Free Republic

TEHRAN, Iran — Five Iranian officials who were held in Iraq for more than two years by U.S. forces on suspicion of aiding local Shiite militants returned to Iran Sunday, where the Iranian foreign minister hailed their return as a victory for Iran. The five diplomats flew to Tehran from Iraq on Sunday and were met at the airport by a cheering crowd of onlookers who carried the men on their shoulders and put garlands of flowers around their necks. Iran's Foreign Minster Manouchehr Mottaki in a news conference with the men that was carried by Iran's Press-TV minutes after...

In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...

One of the most widely photographed acts of President Obama's first year in office was his symbolic pre-dawn salute to the caskets of U.S. soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base. In the case of a terrorist named Ali Musa Daqduq, who was released yesterday from U.S. custody in Iraq, the President is letting down those fallen soldiers and their families. Daqduq is a Lebanese national and top Hezbollah operative who in January 2007 masterminded the ambush, kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in the Iraqi city of Karbala. Arrested by U.S. forces in Basra two months later, Daqduq...

The British hostage Peter Moore was dramatically set free yesterday after the United States handed over an Iraqi insurgent suspected of planning the deaths of five American servicemen. Mr Moore, an IT consultant, was freed by League of the Righteous, or Asaib al-Haq (AAH) — an extremist Shia group allied to Iran — after 31 months and spent his first night of freedom at the British Embassy in Baghdad. He is expected to fly home today.

The US military has released a senior member of a deadly terror group backed by Iran that has been directly implicated in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in during a complex operating in early 2007. Laith al Qazali was freed last weekend "as part of a reconciliation effort" as well as an attempt to secure the release of captive British hostages, according to a report in The New York Times. Laith is the brother of Qais Qazali, the commander of the Qazali network which better known as the Asaib al Haq or the League of...

At approximately 5 p.m., a convoy consisting of at least five sport utility vehicles entered the Karbala compound. The armed militants wore American-looking uniforms and carried U.S.-type weapons convincing Iraqi checkpoints to allow their passage. Once inside the compound, an estimated nine to 12 armed militants engaged the American troops with rifle fire and hand grenades. While defending the command post, one Soldier was killed and three others were wounded by a hand grenade thrown into the center's main office which contains the provincial police chief's office on an upper floor. During the attack in the main building, Soldiers defending...

Terror Linked Iranian in 'Kidnap' Puzzle March 05, 2007 New York Post Oran Dan JERUSALEM -- A retired Iranian general linked to the killing of five American soldiers in Baghdad vanished mysteriously in Istanbul last month, Israeli media reported yesterday. Arab newspapers are hinting the CIA and/or the Israeli spy agency Mossad are behind the disappearance of Gen. Ali Reza Askari, the reports said. Askari, a former deputy defense minister, arrived in Istanbul on a flight from Damascus on Feb. 7, left his luggage in his hotel room - and vanished. The missing general was in charge of Iranian undercover...

Iraqi police have captured three Iranian-backed Special Groups operatives behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in January 2007. Meanwhile, US troops captured another Special Groups leader in the Al Kut region, The Iraqi police captured the three "key criminals" behind the 2007 Karbala attack in Musayyib, just south of Baghdad, on June 5. The three Special Groups operatives are "suspected of trafficking and emplacing explosively formed projectiles." Explosively formed projectiles are the signature weapon of Shia terrorists with links to Iran. The US military immediately suspected Iran's Qods Force, the...

Karbala, May 8, (VOI) - Security forces on Thursday arrested leader of Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi army’s special brigades and two of his aides during a security raid in central Karbala, a security official in Karbala said. Security forces detained the leader of al-Mahdi army’s special brigades, based on intelligence tips pointing to his presence inside a house in central Karbala,” Maj. General Raed Shakir Jawdat, Karbala police and operations chief, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).“The forces cordoned off the region and arrested two of his aides, including a policeman who provides the armed group’s...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2008 – The U.S Embassy in Baghdad and Multinational Force Iraq today condemned the attack in Karbala that targeted civilians on their way to worship yesterday. “We join the Iraqi people in expressing our condolences to the families of the victims in this barbaric attack, which bears all the markings of having been carried out by al Qaeda in Iraq,” a joint statement from the U.S. embassy and Multinational Force Iraq said. Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces are working closely to ensure medical and humanitarian aid for the victims and to apprehend those responsible for the...

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shiite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens. Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush's prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.

The World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought (WFPIST) condemned the Fatwas attributed to certain extremist muftis which threaten destruction of Shiite holy shrines in Iraq.The WFPIST statement read, "Such Fatwas are the maniac decrees that have been issued by certain wise looking but insane individuals without taking their grave consequences into consideration."It added that such decrees would have no benefit but serving Iraqi occupiers and providing them a pretext for their continued illegitimate presence in the Islamic land.It warned that desecration of holy sites in Iraq -- as was the case with the holy twin shrines of...

Iranian unit killed our troops in Iraq, says US By David Blair Last Updated: 2:23am BST 03/07/2007 A secret force attached to Iran's Revolutionary Guard carried out a sophisticated attack which killed five American soldiers in Iraq, the US claimed yesterday. For the first time, America laid out evidence allegedly showing an Iranian hand behind a specific assault. In the past, Britain and America have only made general accusations of Iranian support for insurgents. Teheran has vigorously denied the charges. But Gen Kevin Bergner, a US military spokesman, set out in detail what he called Iran's responsibility for an attack...

U.S.: Iran helped in deadly Iraq strike By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD - Iranian forces helped plan one of the most sophisticated militant assaults of the Iraq war — a January raid in which gunmen posed as an American security team and launched an attack that killed five U.S. soldiers, an American general said Monday. U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner also accused Iran of using its Lebanese ally, the Shiite militia Hezbollah, as a "proxy" to arm Shiite militants in Iraq. The claims were an escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq's violence,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A top special operations officer from Lebanon's Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah has been captured in Iraq, where U.S. officials say he played a key role in a January attack that killed five Americans. Ali Mussa Daqduq, an explosives expert, was captured in March in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where he was helping train and lead Shiite militias fighting coalition troops, U.S. intelligence officials told CNN. Daqduq pretended to be deaf and mute when captured, and his identity was not known for weeks, the officials said. Once uncovered, however, they said he began to talk, and...

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces on a raid in northern Baghdad killed a Shiite militant believed to have masterminded a brazen January attack in Karbala that led to the capture and killing of four U.S. soldiers, the military said Sunday. Troops located Azhar al-Dulaimi on Friday morning and tried to capture him, but he was killed in the ensuing battle, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said on CNN's "Late Edition." U.S. troops had been pursuing al-Dulaimi relentlessly since the Jan. 20 attack in the southern city of Karbala, Caldwell said. In that attack, gunmen speaking...

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as the streets were packed with people heading for evening prayers, killing at least 58 and wounding scores near some of the country's most sacred shrines. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad. With black smoke clogging the skies above Karbala, angry crowds hurled stones at police and later stormed the provincial governor's house, accusing authorities of failing to protect them from the unrelenting bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents. It...

Suicide attack on Iraqi holy city The bus station was very busy at the time of the attack At least 36 people have been killed and more than 160 hurt in a suicide car bomb attack in Iraq's holy city of Karbala, officials say.The attacker detonated explosives at a crowded bus station in the city close to a shrine holy to Shia Muslims, at around 0915 local time (0515 GMT). Many of the casualties were said to be women or children. Meanwhile in Baghdad at least 10 people died in a truck bomb attack on a key bridge in...

AFP via translation - ALARM - Iraq: 40 died in a car bomb attack in Kerbala KARBALA (Iraq) - At least 40 people were killed and from wounded tens during the explosion Saturday of a booby-trapped car close to the principal mausoleum of the Holy City Shiite of Kerbala (110 km in the south of Baghdad), one learned from medical source.

(AP) A car bomb exploded Saturday in a bus station in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least 56 people, police and hospital officials said. More than 70 people were also wounded in the attack, according to an official at Al-Hussein Hospital. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. "The explosion was a huge one. It took place in a crowded area," said Khalid al-Daami, head of the city's security committee. Among the dead were several women and children, he said. State television aired footage from the scene, in which...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A man with ties to a radical Shiite cleric is in U.S. custody in connection with an attack that killed five American soldiers in Karbala in January, U.S. officials said."Over the past several days, coalition forces in Basra and Hilla captured Qais Khazali, his brother Laith Khazali and several other members of the Khazali network," the U.S. military said in a statement Thursday.The military said the network is "directly connected" to the killings in Karbala, a Shiite city south of Baghdad.Qais Khazali was known as a spokesman for Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement in 2004...

KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Four members of a Shiite messianic cult which fought a fierce battle with security forces earlier this week were arrested in the central Iraqi shrine city of Karbala. Karbala police chief Major General Mohammed Abu al-Walid said 25 militants were arrested across the city in a series of raids. Four of those detained were from the "Soldiers of Heaven" group, the militant Shiite cult. At least 263 of the cult's fighters were killed and 502 arrested during fierce clashes with Iraqi forces near Najaf on Sunday. The leader of the militia, who claimed to be a...

Several Iraqis have been detained for questioning in the ongoing investigation of at least two senior Iraqi generals suspected of involvement in an insurgent attack that killed five American soldiers on Jan. 20, U.S. officials told FOX News on Thursday. The attack occurred at a provincial government security compound in Karbala where the Americans were meeting with local Iraqi security officers. Gunmen stormed the facility dressed like American soldiers and driving SUVs, military officials in Iraq said.

US warns Iran on Iraq insurgents The US says Iran is providing more lethal bombs to insurgents The US has issued the latest in a series of warnings to Iran, telling Tehran to stop helping Iraqi militants make lethal bombs to attack US troops.Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said US forces had detained several Iranians suspected of providing weapons technology to Shia insurgents. He said Iranian help for insurgents had spread from Basra north to Baghdad, leading to higher UK and US casualties. Tehran has repeatedly denied that it is fuelling the violence in Iraq. Mr Burns told the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Citing Iranian involvement with Iraqi militias and Tehran's nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration has shifted to offense in its confrontation with Iran - building up the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf and promising more aggressive moves against Iranian operatives in Iraq and Lebanon. The behind-the-scenes struggle between the two nations could explode into open warfare over a single misstep, analysts and U.S. military officials warn. Iraq has become a proxy battleground between Washington and Tehran, which is challenging - at least rhetorically - America's dominance of the Gulf. That has worried even Iraq's U.S.-backed Shiite...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A plan by the Bush administration to release detailed and possibly damning specific evidence linking the Iranian government to efforts to destabilize Iraq have been put on hold, U.S. officials told FOX News. Officials had said a "dossier" against Iran compiled by the U.S. likely would be made public at a press conference this week in Baghdad, and that the evidence would contain specifics including shipping documents, serial numbers, maps and other evidence which officials say would irrefutably link Iran to weapons shipments to Iraq.

IRGC's Qods Force is the prime suspect in the Karbala attack which killed 5 soldiers On Friday, we reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps' Qods Force was very likely behind the attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, which resulted in the kidnapping and execution of four U.S. soldiers. Five soldiers total were killed in the operation, and three others wounded. We noted, based on multiple sources in the military and intelligence community, that the attack was far too sophisticated for Shia militias (particularly the Mahdi Army) and al-Qaeda in Iraq was unlikely to have carried out...

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 — Investigators believe that attackers who used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the probe.

AGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said."People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said.That official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed five soldiers.The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."

The World Economic Forum in Davos is a sanctuary for America-bashers. John Kerry was the star there yesterday. In case you missed it, Allah's got video and the lowdown. All I can say is: Thank God for the Swift Boat Veterans. Davos is getting feedback. LGF'ers are leading the charge. Matt at Blackfive notes that while Kerry schmoozed former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, evidence of Iranian special ops orchestration of the horrific attack on US troops in Kerbala is building.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A top Iranian lawmaker denounced the United States on Saturday for allowing its troops to kill or capture Iranians in Iraq whom U.S. forces believe pose a threat. "This is support for terrorism. It is against all recognized international treaties to order the death of nationals of another country in a foreign land," Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of Parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, said on state television. On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said U.S. forces "are authorized to go after those who are trying to kill them." The more aggressive policy - evolving...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — As President Bush and his aides calibrate how directly to confront Iran, they are discovering that both their words and their strategy are haunted by the echoes of four years ago — when their warnings of terrorist activity and nuclear ambitions were clearly a prelude to war.This time, they insist, it is different.“We’re not looking for a fight with Iran,” R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for policy and the chief negotiator on Iranian issues, said in an interview on Friday evening, just a few hours after Mr. Bush had repeated his warnings to...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 -- American soldiers will do what they must to protect themselves from Iranian agents operating inside Iraq, the White House said today, following a report that President Bush had authorized the killing of Iranian agents. Rice Says Bush Authorized Iranians’ Arrest in Iraq(January 13, 2007) “If our troops get actionable intelligence that agents are going to cause our troops or Iraqi citizens harm, they’re going to take whatever force protections that are necessary,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.The president himself told reporters today that, “It just makes sense that if somebody is...

January 27, 2007 -- Those who insist so loudly on following Geneva Conventions rules regarding captured terrorists need to take a long, hard look at the latest atrocity in Iraq, news of which broke yesterday. Four U.S. soldiers, one of them a New Yorker, were captured - and promptly murdered - last Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles from Baghdad, officials confirmed. Two of the slain soldiers were found handcuffed together in the back of a vehicle. Soldiers die in combat, of course. But the murder of disarmed and helpless troops - killing POWs, in effect...

The Iranians may be responsible the conducting the attack that resulted in the murder of five American soldiers in Karbala On January 20th, a team of twelve men disguised as U.S. soldiers entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, where U.S. soldiers conducted a meeting with local officials, and attacked and killed five soldiers, and wounded another three. The initial reports indicated the five were killed in the Karbala JCC, however the U.S. military has reported that four of those killed were actually removed from the center, handcuffed, and murdered. The American Forces Information Service provides the details of...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2007 – Insurgents who attacked the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, Iraq, were dressed in U.S. Army-styled combat uniforms and carried U.S.-type weapons, convincing Iraqi checkpoints to allow them passage, military officials released today. During the Jan. 20 attack, the enemy fighters captured and killed four U.S. soldiers. Another soldier was also killed and three others wounded in the attack on the center, located about 30 miles south of Baghdad. Local officials and Iraqi and coalition security forces meet at the center to address security needs. "The precision of the attack, the equipment used and...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death. The U.S. military confirmed a report earlier Friday by The Associated Press that three of the soldiers were dead and one was mortally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province, about 25 miles from the compound where they were captured. A fifth...

Four American soldiers were abducted during a sophisticated sneak attack last week in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, the U.S. military confirmed Friday. It said three were shot to death and a fourth was mortally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province, far from the compound where they were captured. Two of the four were handcuffed together in the back seat of an SUV near the southern Iraqi town of Mahawil. A third dead soldier was on the ground nearby. The fourth soldier died on the way to the hospital, the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor's office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away. The brazen assault 50 miles south of Baghdad was launched Jan. 20 by a group of nine to 12 militants. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles - the type used by U.S. government convoys, had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke...

KALSU, Iraq (CNN) -- Four people suspected in last weekend's deadly attack on American soldiers in the central Iraqi city of Karbala have been detained, the U.S. military said Tuesday. A tip from a Karbala resident led U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces to take the suspects into custody Monday, the military said in a statement. Five U.S. soldiers died in Saturday's raid in Karbala. "The suspects were found in a house near the area where the vehicles used in the attack were abandoned after insurgents made their getaway from the scene," the military said. Karbala police spokesman Abdul Rahman...

KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) -- Attackers who killed five U.S. troops at a government building in Karbala posed as U.S. military officials to get past Iraqi guards, a Karbala police spokesman said. The attack happened Saturday as the U.S. military convened a meeting to discuss security for Ashura, the upcoming Shiite pilgrimage to Karbala. According to police spokesman Abdul Rahman al-Mishawi, about 30 gunmen traveling in a convoy of at least seven SUVs with tinted windows -- similar to the vehicles used by top U.S. military officials -- drove up to the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center wearing uniforms similar to...

KARBALA, Iraq - Chilling details emerged Sunday of gunmen posing as American and Iraqi soldiers in an ambush on U.S. troops in Karbala a day earlier that killed five Americans and wounded three. On Saturday, a civil affairs team of American soldiers sat with local leaders in Karbala's provincial headquarters to discuss security for Ashoura, a Shiite commemoration of the massacre of the revered Imam Hussein that began Sunday. Outside, danger was approaching. A convoy of seven white GMC Suburbans sped toward the building, breezing through checkpoints, with the men wearing American and Iraqi military uniforms and flashing American ID...

Militia fighters attacked a provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing five American soldiers today, the U.S. military reported. The statement said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually means mortars or rockets. "A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura commemorations," said Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy commander for Multi-National Division-Baghdad. Brooks said the meeting was taking place in the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala when the attack occurred. Iraqi...

When Muslims kill Muslims Toronto Sun Saturday, August 26, 2006 By SALIM MANSUR In the marketplace of ideas, the Arab-Muslim world is presently a relatively barren region. Thinking is a perilous venture where dictators, demagogues and mob passion rule. But when it comes to maiming and killing, the Arab-Muslim world holds a place of prominence. In particular, the ancient land between two rivers, now Iraq, has proven to be greatly fertile as killing fields. The most famous massacre in Muslim history by armed might of the state took place at Karbala on the banks of the Euphrates in 680....

In the last few days senior Iranian and Syrian officials, including Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, have stepped up their statements on the war, with the Syrian regime's mouthpieces in the media following suit.The following are excerpts:Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander: We Must Keep the Hatred of America Burning in Our Hearts Until the Moment of Revenge Arrives The Iranian conservative news agency Fars reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Yahya Raheem Safavi gave a speech before forces from the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij [1] on July 30, 2006, in which he demanded that they be prepared to act against Israel...

The peaceful followers of peaceful Islam took some time off from peaceful rioting, burning, pillaging, beheading infidels, killing Jews and killing each other in the name of their peaceful g0d to peacefully celebrate the peaceful holy islamic holiday of Ashura. In order to participate, you will need a sharp sword and metal chains to flagellate yourself in this unique Religion of Peace ceremony. You will also need white robes to show off the blood and gore to your fellow celebrants. Children and horses are expected to participate...

KARBALA, Iraq - More than one million Iraqis marched and beat themselves Thursday in blood-soaked processions through this holy city and other Shiite centers around the country to mourn the seventh century death of their revered martyr, Imam Hussein. Swept by a thick yellow sandstorm, mass processions choked Karbala's wide streets as more than 8,000 security forces and additional militiamen prevented terrorist attacks that have rocked Ashoura ceremonies over the past two years, killing more than 230 people. Karbala police chief Brig. Razzaq Abid Ali al-Taei said up to 2 million people either marched in drum banging and flag waving...

Dozens of people were killed or wounded Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, police said. Many of the casualties were street vendors and visitors to the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest for Shiite Muslims. The bomber, wired with explosives, blew himself up a few yards away from the shrine.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Municipal workers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala found remains believed to be from a mass grave dating to 1991, when Saddam Hussein's regime put down a Shiite uprising in the south. Also, more than 10,000 people marched through Baghdad in support of a national unity government of Sunnis and Shiites, while insurgent attacks killed six Iraqi policemen and two civilians in a fresh surge of violence. The remains were discovered Monday and were sent for testing Tuesday in an effort to identify the bodies, said Rahman Mashawy, a Karbala police spokesman. He did not say...

Two Britons and an Iraqi have been killed in an attack by gunmen in Iraq as they travelled to holy sites. The pair and at least three other foreigners were shot on a minibus near Baghdad as they travelled to Karbala. The group were British Asians from London on a pilgrimage and they were carrying British passports. The shooting comes as hostage experts hunt for a kidnapped British aid worker who went missing with three other westerners in Baghdad on Saturday. A multi-national hostage team is trying to find Norman Kember, a retired professor in his 70s. The Britons killed...