Posted on 05/24/2005 5:54:29 PM PDT by TexKat
U.S. forces secure the area after a bomb rigged to a parked car exploded next to an American convoy by the al-Dora bridge in Baghdad Tuesday, May 24, 2005 killing three of the soldiers, according to a U.S. military spokesman. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
About 1,000 U.S. troops launch new offensive
That bottom picture looks like Hit. Is it?
I don't know what city it is from. I took it from one of the Arab media sites and the captions on their pictures are not always pertaining to the articles that they are attached to. They use the same pictures quite often on various articles.
On my first trip to Haditha we got a little lost trying to find the command element and ended up several miles into Bad Guy country, alone and without escort, before we realized the peril we were in and returned. Upon our return we drove to a small sign to see if it would help us with directions.
The sign said:
DANGER! MINES!
The problem was that we couldn't read it until we were almost right on top of it. As you can imagine, we v-e-r-y carefully moved out of there.
I believe that its the restaurant in Baghdad that got hit last week.
A man walks past a make-shift shrine at the site of a recent suicide car bombing in Baghdad May 16, 2005. The blast on May 12 severely damaged a building in a mainly Shi'ite district of eastern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 20. The banners condemn the bombing and offer condolences to the victims. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz
Iraqi and US soldiers secure the site of an explosion in Baghdad after a car bomb detonated. Insurgents bombed a crowded restaurant in Baghdad, killing at least eight and wounding more than 100, as thousands of US and Iraqi troops rounded up almost 300 rebels in a massive sweep.(AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)
Back away slowly and try not to mess your pants in the process!!
Iraqi and a U.S. soldier view the wreckage after a suicide car bomb attack in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora May 25, 2005. The attack targeted an Iraqi special police unit and left two people dead and eleven others wounded, police said. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
A U.S. soldier walks past the scene of a suicide car bombing which missed a U.S. military convoy that was passing in the area, but killed one civilian and left four wounded in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Dora in Iraq Wednesday, May 25, 2005. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Have you ever heard the term "Pucker Factor" before?
LOL, oh is that what that means.
I did take the time to take a picture however. Even then I saw some humor in it all. Just retrace your foot steps...
US-led forces kill 10 in raid on Iraq insurgents
5/25/2005
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Some 1,000 US and Iraqi troops launched a new raid against insurgents, killing 10 suspects including a Muslim cleric, after reports that Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded.
Clashes erupted in Haditha after US and Iraqi troops moved into the Euphrates river city to track down insurgents who the military said had escaped an operation earlier this month near the border with Syria.
"Six insurgents were killed in the battle and two marines were reported wounded," the US military said. "Local citizens identified one of the attackers killed as an imam (who) was firing ... an AK-47 assault rifle."
Four more insurgents were killed in other clashes in the area, it said, adding that checkpoints have been set up around the city, some 260 kilometres (160 miles) northwest of the capital, to prevent insurgents fleeing.
The sweep in the northwest of the country came at a time of mounting guerrilla attacks, particularly targeting Iraq's fledgling security forces, and growing US military casualties.
At least nine Iraqis were killed in shootings and bombings on Wednesday, amid a sharp escalation in attacks since the formation of the new government of Prime Minister Ibraham Jaafari in early May.
The latest suicide bombing in southern Baghdad late Wednesday killed three police, a defence ministry source said.
"Three policemen were killed and three wounded in a suicide attack at 9:00 pm (1700 GMT) in Dura, in southern Baghdad," he said, adding that the attacker was Sudanese.
Officials say more than 600 people have been killed this month alone.
As the sweep of militants loyal to Zarqawi continued in the northwest, Iraqi and US forces said they had arrested two of his top aides and killed another, the day after an Internet statement said the Jordanian-born militant was wounded.
The US military said it had arrested "one of the most wanted people" in northern Iraq, Mullah Kamel al-Assawadi, and one of the regional secretaries of Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq.
The Iraqi government added that its forces had killed Sabhan Ahmed Ramadan, alias Agha Abu Saad, as he manned an insurgent checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul on May 19.
Ramadan was allegedly the right-hand man of the city's Al-Qaeda cell leader, Abu Talha.
US officials have reacted with caution to the reports of Zarqawi's wounding and army officers have warned "there isn't a single leader directing all the activities" in the persistent insurgency in Sunni Arab areas.
The possible demise of Iraq's most feared man has led one of his aides to question who should lead his comrades in the event of his death, an American newspaper reported.
The man, who identified himself as Abu Karrar, told the Washington Post that Zarqawi had been shot between the shoulder and chest in fighting Saturday and Sunday around Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
One of Zarqawi's top aides and several Arab fighters were killed in the battle, the paper said.
Zarqawi's group has been behind many of the deadliest bombings and hostage beheadings in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein two years ago and the United States has put a 25-million-dollar price on his head.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari meanwhile said he was calling on the United Nations to extend the mandate of the US-led foreign troops stationed in the country, with local forces unable to cope with the onslaught of violence.
Under the terms of Resolution 1546, adopted on June 8, 2004, the UN Security Council said the troop mandate could be reexamined either 12 months after the resolution's adoption, or if the Iraqi government requested it.
There are currently about 160,000 foreign troops in Iraq, including a 138,000 Americans who have borne the brunt of attacks against coalition forces.
A number of coalition members however have expressed growing concern over the lengthening mission, while Washington has warned against too hasty a pullout.
"As we stand now, our country continues to face an armed insurgency, which still includes foreign elements opposed to Iraq's transition to democratic rule," Zebari said in a letter to the United Nations.
"Despite continuing efforts to build up our security forces, these forces cannot as yet assume full responsibility for maintaining our national security and defending our borders," Zebari added.
Top US generals believe Washington's troop commitment in Iraq could last many years because of the time needed to train an effective security force.
"If we take our foot off the throat of the insurgency, the country could go back to chaos," a senior US officer warned in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a Muslim leader in Sydney launched a desperate bid to save the life of a compatriot held hostage in Iraq.
"I announce my sincere readiness to hand myself over to the captors to be a hostage in exchange for the sick Australian citizen, till the conditions of the brotherly captors are met in the way they want," Sheikh Taj Eldin Al Hilali said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Hilali spoke by phone to a man whose voice he was certain was that of the hostage, contractor Douglas Wood, aged 63, who was seized at the end of last month.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050525/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_050525183354
London, 25 May (AKI) - An Algerian extremist believed to manage the al-Qaeda-aligned Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC)'s website has been arrested in the Syrian capital Damascus, an expert on Islamic extremism said on Wednesday. Hani al-Sebai, director of the London-based al-Maqrizi Institute for Historical Studies, announced Sakir Adil's arrest in a message posted to centre's website. According to al-Sebai, Adil was seized from a Damascus internet cafe and bundled onto a flight for Algeria. As well as being the alleged webmaster for the GSPC - one of Algeria's main Islamic terrorist groups - Adil is also accused of being a GSPC 'correspondent' for websites belonging to the Kurdish Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sunna and other terror groups.
Adil, originally from the eastern province of Skikda, has already been imprisoned in Algeria three times since he was 17, accused of having supported various jihadist groups. He left Algeria in 2003 and moved to Syria, where he was living until his arrest.
Last week, the GSPC claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in two different locations in which 12 Algerian soldiers died and seven were injured. One of these two attacks took place in Skikda, when militants detonated a home-made bomb as a military patrol was passing, injuring 7 soliders, the leading Arabic-language newspaper El Khabar reported.
El Khabar quoted security experts as saying the GSPC has intensified its attacks to sabotage a general amnesty expected to be offered to rebels and members of the armed forces this year. Despite the recent flare-up, extremist violence has tailed off sharply in the past few years, bringing back much needed investment to the country.
The GSPC denied responsibility for an infamous roadblock massacre of 14 people south of the capital on 13 April. The group, along with the other principal militant group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), is the main police suspect for the killings. In recent weeks, government forces have launched a major manhunt in Islamic strongholds in eastern and western Algeria.
Militants - including the GSPC and the GIA - took up arms in 1992 and waged a campaign of violence after the government annulled elections that a hardline Islamist party was poised to win. The 13-year-long conflict has cost up to 200,000 lives and an estimated 30 billion dollars in damages.
YEMEN: BAATHIST TRAINING CAMPS IN YEMEN
Sanaa, 25 May (AKI) - Yemen is home to training camps for exiled members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, reports the Iranian agency Mehr, citing high-ranking sources from the Yemeni government. One government member confirmed that the camps are run by subversive elements from Yemen's secret services. Several former Iraqi troops sought refuge in the Arab country after the fall of Saddam, writes Mehr, where they obtained political and financial support.
The revelations have been partly confirmed by the former Yemeni ambassador to Syria, Ahmed Abdullah al-Hasani, who recently requested political asylum in London. A former commander of Yemen's navy, al-Hasani has already talked about many officers from the army, police and secret services being members of groups linked to al-Qaeda, the terror network headed by Osama bin Laden.
"It doesn't surprise me that the al-Qaeda supporters in our security forces and the Republican Guard have also provided political support and military training to the Iraqi Baathists," al-Hasani told the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan.
Yemen is a key partner in the "war on terror" and is trying to rid itself of its reputation as a haven for Islamic militants, but it is also a very poor, tribal society, where the government struggles to maintain control over all its territory. It is also trying to quell a rebellion by Shiites in the north of the country.
Italian foreign minister Gianfranco Fini
IRAQ: ITALY WON'T DECIDE ALONE ON WITHDRAWAL SAYS FOREIGN MINISTER
Baghdad, 25 May (AKI) - Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari is requesting an extension of the UN-sanctioned multinational peacekeeping force in Iraq beyond the end of 2005, he told his Italian counterpart Gianfranco Fini on Wednesday. Fini, on a brief visit to Iraq on Wednesday to meet members of the Iraqi cabinet and Italian troops deployed in the southern city of Nassiriya, reassured Zebari there would be "no unilateral decision" over the continued participation of Italy's 3,000 troops in the mission.
"Iraq's transitional government formally requests the Security Council to allow the continuation of the mandate until the completion of the political process outlined in Resolution 1546 - or until Iraq is able to provide for its own security," Zebari said in a letter to the president of the Security Council.
Resolution 1546, passed by the UN General Assembly on 8 June, 2004, states that the mandate of the mulltinational peace-keeping force in Iraq expires at the end of 2005, but may be re-examined 12 months from the resolution, or at the request of Iraq's government.
"Italy will evaluate its position at the time this question is discussed [at the Security Council meeting on 31 May]. However, no unilateral decision will be taken: agreement will be reached with the Iraqi authorities and with the Allied forces," Italian foreign ministry sources were quoted as saying. Zebari did not state how long an extension of the mandate he was seeking, the same sources said.
During their meeting, Fini also told Zebari that Italy would give its full support to ensure the forthcoming European Union conference on Iraq on 22 June is a success. "I am prepared to give 100 percent support to the conference: while the international community was the protagonist of the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting on Iraq and Iraq was its subject, this time Iraq needs to be the key player," Fini said, referring to the summit held in Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on 22 November.
In March, Italian prime minister sparked controversy when he suggested Italy's troops could be withdrawn in September. Berlusconi's controversial remarks came in the wake of the killing of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari by US troops in friendly fire on 4 March, as Calipari was escorting freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad airport
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