqi was "employed with the aid of an Iraqi intelligence officer" and later "accompanied two Sept. 11 hijackers from the airport to a hotel where the pair met with Ramzi Binalshibh, a key planner of the attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, who masterminded al Qaida's strike on the USS Cole in October 2000." Interesting, no?THE WASHINGTON POST reported yesterday morning that an Iraqi present at a key al Qaeda summit may not be the same Iraqi listed on lists of officers of the Saddam Fedayeen captured in postwar Iraq. In Al Qaeda Link to Iraq...

WASHINGTON -- The CIA concluded "a long time ago" that an al-Qaida associate who met with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia was not an officer in Saddam Hussein's army, as alleged Sunday by a Republican member of the 9/11 commission.

Iraqi officer in al Qaeda, papers show By Guy Taylor THE WASHINGTON TIMES A senior officer in Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's security services was a member of the terrorist group that committed the September 11 attacks, a member of the commission investigating the suicide hijackings said yesterday. "There is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," said September 11 commission member and former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Although he stressed that the intelligence "still has to be confirmed," Mr. Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the information...

A senior officer in Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's security services was a member of the terrorist group that committed the September 11 attacks, a member of the commission investigating the suicide hijackings said yesterday. "There is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," said September 11 commission member and former Navy Secretary John Lehman.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s militia, a panel member said on Sunday. Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the new intelligence, if proven true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq (news - web sites) and the militant network believed responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. "We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said. Commission Chairman Thomas Kean...

Iraqi General Urges Support of U.S. Troops May 16, 2:54 PM (ET) By KATARINA KRATOVAC FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - A former Saddam Hussein-era general appointed by the Americans to lead an Iraqi security force in the rebellious Sunni stronghold of Fallujah urged tribal elders and sheiks Sunday to support U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. Retired Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdul-Latif rose to prominence after nearly monthlong battles last month between the Marines monthlong battles in April between the Marines and insurgents hunkered down in Fallujah's neighborhoods. "We can make them (Americans) use their rifles against us or we can make them...

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The U.S. Marines besieging Falluja brought in a former Iraqi general with a history of standing up to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) on Monday to lead a force they have charged with putting down an insurgency in the city. After outrage among victims of the Baathist regime at their appointment of a former general in his feared Republican Guard, U.S. commanders have now brought in another ex-general, Mohammed Latif, to take overall command of the Falluja Brigade. As U.S. commanders struggle to stamp out open rebellion in two cities and bombings that kill...

FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- A dozen former Iraqi generals and intelligence officers met Friday with U.S. military leaders and pledged to lead a brigade of 1,000 Iraqi soldiers to replace the Marines fortifying the city's borders. But U.S. military officials cautioned that the arrival of the Iraqi forces in this embattled city, possibly as early as today, does not necessarily mean peace. "They are still doing some planning on how to do a transition from U.S. forces to Iraqi security forces in Fallujah," Marine Col. John Toolan said Friday, choosing his words carefully while describing the new arrangement that other officials...

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi forces took over positions from withdrawing Marines and raised the Iraqi flag at the entrance to Fallujah on Friday under a plan to end the monthlong siege of the city and shift security responsibilities to Iraqis led by a former general who served under Saddam Hussein. Moves to end the siege, which drew strong criticism internationally and from America's Iraqi allies, began despite a suicide car bombing that killed two Marines and wounded six at a garrison on the outskirts of the city. U.S. officials provided no further details on the attack. Negotiations were also...

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines handed control of Falluja to a former general in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s feared Republican Guard on Friday in bid to end a month-long siege that killed hundreds in the city and infuriated Iraqis. In what appeared to be a reversal of Washington's policy of excluding members of Saddam's Baathist regime from power, Jasim Mohamed Saleh told Reuters his force would help police and other Iraqi security forces bring order to the town. The commander of the Marines, who were pulling back from siege positions around the city of 300,000, was quoted...