Iraq Foils Plot to Put {421 al-Qaida} Terrorists at Posts {around Green Zone}

Yahoo/AP ^ | 03/14/06 | BASSEM MROUE

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi interior minister said Tuesday that authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the 421 al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago.

"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Jabr said in the interview conducted at his office inside the Green Zone — a 2-square-mile hunk of prime real estate on the west bank of the Tigris River. The area is a maze of concrete blast walls, concertina wire and checkpoints.

The Defense Ministry official said the plot was uncovered by the military intelligence and the General Intelligence department that works under the government.

The Green Zone has been attacked in the past with mortar rounds and rockets. A number of car bombs driven by suicide attackers have been detonated in the past two years at the entrances, killing scores of people.

On Oct. 14, 2004, two al-Qaida members carried out a suicide attack inside the zone, hitting a market and a cafe. Six people were killed, including four Americans, and 20 people were

[Wristpin]

Looks like it will be a busy year for Iraqi hangmen....

[headstamp]

May have just dodged a "Tet".

[oolatec]

It's only a matter of time before they successfully pull off something like this.

[Names Ash Housewares]

"Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot,"

Wow. Time to clean house!

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Seen nothing about this on Fox. IMHO this is HUGE news. Major accomplishment.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Holy cow Batman!!

That would have been a serious happening!

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Exactly, perhaps this was the "big bang" that al qaida was bragging about for Iraq?

[jmc1969]

Sadly you are right about that. Omar at ITM ripped into Sadr today big time.

---

There were no car-bombs, huge explosions or clashes yet more than 80 bodies were found scattered in various districts of the capital and the number is increasing while I'm typing these words.
The most disturbing finding is that some of the victims were strangled and others were found hanging from lampposts with the word 'traitor' written on the bodies and this makes one think the 4 victims in this particular case were from Sadr city itself because 'traitor' is used to describe someone from your own but who turned against you and it makes no sense to use it on strangers.
I'm afraid I have to think that some sort of 'court' is behind these executions because strangling or death by hanging is not the common execution method for al-Qaeda or regular criminals and I'm afraid we are standing before the doings of a new sharia court similar to the one found in Najaf back in 2004 (and we never heard of the results of the alleged investigation ever since).

You form a multi-thousand men militia, you arm them with all kinds of weapons you can find, you fill them with hatred through your inflammatory speeches, you promise to use your militia to defend Iraq's worst enemies, you accuse the Sunni of being Takfiri terrorists, accuse the US of supporting this terrorism and accuse Kurds and fellow Shia of being materialistic opportunists and puppets of the US occupier. And your Islamic militia attacks dozens of mosques and kills dozens of people over night. And after all this you call yourself a patriot.

You are just as dangerous to Iraq as Saddam was or al-Qaeda is. I worked in Basra for a whole year, and I was the only secular person in town of 50,000 devout Shia. They didn't hate me, they didn't hurt me and I never felt afraid of being there. On the contrary, there was a great deal of mutual respect between me and the locals I was in contact with. Al-Qaeda was already murdering Iraqis back then but Iraqis knew who the bad guys were and they didn't alienate or generalize the term 'terrorist' over an entire portion of the community.

It's you and hateful thugs like you who got us to this point… God damn you.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

[oceanview]

this could have been the "big event"?

[jmc1969]

Zarqawi would have won the war overnight with such an attack.

[Cinnamon]

it just fizzled and went crackle

[caisson71]

Considering the source, if true, I would consider this a major accomplishment by the Iraqi government.

[oceanview]

the whole situation there is very tenuous. I wonder what the operational activities of US forces are like in this environment.

[Allegra]

"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Jabr said in the interview conducted at his office inside the Green Zone — a 2-square-mile hunk of prime real estate on the west bank of the Tigris River. The area is a maze of concrete blast walls, concertina wire and checkpoints.

Or ANYBODY for crying out loud!

See? I didn't have FR and any of us could have just been waltzing around those checkpoints without even knowing about this.

GOTTA have FR! ;-)

Bet we hear about this in our Security Briefing tomorrow. Just get the dang AIRPORT PROBLEM resolved!

[ASA Vet]

"Green Zone" Ping

[Southack]

"It's only a matter of time before they successfully pull off something like this." - oolatec

Nope. For one thing, Al Qaeda reveals that they are so powerless now in Iraq that they have to depend upon Iraq's government to make mistakes to enable some attack like this (e.g. Iraqi bureaucrats signing off on paperwork)...and even then it didn't happen.

For another, Al Qaeda's best personnel have probably already been transfered to other areas such as Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc...simply because U.S. casualties have fallen by 60% since the October Iraqi referendum. A declining U.S. casualty rate is a sign of Al Qaeda weakness, after all (Al Qaeda could just move en masse to Somalia if they only wanted to destabilize a government rather than shoot at Americans).

So this sort of thing isn't going to happen in the future. Al Qaeda grows weaker every day, per the casualty stats.

This was their "Big Bang" in Iraq...and it fizzled.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Major ping here!

[Allegra]

Do you know that none of us here have heard about this yet?

Of course, it's nighttime now. Maybe we'll be briefed tomorrow morning.

[steel_resolve]

It's you and hateful thugs like you who got us to this point… God damn you.

Sadr will get his, in this life or the next.