Free Republic

U.S. forces have arrested the two leaders of the network believed responsible for the brazen raid in Karbala by terrorists disguised as Americans, in which five U.S. soldiers were kidnapped and later killed in January, U.S. military officials said today. In operations over the past several days in Basra and Hillah, coalition forces captured Qais Khazali, his brother Laith Khazali and several other members of the Khazali network, a splinter faction of the Mahdi army. Senior U.S. military sources tell ABC News that hard evidence linking the Khazalis to the Karbala raid, including the ID cards of several of the...

The Iraqi government said on Sunday that half the Sunni Muslim militants behind the bombings shaking the country had arrived through neighbouring Syria. The United States and Iraqi officials have long accused Iraq's neighbours, particularly Syria and Iran, of failing to stop Islamic militants from crossing into Iraq to carry out attacks. U.S. and Iraqi officials say many of the insurgents responsible for the violence are not Iraqis. "We have confirmation that 50 percent of these takfiris and killers who call themselves Arab jihadists come across the Syrian border," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Al Arabiya TV, referring to...