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Operation Phantom Fury--Day 210 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 105
Various Media Outlets | 6/5/05

Posted on 06/04/2005 5:48:51 PM PDT by Gucho


An Iraqi soldier Saturday during a search of a home in Mahmudiya. The search was part of Operation Lightning, an Iraqi effort to restore order. (Alan Chin for The New York Times)


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraq; oef; oif; phantomfury; tednugent
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Rock star and Texas resident Ted Nugent (L) gestures next to his wife, Shemane, as Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), leans in to look before Nugent and Perry appeared live on a national news show while in Crawford, Texas, June 4, 2005. The two men offered their support for returning U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

1 posted on 06/04/2005 5:48:52 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: All
Previous Thread:

Operation Phantom Fury--Day 209 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 104

2 posted on 06/04/2005 5:50:24 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: Lijahsbubbe; MEG33; No Blue States; Ernest_at_the_Beach; boxerblues; mystery-ak; ChadGore; ...
Bomber kills five in Iraq


Sunday 5th June 2005

Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing five Iraq soldiers and wounding seven, a police source said yesterday. The attack occurred on Friday at the main gate to the base.

In an important development, US and Iraqi forces arrested an Iraqi national yesterday regarded as a top terror leader in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

The man, known as Mullah Mahdi, was detained with his brother, three other Iraqis and a non-Iraqi Arab national, following a brief clash in eastern Mosul, said Iraqi army Maj Gen Khalil Ahmed Al Obeidi.

Al Obeidi said the terror suspect was affiliated with the Ansar Al Sunna Army, one of Iraq's most feared terror groups, and links to the Syrian intelligence service.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi army unit has been disbanded after it refused to attend a US training course in Baghdad, former members of the unit said yesterday. The soldiers said they feared reprisals from locals if they were seen to have co-operated with the Americans.

At least 108 Iraqis were arrested when hundreds of Iraqi and US troops raided Latifiyah yesterday, an area known as the Triangle of Death, searching for hideouts used by predominantly Sunni Arab militants to mount suicide attacks against nearby Baghdad.

In other violence, a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in western Baghdad's Amil neighbourhood yesterday, seriously wounding two policemen. Police in Tikrit said they had also found a body yesterday of a man who had been blindfolded and shot in the head.

In northern Iraqi city of Irbil, Kurdistan's 111-member regional assembly yesterday opened its inaugural session since the national elections.

3 posted on 06/04/2005 6:05:09 PM PDT by Gucho
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Iraq's Ho Chi Minh Trail


Iraq's porous border with Syria includes miles of trackless desert. An Iraqi border guard watches for infiltrators at his post on a berm. (Joe Raedle)

By JOHN F. BURNS

June 5, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Some American officers call him "Z." In the military's classified signal traffic, he is "AMZ." By any name, American forces in Iraq have found in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a mesmerizing target.

If they could capture this Jordanian-born militant, anointed by Osama bin Laden as Al Qaeda's chief in Iraq, American commanders are hoping, they could strike a compelling, perhaps decisive, blow against one crucial component of the Iraqi insurgency - the Islamic militant groups that draw zealots from across the Arab Middle East to carry out suicide bombings, beheadings and other atrocities.

The capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 dealt the insurrection no such mortal blow, and American commanders know Mr. Zarqawi's capture or death might not either. "It's not about one guy," a senior officer said Friday. "It's more about the network of cells he has across the country. That's where we're applying the pressure."


At Husayba, scene of recent fighting, an Iraqi girl peering from a gate as an American tank patrols. (Joao Silva)

Still, American officers acknowledge privately, eliminating Mr. Zarqawi would boost American troops' morale like nothing else, and perhaps decapitate the Islamic terrorists whose suicide bombs were a main weapon of the insurgency in the last month. Rebels killed nearly 800 civilians and more than 70 American soldiers during that period, making it one of the war's deadliest months.

That is the backdrop to one of the most important - and, so far, undecided - campaigns of the Iraqi conflict: the American drive to close off insurgent infiltration routes that run into the Iraqi heartland down the Euphrates River corridor. From Husayba on the Syrian frontier through Qaim and the sand-blown towns of Rawa, Haditha, Asad and Hit, onward through Ramadi and Falluja to Baghdad, the corridor has become the Ho Chi Minh trail of this war.

Like the bane of American commanders in Vietnam, the 300-mile stretch of river is not so much a single route as a multi-stranded network of passages, some hewing close to the lush silted landscape of palms and reeds that run along the banks, others crossing vast reaches of stony desert on either side.

Twice since early May, in a constellation of small towns near Qaim and later in a more concentrated sweep around Haditha, the Second Marine Division, backed by American Army units - and at Haditha by Iraqi soldiers - have set out to stifle the Zarqawi network.

But the results have been disappointing, falling far short of stunting the militants' operations.

For the Qaim operation, the marines acted on a tip that Mr. Zarqawi and some of his top lieutenants had found refuge among tribal leaders downriver, in the vicinity of Haditha.

The Americans assembled a 1,000-man battle group that sought to cut off the retreat upriver with a dash across the desert on the river's southern side. Then, close to the Syrian border, the marines crossed to the northern bank on a pontoon bridge. But this was a time-consuming maneuver that cost the crucial element of surprise, some officers said.

Then the Americans ran into fierce resistance at Ubaydi, where repeated Marine assaults, supported by tank fire and 500-pound bombs from an F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bomber, were needed to quell one group of Islamic fighters.

An account by an embedded reporter for The Washington Post described rebels lying on their backs in a crawl space beneath the concrete floor of a house, blasting marines above them with bullets designed to penetrate tanks. When the battle subsided, the marines found that many rebels who were quartered in neighboring towns had fled, some westward into Syria, others eastward into the interior of Iraq.

After the weeklong offensive at Qaim, the Marines estimated they had killed 125 insurgents, while losing nine marines. When the Haditha operation, which involved 1,000 American and Iraqi troops, ended last weekend, the American command was elusive, saying only that "a significant number of terrorists were killed."

In Baghdad, American officers acknowledged that the hope of smashing the infiltration network had been unfulfilled. "I don't know how many scooted," a senior officer said, speaking of the rebels who escaped the cordon at Qaim. Of the infiltration route as a whole, he added, "We still have a problem with people coming across the border."

From the insurgency's first stages, a common complaint among American officers in the field has been that American troops are overstretched, and there were whispers of this, again, after the Marine operations at Qaim and Haditha.

A Marine spokesman at Camp Falluja, Lt. Col. David A. Lapan, responding to questions sent by e-mail, acknowledged that troop levels in Iraq's immense Anbar Province were lower than they were last year. But he said the shortfall was being filled by Iraqi troops. "There are sufficient numbers of forces to accomplish the mission," he said. "The enemy is losing and he knows it."

But a glance at the map, and even a cursory sense of the region's history, suggests the scope of the problem the Americans face. Anbar is the vast western region that encompasses more than a quarter of Iraq, including the Euphrates corridor and nearly 600 miles of border with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. It has one of the lowest population densities of any of Iraq's 18 provinces, with barely 1.3 million people, many of them living in the cities and towns along the Euphrates. The deserts, of course, are mostly empty; even in the mid-19th century the Bedouins who roamed them were only a tiny fraction of the population, which was recorded as 500,000 in an Ottoman census.

Since that census, camel trains have yielded to Land Cruisers and Pajeros, and the old trading routes to smuggling. American intelligence officers say that trails across the desert used for decades to smuggle herds of sheep and goats, leather hides, car parts, gasoline and sundry other commodities have now been adapted to the insurgents' needs.

The American forces use sophisticated surveillance aircraft and unmanned drones to keep watch, especially along the 310 miles of the frontier with Syria. But how easy it is to slip unnoticed across the desert is something the Americans themselves demonstrated during the last months of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, when United States forces based in remote areas of eastern Jordan ran deep-penetration missions, some of them all the way to Baghdad.

For their part, the insurgents have access to a resource network of their own - Sunni Arab mosques sympathetic to the insurgency in almost every village and town from Damascus to Baghdad. American officers say they have become stations on a relay run straight into the heart of Iraq.

In numbers, the foreign Arab recruits account for a fraction of the insurgents operating across Iraq, whose total is estimated by the American command to range from 12,000 to 20,000. How small a fraction can be guessed from the fact that, as of last week, only 370 of the 14,000 men held as suspected insurgents in American-run detention centers in Iraq were foreigners, according to figures provided by the American command.

But the significance of the infiltration was starkly evident last week in an incident near Rawa in which the kidnapped governor of Anbar was killed during a shootout between insurgents and an American patrol. The American officer commanding the patrol said the four insurgents who died and three who were captured were all non-Iraqis, from Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Nor is there much doubt that the foreign Arabs' impact has been out of proportion to their numbers, primarily because of the willingness of the non-Iraqis to die in suicide bombings. According to a tally kept by the American command, more than 60 of these bombings took place across the country in May, responsible for about two-thirds of the civilians who died.

Iraqis commonly insist that suicide bombing is alien to the Iraqi character, and American commanders agree. "In every case we've seen, the driver has been a foreigner," an American officer who has studied the bombings said last week.

The officer said intelligence reports had established that many bombers passed through mosques in Damascus, Syria's capital, or Aleppo, another Syrian city, and from there through a network of mosques that filtered, in many cases, down the Euphrates, through Qaim, Haditha and Ramadi. At every stage, the officer said, the handlers were organized in cells, each separate from the next, so as to guard the network's secrecy.

As for the bombers, he said their sojourns in Iraq were generally short.

"They don't stay in Iraq very long," the officer said. "They get a lot of indoctrination along the way, but once they're here they are moved into operations very, very fast."

4 posted on 06/04/2005 6:22:16 PM PDT by Gucho
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Syria Denies Test-Firing of 3 Scud Missiles

By STEVEN ERLANGER

June 5, 2005

JERUSALEM, June 4 - Syria's information minister on Saturday denied Israeli claims that his country test-fired Scud missiles on May 27, calling the accusations an "expression of Israel's hostile intentions."

In remarks carried by Syria's official news agency, the minister, Mahdi Dakhlallah, said the Israeli allegations were part of a pressure campaign against Syria.

Israeli military officials told The New York Times on Thursday that Syria test-fired the three Scud missiles equipped with airburst warheads, reinforcing Israeli worries about Syria's ability to deliver a missile-borne chemical attack against Israeli civilian targets. They said one missile broke up over southern Turkey. American officials have confirmed the Israeli account.

The Israelis showed a reporter images shot from an airplane that included a launching, the breaking up of a missile, the parts falling into a field and a Turkish farmer running toward the debris and gesturing.

The Turkish military said debris, apparently from a missile from Syria, landed on two agricultural villages in the southern province of Hatay, causing no injuries or damage. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Syria had apologized and assured Turkey that the incident was "just an accident" that occurred during routine military training.

Israeli security officials said the missile tests were Syria's first since 2001. They said they saw the tests as a gesture of defiance of the United States and the United Nations, which pushed Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after the February assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a critic of Syria's influence in Lebanon.

Mr. Dakhlallah warned of the danger posed by Israel's nuclear arsenal and said, "It's normal for a state to possess all defense potentials, especially if it is in a region shrouded with tension, aggression and continuous Israeli occupation."

5 posted on 06/04/2005 6:33:57 PM PDT by Gucho
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Muslim Cleric Has Met Alamo Hostage -
Australian Man Held By Iraqi Insurgents



Saturday, June 04, 2005

June 4 (AP) — Australia's top Islamic cleric has met an Australian being held hostage by Iraqi militants and said his health is holding up despite his ordeal, a Muslim representative who spoke to the cleric said Sunday.

Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly arrived is in Baghdad on a mission to secure the release of 63-year-old Douglas Wood, an Australian engineer who lives with his American wife in Alamo, Calif.

Wood was abducted in late April, shortly before a militant group, calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, released a DVD on May 1 showing him pleading for Australia to withdraw it 1,400 troops from Iraq.

The Australian government has refused to bend to terrorists' demands. Ikebal Patel, from Australia's Federation of Islamic Councils, told television's Seven Network he had spoken to Al-Hilaly in Iraq on Thursday, who confirmed he had seen Wood.

"He said to me: `I've seen him eye to eye,' those were the words he used, eye to eye, it was Douglas," Patel said.

He said Al-Hilaly had said that Wood, who suffers from a heart condition requiring regular medication, was holding up well.

"Medication has been given to him so that is very welcome news," Patel said.

A specialized team of diplomats, police and military personnel from Australia is in Iraq working to secure Wood's release, but the government has given no detail of the team's work there.

6 posted on 06/04/2005 7:08:31 PM PDT by Gucho
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Canada extradites ETA sympathisers to Spain

04 Jun 2005 23:48:35 GMT

Source: Reuters

MADRID, June 5 (Reuters) - Canada has extradited to Spain two men who sought asylum there after fleeing Spanish jail terms connected to a campaign of violence by Basque guerrilla sympathisers, the Madrid government said.

Gorka Perea Salazar and Eduardo Plagaro Perez de Arrilucea were being flown to Spain on Saturday evening on a Spanish plane, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Spain's High Court issued an arrest warrant for Perea and Plagaro when they fled Spain after being sentenced in May 1997 to jail terms of seven and six years respectively for arson.

Perea, 31, and Plagaro, 33, sought political asylum in Quebec but the request was suspended when they were arrested in Montreal in June 2001 after the Spanish government requested their extradition, the Interior Ministry said.

They were accused of taking part in "kale borroka", the Basque-language name for a long-running campaign of street violence by young supporters of the Basque guerrilla group ETA.

The Canadian government approved Spain's request in 2003 but extradition was delayed until now following an appeal.

Perea and Plagaro were both arrested several times in the 1990s, accused of public disorder or involvement with ETA support groups, the Spanish ministry said.

ETA, classed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in a campaign to carve out an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwest France.

AlertNet news

7 posted on 06/04/2005 7:23:26 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: All
Mid East Edition

Basrah, Iraq


Kabul, Afghanistan

8 posted on 06/04/2005 7:25:04 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: Gucho

Hi there Gucho. Well I have a connection, I don't know for how long. But we will see. Hope your weekend has been a good one so far!!


9 posted on 06/04/2005 7:25:38 PM PDT by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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To: MEG33; No Blue States; mystery-ak; boxerblues; Allegra; Eagle Eye; sdpatriot; Dog; DollyCali; ...

Col. Chet Wernicki, second from right, and his colleagues provide humanitarian services in Iraq. (Courtesy of National Iraqi Assistance Center)

Serving as a lifeline in war-torn Iraq

BY ARNOLD ABRAMS STAFF WRITER

June 5, 2005

The two young boys had terrible medical problems.

They urgently needed heart surgery, which requires skilled surgeons with modern technology in a sterile hospital setting. But such things are not available in Baghdad, where they live.

So their sorrowful families watched in despair and frustration as both boys -- Fadi, 3, and Sajab, 9 -- began turning blue because of inadequate blood circulation in their small bodies. They were dying and there seemingly was nothing to do.

Until Col. Chet Wernicki stepped in.

He arranged to have them bused last month to Amman in neighboring Jordan, where doctors donated their services, a hospital charged minimal fees and several wealthy Iraqi businessmen handled the bills.

"They are recovering at home now," Wernicki, 52, said about the kids, whose treatment required months of planning and bargaining. "And my people couldn't be happier. Not much publicity comes from these cases, which is understandable because there's so much violence and tragedy in Iraq, but this is what we do."

What Wernicki and his 45-member Army civil affairs unit do is wage peace in a war-torn country.

All the unit members are reservists, attached to the 353rd Civil Affairs Command on Staten Island. Since being deployed in September, they have run the National Iraqi Assistance Center in the capital, where foreign charitable private and public organizations work with local leaders to provide a wide range of humanitarian assistance for about 5,000 clients per month.

The center offers medical care, clothing, school materials, prosthetics and compensation for war damage or injuries. It also locates jobs, educates people about human rights and establishes safe houses for battered women and children.

"These are not blood-and-guts issues," said Wernicki, a Commack resident who is an executive with the New York City Transit Authority. "But the war here will not be won if we cannot solve such problems."

Although helping the two boys involved high drama, the colonel, who is the center's director, said most projects are more mundane.

"The key element is assistance," said Wernicki, a Queens native who was a supply officer on active duty for seven years before leaving the Army and joining the reserves in 1986. "We try to meet the needs, wants and desires of the Iraqi people."

Such work can be as frustrating as it is fulfilling, Wernicki said, because it involves much planning, finagling and worry.

Those who know Wernicki say he can deal with the difficulties. "He is as caring and giving as he is dedicated," said his wife, Barbara Wernicki, an administrative worker at LaGuardia Airport. "He is perfectly suited for the job."

But not everything gets done, Wernicki admitted.

"There are plenty of foul-ups on all sides every day," said Lt. Col. William Woods, 48, a Manhattan resident who is Wernicki's deputy. "But when things work out, we get a wonderful feeling."

"These kids have nothing when compared with most American children," he explained. "So when we can give them anything -- even something as simple as candy -- it makes my day."

Typical of the many problems his unit handles, Woods noted, is the plight of about 200 Iraqi citizens who, because of the damage or danger produced by war and insurgency, live in what once was Iraq's national theater.

"It's a very delicate situation," Woods said. "These people are squatters living on government property. They have no right to be there. We're trying to work with various ministries -- including police, health and displacement -- and it's far from settled."

As, Wernicki readily concedes, is the question of whether Iraq can be transformed into a democratic society.

Many of the difficulties were summed up by what happened to a safe house for battered wives and their children that the Americans established in the Green Zone, a heavily fortified Baghdad area that houses top U.S. and Iraqi officials.

"It took a long time to set it up and get the proper people into it," he said. "Then an Iraqi minister learned about it, maneuvered to take it over, threw out the women and children and now uses it as his home." That development, Wernicki said, represents much of what the U.S. is trying to change in Iraq. "We see this as corruption and want it eliminated," he explained. "But for most of the world -- and certainly here -- it simply is how things are."

The colonel decided not to name the minister.

"That would be foolish," he explained. "This guy could close my operation down."

10 posted on 06/04/2005 7:33:19 PM PDT by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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Mother of soldier on mission to keep soldiers cool in Iraq

Sunday, June 05, 2005

By TOM BONNETTE

HOUMA (AP) - When the heat of a south Louisiana summer becomes too much, air conditioners can be turned on or activity scaled back. But for soldiers serving in Iraq, refuge from the oppressive heat of summer in the Arabian Desert will be hard to find.

That's why Linda Tabor of Houma is aligning herself with Operation Cool Our Troops. Her son, Pfc. Jon-Ray Falgout, is serving in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division of Fort Benning, Ga.

''Heat stroke is real there,'' Tabor said. ''They are on foot for the most part and carry between 60 to 100 pounds of gear with them.''

To make things a little better for the troops, she is trying to raise $1,500 to send 150 portable Misty Mate personal coolers to her son's platoon.

''It's just $10 per cooler to help a soldier survive that heat in Iraq,'' she said. ''They are away from home, without air conditioning. I can make sure that my son will get one, but there are plenty of soldiers who are counting on the generosity of Americans.''

Two Arizona women who, like Tabor, had relatives serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom started Operation Cool Our Troops in July 2003.

Learning that temperatures in Iraq and Afghanistan could exceed 130 degrees during summer months was all it took for Sue McCormick and Susan Czubek to set up a nonprofit organization to raise the money needed to buy and ship personal coolers, called misters, to troops overseas.

Misty Mate, a Gilbert, Ariz. company, makes the misters, which are 10-ounce water bottles that spray a thin cloud of water with the press of a button. The water is dispensed by air pressure generated by a hand pump.

The misters can be clipped to soldiers' uniforms, require no batteries and can cool temperatures 20 to 30 degrees. Tabor said it's hard to think about how much her son has to endure while serving his country.

''The first time that I got a picture of him from Iraq, I didn't even recognize him because he was dressed in all of his gear,'' she said. ''I cried and cried; it's sad when a mother doesn't know her own son.''

Falgout hasn't complained about conditions in Iraq since being deployed there in January, but Tabor worries about him anyway.

''He hasn't complained to me about how hot it is there,'' she said. ''He calls and asks me, 'How are y'all doing?' I tell him that I am doing fine, I might have had someone cut me off in traffic that day, but no one is shooting at me.''

Tabor feels confident that she will be able to raise the money she needs for Operation Cool Our Troops from her community.

''It's a good way to show patriotism by sending them a piece of equipment that they can use every day,'' she said. ''These guys are just doing their job, but it's a 24-7 job. Anything that can be done to make them more comfortable would be great.''

---

On the Net:

Operation Cool Our Troops, http://www.coolourtroops.com

11 posted on 06/04/2005 7:46:32 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: Gucho; All

Iraqi army officers stand next to captured men suspected of being militants in Baghdad Saturday June 4, 2005. Iraqi Army's al-Muhtana brigade arrested 19 suspected militants in raids in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib and Sabi al-Bour neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)

Marines Find Weapons, Huge Bunker in Iraq

By SAMEER N. YACOUB Associated Press Writer

June 4, 2005, 10:28 PM EDT

LATIFIYAH, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. troops searched fields and farms Saturday for insurgents and their hideouts in an area south of Baghdad known for attacks, and the Marines said they discovered 50 weapons and ammunition caches and a huge underground bunker west of the capital fitted out with air conditioning, a kitchen and showers.

The joint U.S.-Iraqi force operating in Latifiyah to the south was backed by American air power and said it had rounded up at least 108 Iraqis, mainly Sunnis, suspected of involvement in the brutal insurgent campaign to topple the Shiite-led government.

To the west of the capital, the 2nd Marine division said its forces had discovered 50 weapons and ammunitions caches over the past four days in restive Anbar province. The military said the find included a recently used "insurgent lair" in a massive underground bunker complex that included air-conditioned living quarters and high tech military equipment, including night vision goggles.

That bunker was found cut from a rock quarry in Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. The Marines said the facility was 170 yards wide and 275 yards long.

In its rooms were "four fully furnished living spaces, a kitchen with fresh food, two shower facilities and a working air conditioner. Other rooms within the complex were filled with weapons and ammunition," the announcement said.

The weapons included "numerous types of machine guns, ordnance, including mortars, rockets and artillery rounds, black uniforms, ski masks, compasses, log books, night vision goggles, and fully charged cell phones."

In Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi and American forces launched a raid as part of Operation Lightning, a week-old assault aimed at rooting out insurgents conducting raids on the capital and sapping militant strength nationwide. While Iraqi forces were in the forefront of Saturday's sweep though the semi-rural region, it was clear the U.S. military was still the driving force.

About two hours into the operation, for example, American forces voiced concern that an area covered in tall grass had not been searched. An Iraqi commander said he was reluctant to send his troops into the field for fear of an insurgent attack.

"This is a dangerous area. We need helicopters and the American army," Iraqi Brig. Gen. Najim al-Ekabi said.

The American soldiers, who had spent months training Iraqi soldiers, tried to persuade al-Ekabi to send his troops, saying it was likely that weapons were hidden in the fields and alongside an irrigation canal.

Army Capt. Jason Blindauer of the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division told al-Ekabi the force had orders to search the area. "No one is going to do it better than your group," Blindauer said.

Al-Ekabi asked for a private meeting with the Americans and departed shortly afterward in a large convoy, ostensibly to conduct the search.

Maj. Ronny Echelberger later went into the area with American forces and searched a few homes, saying was not been sure the Iraqi search had been sufficiently thorough.

The Iraqi army's reliance on U.S. troops was evident in other ways. Echelberger had to show an Iraqi brigade commander his location on a map shortly before Iraqi troops launched the operation, and a few minutes later Iraqi soldiers fired hundreds of rounds when they mistakenly thought they saw an insurgent.

"These guys are doing baptism by fire. It takes time," Blindauer said.

Operation Lightning is being watched closely as a bellwether of when Iraqis can take control of their own security, a key to the U.S. exit strategy more than two years after Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr has said at least 700 suspected insurgents have been rounded up in the sweep, which has also killed at least 28 militants. U.S. Lt. Col. Michael Infanti said at least 221 people had been detained since last Wednesday by forces carrying out a sweep of Baghdad's southern districts. It was unclear if that number was in addition to the 700 given by Jabr.

Also Saturday, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at an Iraqi police checkpoint on a main road connecting northern Mosul with the nearby city of Tal Afar, killing two officers and wounding four. Four others were hurt in a roadside bombing as they went to help their fallen colleagues, Mosul police Lt. Zaid Ahmed Shakir said.

An Iraqi believed to be a terror leader in the north was captured by U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad. He was identified as Mullah Mahdi and was caught along with his brother, three other Iraqis and a non-Iraqi Arab, Iraqi army Maj. Gen. Khalil Ahmed al-Obeidi said.

Mahdi was affiliated with the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, one of Iraq's most feared terror groups, and had links to the Syrian intelligence service, al-Obeidi said without elaborating. Iraqi and U.S. officials have accused Syria of facilitating the insurgency by allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders, but Damascus denies the allegation.

On Sunday, a representative of Australia's top Islamic cleric said the cleric had met with Douglas Wood, an Australian being held hostage by Iraqi militants.

Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly is in Baghdad seeking the release of 63-year-old Wood, a California-based Australian engineer who was abducted in late April. The group that kidnapped him released a DVD on May 1 showing him pleading for Australia to withdraw it 1,400 troops from Iraq.

The Australian government has refused.

Ikebal Patel, from Australia's Federation of Islamic Councils, told television's Seven Network he had spoken to Al-Hilaly in Iraq on Thursday.

"He said to me: `I've seen him eye to eye,' those were the words he used, eye to eye, it was Douglas," Patel said.

He said Al-Hilaly reported that Wood had received the heart medication he needed and was holding up well.

12 posted on 06/04/2005 7:49:29 PM PDT by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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To: TexKat

Surprise surprise surprise. Hi TK, everything is going slow and steady :)


13 posted on 06/04/2005 7:51:33 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: MEG33; No Blue States; mystery-ak; boxerblues; Allegra; Eagle Eye; sdpatriot; Dog; DollyCali; ...

FILE ** Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, left, steps from an office building in Najaf, Iraq, in this June 5, 2004 file photo. Arguably Iraq's most popular Shiite group, followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have packed away their guns and speak of 'political resistance' rather than martyrdom in battle. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Radical Shiite leader who once battled U.S. moves into Iraq's political mainstream

By Hamza Hendawi ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:39 p.m. June 4, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Arguably Iraq's most popular Shiite group, followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have packed away their guns and now speak of "political resistance" rather than martyrdom in battle.

Once dismissed as an upstart, the portly al-Sadr has been transformed into a respectable political figure, commanding the loyalty of key lawmakers and several Cabinet ministers.

"We are growing stronger and our appeal is becoming wider," Ibrahim al-Jaberi, a senior official at al-Sadr's office in Sadr City, said Saturday.

Sadr City is a sprawling Baghdad neighborhood that is home to some 2.5 million Shiites and the largest bastion of support for al-Sadr. It was named for the cleric's father, the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999. The younger al-Sadr's images are everywhere – on walls, shop widows, car windshields and even ice boxes used by street vendors selling sodas or ice cream.

In many ways, today's "Sadrists" have changed since their heavily armed militia battled U.S. troops last fall, but their canny mix of politics, religious fervor and military capability make them the one group in postwar Iraq with the potential for rapid growth.

Since the fighting, al-Sadr has rebuilt ties with Iraq's largest Shiite party, after months of tension threatened to escalate into violence. His aides have been mediating between a Shiite militia and a Sunni group after they exchanged charges of involvement in the killing of each other's clerics.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former Washington insider who is now one of Iraq's most senior Shiite politicians, has actively been courting al-Sadr in an effort to widen his support. A deputy prime minister, Chalabi is known to be lobbying for the release of hundreds of Sadrists in U.S. detention and rescinding an arrest warrant for al-Sadr's alleged role in the 2003 killing of a rival cleric.

In turn, al-Sadr has turned down his rhetoric – although he has not stopped calling for the Americans to leave. He is also no longer contemptuous, as he once was, toward senior Shiite clerics and comparatively secular politicians like Chalabi.

Al-Sadr envoys also recently traveled to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for talks with its leaders, long viewed as American stooges by the Sadrists.

Legislators have also traveled south down the insurgent-infested road to the holy city of Najaf to call on al-Sadr, whose relative youth – he's believed to be in his early 30s – and lack of academic pedigree had led many to dismiss him.

In large part, the Sadrists' new strength is evident in the discipline and organization shown by their Imam al-Mahdi Army, the militia that battled U.S. forces last year. The militia has quietly been restructured since the fighting ended last fall.

It is widely suspected of having hidden most of its weapons after the fighting, while hundreds of militia commanders last week finished a 45-day course in discipline and religious indoctrination that among other things involved dawn-to-dusk fasts.

At least in public, the militia now resembles an outfit that is part relief organization and part neighborhood vigilante. The group has quietly taken control of security in Sadr City, making it by far the safest area in blood-soaked Baghdad.

The militia goes on public view on Fridays, when thousands of al-Sadr followers gather to perform weekly prayers – an event used since Saddam Hussein's fall to project its message, reassert its devotion to al-Sadr and renew animosity toward the Americans.

On Friday, militiamen in brown pants, cream-colored shirts and baseball caps stood shoulder-to-shoulder under parasols and lined streets leading to the venue where prayers are held. They frisked worshippers, searched cars and directed traffic away.

"No, No to America," remains a routine chant during the Friday sermon.

Officially, al-Sadr's movement did not participate in Iraq's historic January election, arguing that there can never be a free vote while foreign troops remain in Iraq.

But al-Sadr indirectly joined the U.S.-sponsored political process when he allowed supporters to run as independents or in small alliances. That pretense has allowed the movement to retain its anti-Americanism, which finds resonance among supporters, and have the support of at least 20 legislators – although some of them are loyal to the ideological legacy al-Sadr's late father, not him.

The Sadrists have their roots in the 1990s when the elder al-Sadr publicly defied Saddam. He was killed by suspected security agents in 1999. His supporters, mostly seminary students, resurfaced after Saddam's fall, organizing local charities and vigilante groups in Shiite areas.

A series of street protests and the creation of the Mahdi army attracted the attention of the U.S. military, and it was not long before they were fighting street battles in Sadr City and in towns across central and southern Iraq.

The current strength and prestige of the Sadrists does not mean they have foregone the movement's spiritual calling, primarily a narrative of suffering and mourning inspired by the events surrounding the birth of the faith in Islam's early years.

"We offer the genuine Islamic alternative," said Abdul-Hadi al-Daraji, one of al-Sadr's closest political advisers.

14 posted on 06/04/2005 8:00:37 PM PDT by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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To: TexKat; All
U.S. could decide soon on taking N. Korea to U.N.

June 4, 2005

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A decision is likely within the next few weeks on taking the North Korea nuclear issue to the United Nations, where sanctions could be imposed on the isolated communist state, a senior U.S. defense official said on Sunday.

The comment reflects growing frustration over Pyongyang's failure to return to six-party negotiations aimed at persuading the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The last round of talks was held in June 2004.

Taking the issue to the U.N. Security Council, something Pyongyang opposes, "is something we're giving increasing study to and probably will come to a decision over the next few weeks," the official told reporters.

"We have the one anniversary (of the last six-party talks) but moreover we have an escalating downward spiral of threats by North Korea and it appears to be marching to its own frustration drum. It's a very good time to be talking about it, the June-July period," he said.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is due to meet President Bush in Washington on June 10 for talks that could be crucial to dealing with North Korea.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld touched only lightly on the subject in separate meetings in Singapore on Saturday with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, the senior official said.

But Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, now in Singapore with Rumsfeld, was heading to Seoul later in the day for further talks on the nuclear issue and on U.S. troop restructuring ahead of Roh's U.S. visit.

15 posted on 06/04/2005 8:05:06 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: All

Hong Kong's Victoria Park is turned into a sea of light Saturday, June 4, 2005, as tens of thousands people held a candlelight vigil to mark the16th anniversary of the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square on a pro-democracy student movement in Beijing on the same day. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

China Tightens Security Around Tiananmen

By CHUCK CHIANG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - China tightened security around Tiananmen Square on Saturday to prevent memorials on the anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. But in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of protesters staged a candlelight rally.

In Sydney, Australia, a Chinese diplomat who is seeking asylum emerged from hiding to address a memorial rally.

Tiananmen Square, the symbolic political heart of China, was open to the public. But extra carloads of police watched tourists on the vast plaza, where weeks of student-led demonstrations that drew tens of thousands ended in a military attack 16 years ago Saturday. Troops killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of protesters that day.

There was no public mention of the anniversary in China nor any sign of attempts to commemorate it.

The United States used the anniversary to press Beijing for a full account of the dead, missing and detained from what it called the "brutal and tragic" events of 1989 and demanded that China generally show greater respect for internationally recognized human rights.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States remembered the many Chinese citizens killed, detained, or missing in connection with the protests. In addition to those who died, thousands of Chinese were arrested and sentenced without trial, and as many as 250 still languish in prison for Tiananmen-related activities, he said.

"We call on the Chinese government to fully account for the thousands killed, detained, or missing, and to release those unjustly imprisoned," McCormack said.

"It is now time for the Chinese government to move forward with a reexamination of Tiananmen, and give its citizens the ability to flourish by allowing them to think, speak, assemble and worship freely. We continue to urge China to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international standards and law."

The day was especially sensitive because it followed the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who was purged in 1989 for sympathizing with the protesters.

Communist leaders have eased many of the social controls that fueled the unrest but still crush any activity that they fear might challenge their monopoly on power. After an official ruling that the nonviolent protests were a subversive riot, activists and relatives of the dead who appeal that ruling are detained and harassed.

"Family members of victims, like the Tiananmen mothers, and other citizens who urge their government to undertake a reassessment of what happened June 4, 1989, should be free from harassment and detention," McCormack said.

In Hong Kong, a crowd estimated by organizers at 30,000-40,000 raised candles in the air in Victoria Park and sang solemn songs in the only large-scale memorial on Chinese soil. They carried signs that read: "Don't forget June 4" and "Democracy fighters live forever."

The former British territory retains many of its Western-style civil liberties — a status that many there say obligates them to speak out while those on the mainland cannot.

"Our slogan is 'Recognize history,' and we're asking Beijing to do just that," said a vigil organizer, Lee Cheuk-yan.

A younger generation of Chinese who came of age since the protests know little about 1989 because of an official ban on public discussion.

But many in Hong Kong are still emotional about the crackdown, which came as the territory was preparing for its 1997 return to Chinese rule.

"Hong Kong people will not forget this history when a government uses guns and tanks to crush students. It's very atrocious," said Shum Ming, a 58-year-old construction worker.

In their rare public comments about 1989, Chinese leaders defend the crackdown by pointing to the nation's emergence as an economic powerhouse since then, saying it would have been impossible without the enforced stability of one-party rule. A booming private economy has freed millions of Chinese from the structure of state jobs that controlled where they lived and worked — and even whom they could marry.

That defense was echoed Saturday by Donald Tsang, the leading candidate in the campaign to become Hong Kong's next leader.

"I had shared Hong Kong people's passion and impetus when the June 4 incident happened. But after 16 years, I've seen our country's impressive economic and social development," Tsang said. "My feelings have become calmer."

In Sydney, Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old Chinese diplomat who abandoned his post, said at a memorial rally that he was seeking asylum in Australia because of the lack of freedoms in China.

"In 16 years, the Chinese government has done nothing for political reform," he said. "People have no political freedom, no human rights."

Chen was the consul for political affairs at the Chinese consulate in Sydney.

16 posted on 06/04/2005 8:13:07 PM PDT by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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To: TexKat; All
'8 long, horrible hours' safeguarding a bridge

Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 08:09 AM

Samarra, Iraq -- At 2 p.m., Spc. Mike Rauch points his tank's massive, 120mm gun at the northeastern tip of the Southern Bypass Bridge that spans the dusty marshland outside Samarra.

Another day of highway patrol, Iraq-style, has begun.

Rauch's job, and that of his two crew members aboard the 70-ton M1A Abrams, is to protect the bridge on the outskirts of this Sunni town, a key link on the main route for civilian and U.S. military traffic from the southern port city of Basra to the border with Turkey in the north.

Every day, from 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night, Sgt. Saikichi Simram, the tank's commander, Pvt. Andrew Queen, the driver, and gunner Rauch, from Mariposa in Central California, watch this stretch of road for what have become the two deadliest threats to Iraqi civilians and the 138,000 American soldiers who are supposed to help protect them: cars that look like they might be driven by suicide bombers and insurgents trying to plant roadside bombs.

Insurgents can hit "any hour of the day," says Simram, 28, who has been in Iraq since February with the C "Chaos" Company of the 3-69 Armored Battalion of the 1st Brigade, 42nd Infantry Division.

Insurgents usually fashion roadside bombs from artillery or mortar shells, detonating them remotely by cell phones, satellite phones or walkie-talkies when a U.S. convoy drives by. Sometimes they disguise bombs in dead dogs, cutting their stomachs open and stuffing the explosives inside. The 23-year- old Rauch tells stories about a donkey cart loaded with gasoline cans that exploded as it was pulling up to a checkpoint. And of a cow with a 105mm shell inserted in its anus.

"Crazy people," Rauch says.

U.S. troops have attempted to counter roadside bombs by putting armored plates on their humvees and driving around with a jamming device called "warlock," which suppresses radio frequencies around a convoy. But insurgents continue to adapt, using car bombs and figuring out new ways to detonate roadside bombs, U.S. soldiers say.

Simram, who comes from Guam, calls his daily mission "eight long, horrible hours."

2:10 p.m. Ten minutes into the mission, and the temperature is 110 degrees. Simram sits on a cooler filled with bottled water, closes his eyes and listens to the hum of passing cars. Queen, 19, smokes in the shadow of the tank, looking east, behind a marsh where egrets nestle in dusty green reeds, at Samarra's jagged skyline.

2:40 p.m. The men watch the wind kick up dust devils between them and the bridge. Suddenly, Rauch exclaims, "You see that up there?" He pulls out a digital video camera, and everyone follows his index finger, which is pointing at the sky. "A cloud blocking the sun!"

Everybody looks at the big gray cloud for a while, thankful for some relief from the broiling rays, no matter how slight or temporary.

A few minutes later, Queen, from Ocala, Fla., puts three hydrogen-filled heaters from army-issued packaged meals into a Gatorade bottle filled with water. He buries the bottle in the hot dust about 20 feet from the tank.

"They blow (up)," Simram explains, without turning his head. "When he gets bored, that's what he does."

The soldiers wait, but the bottle does not explode. The men fall silent as they stare at the traffic on the bypass.

2:52 p.m. First Lt. Jason Scott, patrolling the bypass road in one of the humvees, receives a radio call that a white plastic bag lying near the bridge appears to have wires coming out of it.

"Nine times out of 10 it's nothing," Scott says. But he must monitor the bag until a bomb disposal unit arrives. Scott and his men stand about 150 feet from the bag, training their guns at the road.

About half an hour later, another humvee pulls up. Soldiers unload "Johnny Five," a small robot that will probe the bag. The operator, who asked not to be identified, sits down on a folding camp stool, putting the controls for the robot on the passengers' seat of the humvee. A remote monitor shows the contents of the bag as he guides the robot's pincers to shake the bag. It is filled with garbage. Soldiers climb back into the humvees and drive off.

3:45 p.m. A white flatbed truck cuts in front of Scott's humvee. Scott chases it down and orders the driver and the passenger, who wear long white dishdashas, to step away from their truck. Scott looks nervous. The only cars that don't stop for a humvee, he says, are car bombs.

Soldiers search the truck and the men and find nothing.

Scott comes close to the driver and yells, waving his arms: "Don't pass humvees! Stop, don't f -- ing pass! OK?"

"OK," the driver replies.

Scott turns away to leave, then, as an afterthought, he asks the man: "Speak English?"

The man shakes his head: "No."

4:45 p.m. A beat-up pickup truck is going south very slowly on the bypass road. It pulls to a halt, and Simram raises his M-16 rifle in the direction of the road. The truck makes a U-turn and heads north, picking up speed.

"That's all the excitement we get up here," says Simram, sitting down. Queen sits on the trunk, pouring Skittles into his mouth from a bright red bag.

All of a sudden Simram jumps up again.

"D'yall wanna eat some rabbit?" He grabs his gun and fires a shot at the reeds about 100 yards away. He misses. The rabbit holds absolutely still. He fires again, and misses. The rabbit disappears in the bushes.

"Were you aiming at that rabbit?" Rauch asks.

"No, I was aiming next to it," Simram answers, sarcastically.

He looks at the gilded dome of the Al-Askariya Shrine that dominates the Samarra skyline about a mile away. "I could reach over there," he says, dreamily, referring to his tank's 120mm gun, which has a range of almost 2 miles.

7:15 p.m. A hollow boom comes from the highway. The three soldiers jump to their feet and look at the road. A red truck has blown a tire.

8 p.m. The big orange orb of the sun is about to disappear behind the horizon. Simram and Rauch take out their video cameras and take pictures of the sky, as they do almost every night around this time. The wind picks up, carrying echoes of the evening call to prayer from a mosque somewhere on the other side of the bypass.

At 9:31, Simram puts an extended arm on the gun barrel to steady himself as he looks at the stars. Cicadas rustle in the reeds by the marsh.

"I like this time of the day the best. It's cool, and it's time to leave soon." Simram pauses. "And tomorrow, we do it all over again."

17 posted on 06/04/2005 8:22:23 PM PDT by Gucho
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Up to 25 people killed as police raid Haiti slums

June 4, 2005

By Joseph Guyler Delva
59 minutes ago


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - As many as 25 people were killed in police raids on Friday and Saturday in the slums of Haiti's capital after the government said it would get tougher on gangs, morgue workers and witnesses said.

Clerks at the morgue in the General Hospital said they had taken in 17 bodies on Saturday and three bodies on Friday after the raids in Bel-Air and other Port-au-Prince slums, centers of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A Reuters journalist also saw five other bodies in two different areas of Bel-Air.

Residents said the dead were shot by police and accused police of setting slum homes on fire.

Police officials had no immediate comment on the death toll and it was not clear whether all the victims were killed in the raids, or if some were shot as gang members returned fire.

Haiti's interim government, backed by a 7,400-strong United Nations peacekeeping force, has sought to stabilize the impoverished Caribbean country since Aristide fled into exile as armed rebels closed in on the capital in February 2004.

Human rights groups have accused the Haitian police of summary executions and abuses against supporters of Aristide -- allegations denied by the government.

Justice Minister Bernard Gousse and other officials said on Friday authorities planned tougher action against armed gangs in pro-Aristide slums, where victims of a recent wave of hundreds of kidnappings are often said to be held.

At least 740 people have been killed in criminal and political violence in Haiti since September. A French diplomat was shot to death this week while driving in the capital.

"The police arrived, they started shooting. There were other people shooting too, but they managed to flee," said Ronald Macillon, a Bel-Air resident. "The police killed a lot of people and set several homes on fire," Macillon said.

Several other witnesses gave similar accounts.

A spokesman for U.N. troops in Bel-Air, Col. Carlos Barcelos, told Reuters the Brazilian contingent based in that slum did not take part directly in the raids, but put up checkpoints and secured the outside perimeter.

The Central Director for the Administrative Police, Renan Etienne, told Reuters he could not say how many people were killed or comment on allegations police set homes on fire, as he had not yet received police reports.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050605/wl_nm/haiti_deaths_dc


18 posted on 06/04/2005 8:41:57 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: TexKat; All
Terror on trial

By Mark Houser - TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Sunday, June 5, 2005

MADRID, Spain -- Two dozen men sit behind bulletproof glass in a new courtroom built to hold the biggest al-Qaida trial Europe has yet seen.

In proceedings that began in April, the Spanish National Court is considering whether the accused men belonged to a terrorist cell that helped kill nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

Key testimony hinges on whether central figures in the alleged Madrid cell arranged a meeting in Spain two months before the attacks between hijacker Mohammed Atta and planner Ramzi Binalshibh.

Prosecutors also claim the group's leaders funneled money to the hijackers and to other terrorists in Europe, and that one man made videotapes of the World Trade Center and passed them to other al-Qaida members to plan the attacks.

Prosecutors have asked for 62,000-year sentences for the group's three central figures. But in reality, the three could face no more than 30 each. That's the longest anyone can be jailed in Spain. In addition, the country has no death penalty.

Accused cell member Yusuf Galan is not one of the major players. Galan, a Spaniard who converted to Islam, faces only 18 years for being part of the cell, visiting an Islamic militant training camp in Indonesia in 2001, and having illegal guns and knives in his home when he was arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks.

He also had militant literature, a map of London with a church and synagogue circled, and a map of Hannover, Germany.

And he had a map of Pittsburgh.

The map is a mystery. It is at least 40 years old. The Point Bridge, closed in 1959 and demolished thereafter, is still shown as a traffic artery across the Monongahela River, while the "proposed" Fort Duquesne Bridge, built in the 1960s, is just dotted lines.

A sequence of numbers -- 71, 73, 75, 76, 5, 64, 67, 68 -- is scrawled in one margin. Crestview Road, a hilly residential street in Banksville, is circled.

Residents of Crestview Road say they have not noticed any suspicious behavior on their small street, which is lined with middle-class brick houses in a neighborhood popular with city workers. Pittsburgh FBI special agent in charge Chris Briese declined to comment on the map.

The map raises the question: Why was Pittsburgh on the radar of an alleged Islamic terrorist in Spain?

One possibility: In the 1990s, a group of Saudi students in Pittsburgh published an Arabic-language magazine, Assirat Al-Mustaqeem, that often featured jihadist rhetoric. For example, one 1998 editorial called the United States a "strategic target" and wished for its destruction. The magazine was distributed to hard-line mosques in Europe and elsewhere until it ceased publication in 2000.

The magazine's publisher, Bandar Al-Mashary, and editor, Mohsen Al-Mohsen, headed an Islamic foundation based in Banksville and prayed at a temporary mosque in a Banksville hotel, both about a mile from Crestview Road. Both men returned to Saudi Arabia after getting doctorates at the University of Pittsburgh.

The lead prosecutor in the Spanish case, Pedro Rubiro, said the map is of little interest to his case. Galan has not been asked about it, and the government barred a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter from interviewing him.

Spanish authorities do not say Galan or any of the others on trial visited Pittsburgh.

A bigger trial

While observers on both sides of the Atlantic are watching the trial closely, a future Spanish courtroom battle looms larger -- that of the Madrid train bombers.

Cell phone-triggered backpack bombs exploded in Madrid's main train station and two other stops on March 11, 2004, killing 191 people. The political aftermath of those bombings ultimately toppled Spain's conservative government.

More than two dozen suspects, mostly Moroccan, have been jailed in the investigation, and dozens more have been released but are considered suspects. Authorities say at least one of the alleged al-Qaida ringleaders now on trial in Madrid also helped plan the train bombings.

In Spain, accused terrorists can wait up to four years in jail while the case against them is assembled, but a top official in the Spanish prosecutor's office said he expects the bomb trial to begin next year.

ail time can be cut short, as prosecutor Rubiro knows well.

His boss, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jesus Santos, boasted that Rubiro was the first person in Spain to win a conviction against an Islamic terrorist group. That was in 1997.

One man Santos put away, an Algerian named Allekema Lamari, was released after an appeal.

Weeks after the Madrid attack, police tracked seven suspects to an apartment in the suburbs and surrounded it. The men inside chanted prayers, then blew themselves up.

DNA tests of the remains showed Lamari was one of them.

Asked how he felt when he heard the news that a man he had once put away might well have been one of the train bombers, Rubiro looked at the floor.

"I can't answer that," he said.

What went wrong?

Spain's legislature has created a 3/11 commission to examine what went wrong and to look for ways to improve security. It plans to publish its findings this month. Meanwhile, the government has added 300 intelligence personnel to handle terrorism and has tightened regulations on mining explosives, which were used in the bombings.

But the commission is frequently bogged down in strident partisanship, said Josep Guinart, a commission member and legislator who is aligned with the ruling socialist coalition.

"One of the problems of this commission is we are only politicians, so sometimes it means the commission is less a place for investigating what happened on the 11th of March, and more a place where the (political) parties have a fight," Guinart said.

The bombings took place three days before national elections. In the immediate aftermath, former President Jose Maria Aznar and other leaders from the then-ruling conservative party announced Basque terrorists were the likely culprits.

As facts emerged pointing to Islamic terrorism, protesters massed in the streets of Madrid to accuse the government of lying. Aznar, they said, was trying to obscure the real reason Spain was targeted -- its participation in the war in Iraq. The conservatives lost, and the troops were withdrawn soon after.

Conservative Senator Ignacio Cosido said blaming ETA, the Basque terrorist group, for 3/11 was a mistake. But he said ETA has killed more than 800 Spaniards in hundreds of attacks -- an ETA car bomb in Madrid injured five last month -- so investigators had good reason for their suspicions.

Cosido said his biggest worry is that the Spanish public will assume it is no longer targeted by Islamic terrorists now that its soldiers have left Iraq.

"My perception is that Spanish society doesn't have an understanding of the magnitude of this threat. They do not understand that we are not free of this threat," he said.

Spanish investigators announced last fall they had broken up a new Madrid bomb plot, this time with multiple targets, including a skyscraper, a soccer stadium and the Atocha train station again.

But some are skeptical, such as documentary filmmaker Miguel Angel Nieto, of Madrid.

"The police need to (prove) to public opinion that 3/11 was not because of the war in Iraq. So I think there were no plans to attack anything more," he said.

Nieto is one of a group of filmmakers who produced a collection of documentary short features called "Todos Ibamos en Ese Tren" ("We Were All on That Train") after the attacks. Proceeds went to the victims' families. The documentary has been shown in several film festivals, including Chicago.

Angel Nieto's segment is called "Victim Zero." In it, a wife, a mother, a friend and a daughter talk about the man they thought they had lost in the explosion, until someone spotted him on the news carrying a wounded man.

The man himself refused to talk -- many of the victims of the train attacks have asked for privacy -- but Angel Nieto says in the end it was better that way.

"My idea was there were a lot of anonymous people who were helping at that moment. This is one of them. It's not important, his identity. He is one of many," he said.

The piles of candles, floral bouquets and handwritten notes that once cluttered the floor of Atocha station have been cleaned up. In their place are two computer terminals where a passersby can scan a handprint -- a frequent image in anti-terror protests here -- and type testimonials to victims. Loudspeakers play a short loop of somber piano music.

"Life has to go on, but this is one way we can always remember that day," said Susana Calzado, 31, an accountant from Madrid who paused at the memorial for a quiet moment before walking to her train.

19 posted on 06/04/2005 9:55:46 PM PDT by Gucho
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To: All
Polls open in south Lebanon

05 Jun 2005 04:28:24 GMT

Source: Reuters

BEIRUT, June 5 (Reuters) - Polls opened in southern Lebanon on Sunday for the second round of general elections, with Syria's staunchest allies Hizbollah and Amal set to cruise to victory on a joint slate dubbed the "steamroller".

Voters began to trickle to the ballot box in the Shi'ite Muslim heartland bordering Israel, local television showed.

A lack of challengers meant the joint ticket won six of the 23 seats up for grabs in the south before a single vote was cast.

Lebanon's general elections, the first since Syria ended its 29-year military presence in April, are spread over four weekends by region.

About 675,000 people are eligible to vote in the south, which is divided into two large constituencies.

AlertNet news

20 posted on 06/04/2005 10:06:45 PM PDT by Gucho
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