Posted on 06/11/2004 11:59:26 PM PDT by HAL9000
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Assailants killed an Iraqi deputy foreign minister in an ambush Saturday as he traveled to his Baghdad office, the Foreign Ministry said.
Gunmen shot Bassam Salih Kubba in Baghdad's Azimiyah district, a Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for Saddam Hussein's regime had been strong. He died later of his wounds, said Thamir al-Adhami, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Kuba is one of several deputy foreign ministers. He was the ministry's most senior career diplomat.
The attack was the second on members of the interim government in the last four days. On Wednesday, the deputy health minister, Ammar al-Safar, escaped an assassination attempt in Azimiyah area while he was in his way to the Health Ministry. Al-Safar's guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who opened fire on his car and then fled the scene.
Slapped back to the reality of the current world turmoil...after a wonderful several days remembering Ronald Wilson Reagan....
I hope the rest of the interim government members won't lose heart. Takes a lot of courage to build a nation.
Why doesn't the article mention his bodyguards? He must've had them.
Prayers to his family..there are so many brave Iraqis working with us.
We can appreciate his timing here; think we needed desperately, a trip to 'Reagan's America'.
They are trying to go after higher value, lessor-armed targets now. In April, we lost 130 Americans in Iraq.
In May, we lost 81.
So far in June we've lost 16.
So clearly the enemy has to shift tactics rather than be exposed as less and less effective against Americans.
OK Dubya, have your troops blow these low-lifes into kingdom come - for the Gipper.
Wait, I thought Muslims didn't kill Muslims.
In their eyes, you are not a real Muslim if you help the US, but a collaborator, a traitor who deserves death.
We'll know AQ's strategy is working if nobody is willing to take the "vacated" jobs. Otherwise, it's another failing strategy.
when in the hell are the coalition forces going to start giving these guys protection? i swear, they go through deputy ministers like i go through toilet paper. somehow the israelis manage to keep their government officials alive while eliminating key leaders in the palestian chain of command.
i am getting sick of this administration's tough talk and no action. we keep declaring ceasefires, we keep "negotiating" with animals like al sadr, we bring in fedayeen generals and give them command of troops.
it is time for rumsfeld to go. we need a hardliner defense secretary that isn't afraid to make the difficult, unpopular decisions.
Agreed. The day that you can't fill a deputy minister's salaried desk job is when the locals no longer believe that your government is going to be around (Saigon, late 1975, anyone?!).
AQ isn't even in that same league, however. With a more honest news media, their fighting efforts to date would be roundly ridiculed worldwide as pathetic at best.
A hypothetical occupying force here in Alabama, population 4 million, would be inflicted with massive casualties from the locals, for example. The million deer hunters here alone would make any occupied foray away from heavy armor into exercises of professional suicide by .308. An occupying force of 100,000 grunts wouldn't survive the year here (for reference, look at the numbers of Germans required to occupy Serbia in WW2, and their casualties...in a nation with far fewer gun gun owners than 'Bama).
That Iraq, a nation of 26 million, is only fielding some 4,000 or fewer remaining insurgents, mostly foreign imported fighters at that, who are only able to make fewer than 50 attacks in the country per day in sum, with those 50 attacks killing fewer than 20 people per day (mostly local Iraqis, at that), just goes to show that the "resistance" in Iraq is below the historical noise level.
Iraqis are killing more Iraqis in accidental car crashes on their own highways each day than their insurgents are capable of killing in deliberate attacks. A single American sniper could make more confirmed enemy kills per day than what the entire Iraqi resistance is currently managing to eek out. 1 man (er, OK, a 2 man sniper team, anyway). The entire Iraqi resistance is less lethal than a single American sniper (team).
It's all press hype. An honest, fair news media would have the world ridiculing the pathetic Iraqi resistance.
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