Free Republic

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Forty-three guerrillas were killed near the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Tuesday. "Forty-three anti-coalition forces were killed near Najaf and an anti-coalition anti-aircraft system was destroyed by an AC-130 gunship," the spokeswoman said. The incident occurred on Monday evening. She declined to give any more details about the incident near Najaf, where a wanted anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric is holed up with his militia.

BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. troops mounted air and ground attacks in the Iraqi capital Thursday for a second straight night, targeting suspected insurgent positions around Baghdad, the U.S. command said. U.S. troops bombarded the al-Jazeera dye factory on Baghdad's outskirts which had been targeted the night before by an AC-130 gunship. The factory was believed to have been used by insurgents to store weapons and plan attacks, the command said. The command said troops also launched air and ground operations against a Republican Guard facility used to fire on the coalition. The statement did not identify the facility, but Iraqi...

(Milady madfly passed this to me; I tried to clean up the BabbleFish translation before posting.) Hispanic and human rights organizations in the United States condemned the anti-immigrant American Border Patrol (ABP) for its illegal use of a spy airplane to remotely detect undocumented people in Arizona. "It is completely illegal that private groups use the airspace for functions exclusively reserved to US authorities", Katherine Culliton, lawyer for Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Foundation (MALDEF) said to Notimex. The defender of immigrant rights also condemned that ABP plans to use that type of technology to catch undocumented people instead of...