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April 9, 2007 -- Spc. Mario Lozano of Manhattan remembers the moment in Baghdad that changed his life forever - when, with eyes "the size of apples," he saw a vehicle barreling directly toward him and he opened fire. "You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line," said Lozano, speaking out for the first time about the March 4, 2005, "friendly fire" incident in which he shot from a Humvee machine-gun turret at the vehicle, hitting an Italian war correspondent and killing an Italian intelligence officer. The nightmare resumes for Lozano, of...

ROME - A judge Wednesday ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad, the prosecutor said. Spc. Mario Lozano is indicted for murder and attempted murder in the death of Nicola Calipari, who was shot on March 4, 2005, on his way to the Baghdad airport shortly after securing the release of an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, prosecutor Pietro Saviotti said. Another agent, who was driving the car, and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, were wounded. "This looks to me...

Jill Carroll's captors appear to be involved in some of the most high-profile kidnappings of Westerners in Iraq during the past two years. A Monitor investigation - including interviews with other kidnap victims, US, Iraqi, and Italian investigators, as well as court testimony in Iraq - ties her abductors, or others close to them, to at least five kidnapping incidents, including Ms. Carroll: [...] The strongest evidence suggests that the same group that took Carroll also abducted Ms. Sgrena, the Italian journalist. In early March, Abu Rasha, the leader of one of the three cells handling Carroll's kidnapping, went into...

Italian journalist and former Iraq war hostage Giuliana Sgrena offered yesterday to meet face-to-face with Spec. Mario Lozano, the New York City National Guardsman who shot her in a friendly fire mistake on a deserted road to the Baghdad airport last year. "I think that it would be useful for him and for me to have an exchange of opinion," Sgrena said during her first visit to the United States since the shooting. The shooting, which killed Nicola Calipari, the Italian government's second-ranking intelligence officer, just minutes after Calipari had secured Sgrena's release from Iraqi guerrillas, sparked a public furor...

BAGHDAD, April 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Thursday that Iraqi forces had captured a former senior intelligence official under Saddam Hussein who now has close ties to the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A military statement said Muhammad al-Ubaydi, who now heads the Secret Islamic Army in northern Babel province, was captured by Iraqi forces in southern Baghdad on March 7.

CALIPARI: A 'KIDNAPPERS' TRAP' KILLED HIM? (AGI) - Rome, 29 March - Could it have been a 'trap' of the journalist Giuliana Sgrena's kidnappers that killed the secret service man Nicola Calipari, who was in the car hit at a US checkpoint on 4 March last year, while travelling to Baghdad airport. This, according to Corriere della Sera this morning, is the version offered by a terrorist, Mustafa Mohammed Salman, currently imprisoned in Iraq, according to whom it was the Imam of the Sunnite mosque, the sheik Hussein (who Sgrena was supposed to meet with the day she was...

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, what do you call a Swede who's been kidnapped? Somebody you wouldn't want to cross, that's for sure. Ulf Hjertstrom has redefined the term Stockholm Syndrome, the bizarre attachment some hostages develop for their captors, first observed during a bank robbery in the Swedish capital more than 30 years ago. No such bonds were forged between Mr. Hjertstrom, a Swedish oil engineer, and the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, which held him captive for 67 days. "I have now put some people to work to find these bastards," Mr....

Bush Calls Berlusconi to Reiterate Condolences Over Killing of Italian Agent by U.S. Troops in Iraq By ALESSANDRA RIZZO Associated Press Writer ROME May 4, 2005 — President Bush called Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday to express his regret for the March killing of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq. The call came days after Washington and Rome issued rival reports about the shooting death. Berlusconi's office described the conversation as "long and cordial" and said the two countries reaffirmed their commitment in Iraq. Berlusconi, a staunch ally of the United States, sent about 3,000 troops in Iraq...

It seems there are no secrets any more... even when you try to keep them. The Pentagon found that out to its cost over the past weekend when it released its report on the shooting death in Iraq of Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence agent. Calipari died while rescuing an Italian journalist who had been held hostage by Iraqi insurgents. As they drove to safety, the Italians ran into a U.S. Army checkpoint. The Americans opened fire on the car, killing Calipari as he tried to shield the journalist. 'Unredacted' NPR's Vicky O'Hara reported on a Defense Department document, which...

Readers 'declassify' US document When news started circulating in Italy that a heavily censored Pentagon report into the death of secret agent Nicola Calipari had been decrypted, many thought it must be the work of some top-notch hacker. In fact, it turned out that the classified document, containing top-secret details - such as the name of the soldier who fired the deadly rounds of ammunition - could be made readable with two simple clicks of your computer mouse. A few hours after the Pentagon published the report on its website, a few Italian readers found they could make the blacked-out...

ROME - Italian investigators blamed U.S. military authorities for failing to signal there was a checkpoint ahead on the Baghdad road where American soldiers killed an Italian agent, and concluded that stress, inexperience and fatigue played a role in the shooting, according to a report released Monday. The probe found no evidence that the March 4 killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was deliberate. The Italians challenged the American contentions that the car was traveling more than 50 mph, saying it was going half that speed. But, despite their refusal to sign off on the U.S. report that the soldiers...

ROME (AP) - Italian investigators have concluded that stress, inexperience and fatigue among U.S. soldiers played a role in the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad, according to a report released Monday. [snip] The probe found no evidence that the March 4 killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was deliberate.[snip] Calipari was killed just after he secured the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena from Iraqi militants who held her hostage for a month. U.S. soldiers fired on the Italians' vehicle as it approached the checkpoint near Baghdad's airport. Sgrena and another Italian agent were wounded.[snip] U.S. investigators,...

Italian media have published classified sections of an official US military inquiry into the accidental killing of an Italian agent in Baghdad. The 40-page report was censored by the Pentagon before being officially published on Saturday. Italy has refused to accept the US report's findings and is to publish its own version of events later this week. Details of the official report were published in newspapers on Sunday with censored material restored in full. Missing text A Greek medical student at Bologna University who was surfing the web early on Sunday found that with two simple clicks of his computer...

The XM25 fires a High Explosive (HE), air bursting 25mm round capable of defeating an enemy behind a wall, inside a building or in a foxhole.

Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents Although about a third of the report was classified, some clever individual discovered that by copying the hidden .pdf text and pasting it into a word processor the classified information was made visible. Below is the full text of the .doc document.

Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.This morning's L.A. Times publishes an article about the March 4 shooting by U.S. soldiers of a car bearing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. The shooting killed Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, and created an international controversy, which strained U.S.-Italian relations. An important contested issue in the controversy was the speed of the car as it approached a U.S. checkpoint. Sgrena has maintained that the car was traveling at a "regular speed" -- no more than 25-30 mph. Americans have...

ROME, May 1 (Reuters) - Italy, stung by a U.S. report it felt put much of the blame on Rome for a "friendly fire" killing in Iraq, will publish its own version of events on Monday that is likely to question the testimony of American troops. Relations were strained when U.S. troops at a roadblock shot an Italian agent who had just rescued a hostage in Baghdad on March 4; they soured further this weekend when Washington blamed the Italians for poor communications and not heeding warnings. The United States said it would not discipline the U.S. soldiers although it...

Original story: I have an unconfirmed story that CBS is reporting an American satellite recorded video that shows the car carrying Giulliana travelling at over 60 mph! If this proves to be true her entire story falls apart. Update: It's confirmed, Pentagon sources maintain that the distance the car travelled (91 meters)and the time it took (3 sec.) means the vehicle WAS travelling at a speed greater than 60mph. So, as we suspected Giuliana Sgrena is a communist agenda driven hyper pacifist lying POS. Update II: It appears from the animation video that the approaching Sgrena car WAS warned with...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 - The car carrying the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena that was struck with a deadly hail of gunfire as it sped toward Baghdad International Airport on March 4 ignored warnings from American soldiers who used a spotlight, a green laser pointer and warning shots to try to stop it as it approached a checkpoint, the American military said in a report released Saturday evening. The gunfire killed Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence agent who was in the back seat with Ms. Sgrena. The driver and Ms. Sgrena were wounded. Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the ground...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military confirmed on Saturday that it will not discipline troops who shot dead an Italian intelligence agent in Baghdad two months ago. [snip] A 42-page report into the killing of Nicola Calipari and the wounding of the Italian journalist whose freedom he had just secured from kidnappers found that the Italians had failed to tell U.S. troops of their plans to drive into Baghdad airport and had ignored warning lights intended to make them stop.[snip] "The ... investigation concluded that the vehicle approaching the checkpoint failed to reduce speed until fired upon and that the...

A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire. The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour. Giuliana Sgrena has said the car was traveling at a normal speed of about 30 miles an hour when the soldiers opened fired, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian...

I was just watching the CBS Evening News. They reported that the Italian journalist (Giuliana Sgrena) checkpoint shooting incident was recorded by an American satellite. The evidence on the video shows that the car was traveling over 60mph ( directly contradicting her testimony that they were going slowly, about 30mph). No link to an online article yet but I'd think it would be up soon on the CBS News site.

ROME, April 26 - Tensions between the United States and Italy surged Tuesday, as Italian politicians and citizens reacted furiously to leaked reports in the Italian news media that a joint investigation into the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad would absolve American soldiers of guilt in the incident. The United States ambassador to Rome, Mel Sembler, met twice with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his top aide at the government's headquarters to try to avert a crisis that could cost the United States one of its staunchest European allies in the Iraq conflict. Mr. Berlusconi has kept...

ROME, April 26 - Tensions between the United States and Italy surged today, as Italian politicians and citizens reacted furiously to leaked reports in the Italian news media that a joint investigation into the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad would absolve American soldiers of guilt in the incident.

An Italian journalist rescued from hostage-takers in Iraq last month has reacted angrily to a US military investigation absolving American soldiers of responsibility for killing the man who rescued her. Nicola Calipari, a senior Italian intelligence agent, was shot dead on March 4 when US soldiers fired at his car as he took the reporter, Guiliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport. A report leaked by an American army official in Washington last night was said to have cleared US troops of any culpability for his death. The official said the soldiers had followed their rules of engagement and should not therefore...

Investigators have found that US soldiers who shot dead an Italian agent at a Baghdad checkpoint on March 4 did nothing wrong and will not be disciplined. However, Italy disagrees with key findings in the report by US military investigators and has balked at endorsing it, said a US Army official. US troops fatally shot the Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, when they opened fire on a car in which he was escorting Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a hostage who had just been released by her kidnappers. The US Army official said Italy was disputing two factual issues in the...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. military investigation into the shooting death of an Italian intelligence officer in Baghdad is expected to conclude that American soldiers generally followed instructions as they fired on an approaching car, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday. However, the probe into the March 4 shooting is expected to raise questions about the rules of engagement given to U.S. soldiers manning checkpoints in Iraq, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report had not been finished. These instructions include descriptions of how much force U.S. soldiers are allowed to use against potential...

ROME - Reluctance by Italian investigators to accept the U.S. version of the killing of an Italian security agent by American troops in Iraq last month is holding up the conclusion of a joint inquiry into the shooting, Italian newspapers said Thursday. Also Thursday, the U.S. State Department said the investigation was ongoing and denied an NBC report that the U.S.-Italian commission had completed a preliminary report clearing the Americans of any wrongdoing in the killing. The security agent, Nicola Calipari, was killed March 4 at a temporary U.S. military checkpoint on the road to Baghdad airport when soldiers fired...

First of all I can't believe 60 minutes Wednesday is still on the air but it was last night and the timing couldnt have been any worse for this fictitious report from Italian communist journalist Giuliana Sgrena Below is her account of what happened on March 4. Scroll down to see what MSNBC has found out from the Joint US-Italian investigation.....

Last night on '60 Minutes Wednesday' (yes, it's still on the air, despite the forged documents fiasco) they kicked off the show with a story about the shooting of Giuliana Sgrena's car in Iraq. That's the communist journalist from Italy whose freedom was bought from her Islamic captors by the Italian government. By the way, she is a communist and she works for a communist newspaper, something you won't hear too much of from the mainstream media (although 60 Minutes did get that right.) At any rate, the piece last night by Scott Pelley included an interview with Giuliana Sgrena....

U.S. soldiers reportedly have been cleared of wrongdoing in the shooting of an Italian journalist and an intelligence agent last month in Baghdad. U.S. military officials told NBC News that a joint American-Italian investigation found the soldiers acted properly in firing on a car bearing a just-freed hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, and an intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari. The car was about 130 yards from a checkpoint when the soldiers flashed their lights to get it to stop. They fired warning shots when the car was within 90 yards of the checkpoint, but at 65 yards, they used deadly force. Calipari...

NBC News has learned that a preliminary report from a joint U.S.-Italian investigation has cleared the American soldiers of any wrongdoing and provides new details into the shooting. Intelligence agent Calipari had just negotiated Sgrena's release from Iraqi kidnappers on March 4 when the two and a driver headed for the Baghdad airport in a compact rental car. It was dark when the Italians turned onto a ramp leading to the airport road where the U.S. military had set up a temporary checkpoint. The investigation found the car was about 130 yards from the checkpoint when the soldiers flashed their...

Journalist and former hostage Giuliana Sgrena says that the American military is lying about the shooting at a security checkpoint in Iraq that wounded her and killed an Italian intelligence officer. Days before the Pentagon is expected to release the results of its investigation into what happened at the checkpoint, Sgrena tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that shortly after her release by insurgents, American soldiers in Baghdad opened fire on her car without any warning. Pelley's interview with Sgrena will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Wednesday, April 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari negotiated Sgrena's release from...

About Giuliana Sgrena Mr. Harald Doornbos is a veteran war reporter. He is no archetypical hawk nor a staunch supporter of the United States. In fact, he used to be a reporter for the communist newspaper 'De Waarheid' (The Truth, or Pravda, if you like) before it went bust. (This doesn't necessarily mean he was ever a communist, by the way. De Waarheid used to be a huge employer.) However, this doesn't make him overly sympathetic towards Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist who was held hostage by Iraqi insurgents. Some snippets from this article which was published today in a...

Wayne Madsen claims, in Online Journal, that Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent killed ransoming Giuliana Sgrena, was a target of opportunity for US assassins and that he was not the first Italian target of US covert 'silencers'. Madsen’s evidence for this outrageous allegation is hearsay from "high-level European intelligence sources". These anonymous sources report the 51-year old slain Italian SISMI military intelligence agent, Dr. Nicola Calipari was killed by U.S. sharpshooters while accompanying the Communist journalist to the Baghdad International Airport. Madsen further alleges that Calipari was a prized target of opportunity for American assassins because of his knowledge...

I love Italy. More exactly, I love the Italian people. I've lived there and I've visited. It's a beautiful country with beautiful people. Italians are family-oriented, love children, and love the finer points of good wine and good food. I have Italian friends. They like Americans, are suspicious of the EU, and hate the French. They understand the war on terror, themselves the victims many times over the last two decades. When I heard last month that a female Italian journalist had been kidnapped by a group calling themselves the Islamic Jihad Organization, I thought "how sad" -- Italy and...

So, the Italians pay ransom for the release of a woman who was in no danger of being harmed. The money is used by insurgents to buy weapons to kill Italians. Italy not cooperating in finding Giuliana Sgrena's captors. Italians announce withdrawal from Iraq. Sgrena's captors use money to kill Americans instead. I'm speechless. """"New York Times: "..Iraqi investigators who are trying to find the kidnappers of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena say their work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the Italian intelligence services that won her release exactly a month after she was abducted on...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 15 - Iraqi investigators who are trying to find the kidnappers of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena say their work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the Italian intelligence services that won her release exactly a month after she was abducted on Feb. 4. The Iraqi investigators say they conducted as many as half a dozen raids in a northwest Baghdad neighborhood where they think Ms. Sgrena, 56, a reporter for the far-left Rome daily Il Manifesto, was being held. But the kidnappers slipped through their fingers, and she was released after the abductors...

AGI) - Rome, March 11 - "I want the government to investigate on what happened", said Giuliana Sgrena, in an interview with Spanish TV broadcast by Sky TG24, her first ever since she was freed. "The government is looking at various accounts of the facts", she said, "but my account coincides with the one provided by the car driver, who also survived. We demand concrete answers on what really happened. Obviously an inquiry commission will be set up. I do have faith in them. What happened was just terrible. Our questions need to be addressed. And not only by the...

MIDI - SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE She is unbelievable...Sgrena is contemptible She is so full of bull...for leftists that is typical She is a real whackjob, you know that it's true This communist *itch is lying to you She hates our country, we all are aware She is reprehensible...simply reprehensible Her fiction is so laughable...that cannot be deniable She is despicable...her actions inexcusable She is a real whackjob, you know that it's true This communist *itch is lying to you She hates our country, we all are aware She is reprehensible...simply reprehensible She is reprehensible...simply reprehensible She said go get a...

THE Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has promised President George W Bush that he will not pay more ransoms to free hostages in Iraq. The Italian government has denied newspaper reports that $6m (£3.1m) was paid for the release of Giuliana Sgrena, who worked for the Communist daily Il Manifesto. But senior officials and intelligence sources have confirmed that money did change hands. The affair ended when American soldiers opened fire on the car carrying Sgrena and killed the intelligence officer who had freed her.

Dan Rather, the former anchor for the CBS Evening News, who is known for his election night “Ratherisms” once said, “Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance.” Judging from his past, Dan’s prophecy about life and journalism was right on target. His life and “unbiased” reporting have definitely been out of balance for the last 24 years. In fact: “Dan lists precariously to port like an oil tanker taking on crude oil in Galveston, Texas”. In other words Dan is a liberal. And to make matters worse he is a lying...

US forces might not have known that slain Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari was in Iraq to secure a hostage's freedom, Italian papers say. Calipari was killed by US troops' fire while escorting journalist Giuliana Sgrena by car to Baghdad airport. But the press quotes an Italian general who liaised between US forces and Italian intelligence as saying he did not know Calipari was on a rescue bid. His report is now in the hands of Rome prosecutors investigating the killing. According to newspaper La Repubblica, Gen Mario Marioli helped the two Italian secret service agents obtain a special badge...

Giuliana Sgrena does not lack a sense of self-importance. The 56-year-old journalist for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto thinks she knows so many deep dark secrets the U.S. military tried to shut her up permanently. Sgrena went to Iraq to report on the heroic resistance to the American imperialists. Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos rode in the airplane to Baghdad with her. "Be careful not to get kidnapped," Doornbos warned Sgrena. "You don't understand the situation," she responded, according to Doornbos' account last week in Nederlands Dagblad. (Excerpts were translated into English and posted on a Dutch writer's Web blog.)...

The Times of London reports in tomorrow's edition that the Italians have agreed to stop paying ransoms to kidnapers in Iraq, a policy change that brings Rome into line with other Western nations. In further developments, an Italian parliamentarian indicated that despite earlier assertions that the Americans had been alerted to Sgrena's release and Calipari's itinerary, the Italians never got clearance for their vehicle: [THE Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has promised President George W Bush that he will not pay more ransoms to free hostages in Iraq. The Italian government has denied newspaper reports that $6m (£3.1m) was paid...

Ms. Sgrena left her hotel the morning of Feb. 4 to interview refugees from Fallujah, the resistance stronghold captured by Marines in November. The interviews didn't go well. "The refugees . . . would not listen to me," she said. . . . The Italian government did pay a ransom estimated by various sources at between $1 million and $10 million, and Ms. Sgrena was released to Italian intelligence officers. . . . And Mr. Calipari had rented a nondescript sedan to pick up Ms. Sgrena, rather than one of the Italian embassy's armored SUVs, which the soldiers might have...

Editorialists review the progress made in the fight against terrorism in Europe since last year's deadly attacks on Madrid. Their assessment of our progress? Depressing. A lack of trans-Atlantic cooperation would be one thing, but German states are even having trouble giving each other an investigative hand. AFP A rose lies on a rail in memory of the victims of the train bombings at El Pozo railway in Madrid. No single issue dominates Germany's editorial pages on Friday. A handful reflect on the anniversary of the March 11, 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid. Others look to the unfortunate killing of...

Iraq: the Americans were to be unaware of the release of Sgrena ROME - the operation to release Giuliana Sgrena, hostage in Iraq, was to proceed without the knowledge of the Americans, according to an Italian General. An Italian secret agent was killed by American shootings during the repatriation of the journalist towards the airport of Baghdad. The General, Mario Marioli, assistant commander of the multinational body in Iraq, stated to have received twice the order not to warn the American ally of the operation. It was expressed in a report/ratio quoted Saturday by "Repubblica" and intended for the...

Hi everybody first excuse for my english i hope yo'll understand my thinks. i'ts difficult for me to explane my opinion in english but i'll try because I think it's important. I am an italian, i've read about your forum on an italian journal, "libero". so I come here and i read your topics about giuliana sgrena... i've read here these message: "If the Italian government and the Italian people don't see through this they are idiots" well.. please don't think that all of italian people think in the same way! we know very well what giuliana(and people like she)...

INTERNATIONAL furor over Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian Communist writer who claims American troops in Iraq may have deliberately shot at her car after she was released by kidnappers, misses the bigger scandal. The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That’s par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.) The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here. The scandal is that Italy — our reputed ally in the global War...