Soldiers from B Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, remove debris from around a Stryker vehicle that was attacked by a suicide bomber on Monday in western Iraq. (James J. Lee / Military Times staff)
Posted on 08/02/2005 4:32:55 PM PDT by Gucho
August 3, 2005 4:50 AM
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Up to 60 suspected Islamic militants, some who have trained overseas, are under watch in Australia's biggest cities Sydney and Melbourne, the country's top policeman said on Wednesday.
Mick Keelty, the Australian Federal Police commissioner, was responding to claims by former Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officer Michael Roach that suspected militants were based in the two cities.
"He's close to the figure that I am aware of," Keelty told Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) radio, referring to Roach.
"We are focused on the people who we are aware who have trained overseas. We are focused on the people who we know have a propensity to do something wrong," he said.
Australia, a staunch U.S. ally which sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, has been on a medium security alert level since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but has never suffered a major peacetime attack at home.
Roach, who retired less than two years ago after a 30-year career with Australia's domestic intelligence agency, said on Tuesday that some suspected militants in Australia were trained in explosives and reconnaissance.
They were also trained in clandestine communications and knew how to falsify documents, he said.
"Perhaps the number is around 50 or 60 in Australia, who are working in separate cells. The threat is real. It's a matter when will this happen," Roach told ABC television.
He did not elaborate on the nature of the threat or the activities of the suspected militants.
"They are divided into groups within the cell structures, for example, having the co-ordinator of the group down to those people who actually will deliver the bomb."
Echoing similar proposals after the London transport bombings last month, Roach urged members of the public to report suspicious activity and even use their mobile phones to photograph or film suspicious parcels, vehicles and people.
An opinion poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Wednesday found that two-thirds of Australians believed the country's involvement in Iraq had made it more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.
The poll of 1,428 people showed 87 percent supported the use of more security cameras, 78 percent want terrorism suspects to be deported, 66 percent agreed with random bag searches and 61 percent thought Australia should have a national identity card.
Eighty-eight Australians were among 202 people killed in the October 2002 nightclub bombings in the Indonesian island of Bali and the Australian embassy in Jakarta was hit by a suicide bomb in 2004.
Reuters
By U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Chawntain Sloan - Multi-National Corps-Iraq Public Affairs
With only short-term facilities available, the U.S. Air Force medics’ goal is to make sure their patients leave in better shape than when they arrived.
Capt. Brian Ackerman checks a patient's dressing and equipment to ensure he is ready for flight. His job is to coordinate the movement of critically wounded patients between the Air Force theater hospital here and the contingency aeromedical staging facility. Captain Ackerman is a nurse with the 379th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Chad Chisholm)
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq, Aug. 2, 2005 — Only a few hours earlier, surgeons were working diligently to save his life and repair the damage a bullet caused when it entered his abdomen and ricocheted throughout his body.
Now, the 11-year-old Iraqi boy sleeps peacefully with his favorite stuffed animal clutched in his hand. His father, next to his bed, stares with a fixed gaze anxious for his son to wake up.
“There are no words,” said Hussein, the boy’s father. Some Iraq names are omitted or altered for security reasons. “Thank you. You saved my son.”
But a grateful father’s thanks are the only words that matter to the Airmen soldiers and Australian defense forces of the Air Force theater hospital here.
The medics, technicians, nurses and doctors assigned to the combat support hospital here provide expert care to anyone who comes through their doors.
Although the hospital was primarily established to treat coalition troops, Department of Defense employees and contract civilians, the bulk of the patients filling the wards are Iraqis.
“The capabilities of the medical facility in Baghdad and the local hospital in Balad are no where near ours. The Iraqi medical system is just really behind,” said Lt. Col. Laurie Hall, the theater hospital’s chief nurse.
With three operating rooms, three wards, two intensive care units, a fully equipped emergency room and substantial pharmacy, lab and X-ray capabilities, the hospital boasts of some of the best services available.
“We perform most of the same major procedures that a stateside hospital does — general, orthopedic, vascular, neurological, urological, maxillofacial and eye surgeries — but we are not designed for long-term care,” said Colonel Hall, who is assigned to the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group and deployed from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Many of the patients treated at the hospital are civilians caught in cross fires or Iraqi military forces. Some patients are the very insurgents who initiate attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. But no matter the patient, the medics’ goal is to make sure their patients leave in better shape than when they arrived.
Colonel Hall recalled a recent case of an insurgent brought to the hospital after an improvised explosive device detonated while he attempted to set it.
“No one else was hurt but him, and the very people he was trying to kill — the soldiers from the convoy — are the ones who initiated the first aid and gave their own blood to save his life,” said Colonel Hall.
She said the surgeons were “amazingly able to piece him back together, but he has a long, painful road of recovery ahead.”
However, prisoners are not ordinary patients. All prisoners must be kept under guard and blindfolded to protect the hospital staff and other patients.
“It doesn’t matter that you just saved their life, they don’t care,” she said. “It is a really hard concept to grasp as a nurse because it’s not the way we are trained. It’s really hard not to let your guard down, but you have to remember, if you gave them half the chance, they would kill you.”
Unfortunately, the medics’ best efforts are not always enough to save a patient’s life. And for the medics, technicians, nurses and doctors who fought for that patient, the news can be devastating.
“There was one 24-year-old Pakistani man who was brought to us from another location. He was terribly sick when we got him and though we tried our very best, he died. The nurse who had worked so hard on him just lost it. She burst into tears right there,” Colonel Hall said. “You may be a nurse, but you’re a human first. You can’t help but feel. If you don’t feel, then there is something wrong.”
But the medics do not let the tragic losses overshadow their successes.
A shaved head and a sizeable scar are one Iraqi girl’s only clue that surgeons worked tirelessly to save her life and remove a rock that a near-fatal car accident left lodged in her brain.
After about two weeks of recuperating, the young girl is in good health and ready to go home — a testament that their efforts weren’t in vain.
“I’m amazed she even survived,” Colonel Hall said. “The surgeons did an amazing job.”
According to the medics, it is the quality of work they provide every day that makes their patient care exceptional. To them, it is more than just doing their duty; they do it because they care.
“You can’t help but care about these people, and you want to do everything you can to make them better,” Colonel Hall said.
DEBKAfile Special Report pAugust 3, 2005 - 1:43 AM
Tuesday, August 2, Al Qaeda claimed the establishment of a Gaza branch called “Al Qaeda-Palestine, Jihad Brigades in the Border Land.” (This is an al Qaeda locution meaning warfront.) The announcement, accompanied by a video tape, appeared on Websites normally reserved for releases on major al Qaeda strikes, such as the Madrid, London and Saudi bombing attacks and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s operations in Iraq. It is therefore to be taken seriously. The statement came out three days after the DEBKAfile exclusive disclosure of al Qaeda’s purported theological grounds for attacking Israel, as expounded in its new monthly magazine, From the Tip of the Camel’s Hump.
Al Qaeda’s Palestinian gunmen performing on the tape claim the new organization is already in action and assume responsibility for firing rockets at the Israeli communities of Neve Dekalim and Gunei Tal in the Gaza Strip Saturday night, July 30.
Military tests revealed that Sinjal rockets, which are used by the Jihad Islami and are inferior even to the hit-or-miss Qassam missiles, were indeed fired at those two places. The gunmen who are heavily masked sounded very much like Gazan Palestinians.
Israeli intelligence experts on al Qaeda have three diverse theories to explain the new development.
1. This theory holds that the three most violent Palestinian groups, Hamas, Jihad Islami and the Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades, established a new umbrella organization to execute terrorist and shooting attacks against Israel’s withdrawal operation in two weeks while eluding the charge of flouting Abu Mazen’s orders. This theory does not fully explain al Qaeda’s introduction to the Gaza Strip.
2. Al Qaeda’s agents infiltrated the Gaza Strip through northern Sinai, the Palestinian arms smuggling gangs who work both sides of the Rafah border or Hizballah cells in Gaza, and set u p a new organization based on the Hamas and Jihad Islami.
3. The Palestinian Popular Committees which bring together the al Aqsa Brigades and other terrorist splinters has split into feuding elements, one of which may have joined up with al Qaeda, promised allegiance and collaboration and received funds. That money would have paid for the film and the two attacks.
Whichever mechanism was used, it is clear that the international Islamist organization has made its first public appearance as a terrorist force present in the Gaza Strip. In every country, this hostile penetration would have captured top headlines and the security authorities and government would have been challenged for explanations. However in Israel today, the government, defense officials are media are so deeply immersed in the task of rooting out every last civilian and soldier from the affected territory against all opposition, that they are incapable of reviewing that task in the light of the new invasion.
From Journalist Shirzad Bozorgmehr and CNN's Elise Labott
Tuesday, August 2, 2005; - 8:09 p.m.
(CNN) -- Iran has told the international atomic watchdog agency that it would refrain for now from breaking seals at a nuclear plant, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The officials said that Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its decision not to break the seals placed by U.N. monitors, which would indicate a resumption of nuclear activity.
The seals are on nuclear program-related material at a nuclear plant near Isfahan in central Iran.
"It is extremely positive that the Iranians did step back from breaking the seals," a U.S. State Department official said.
"... There is a general sense at least for now the Iranians have moved away from any immediate action that would breach the Paris accords."
The Paris accords were signed by Iran along with France and Germany, representing the European Union.....more
Russian-Chinese Military Exercise Set
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 2, 2005
MOSCOW - Russia and China will hold an unprecedented joint military exercise later this month, using long-range bombers and submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land, a top Russian general said Tuesday.
The Aug. 18-25 maneuvers, to be held on China's Shandong peninsula, highlight budding military ties between Moscow and Beijing, whose relations have warmed after decades of Cold War-era rivalry.
The two nations insisted that the exercise, the first such drill, was not aimed at any third country.
The Chinese Defense Ministry said Tuesday the exercises were meant to "strengthen the capability of the two armed forces in jointly striking international terrorism, extremism and separatism."
But the Russian military added that another goal was to practice joint action to "settle regional crises."
Col. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, the deputy chief of Russia's Land Forces in charge of the exercise, said Tuesday the drills envisage action to separate parties in a conflict in a third country with the backing of the United Nations.
Under the scenario, the Shandong peninsula, which juts into the Yellow Sea about 275 miles southeast of Beijing, poses as an imaginary state "on the territory of which riots stemming from ethnic discord took place and confrontation between different forces occurred," Moltenskoi said.
He said the exercise plan had no relation to Taiwan, or any other specific country.
Earlier news reports suggested the exercise might be held near Taiwan, which would make it look like a rehearsal for a Chinese invasion of the island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. China has threatened repeatedly to attack if the island pursues formal independence.
Moltenskoi, who insisted that the Shandong peninsula had been chosen from the beginning, said that about 10,000 troops, 1,800 of them Russian, will take place in the exercise. Russia will also field a navy squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.
The two militaries will practice airborne and marine landing missions during the drills, and the exercise will involve nonnuclear-powered submarines, Moltenskoi said.
Earlier this year, Russia's air force chief said the reason for engaging strategic bombers in the drill was to generate Chinese interest in buying them.
China's air force uses some older Soviet-designed bombers, but they have far lower capabilities than Russian Tu-22Ms and Tu-95s, which are capable of hitting distant targets with long-haul conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Relations between the one-time Communist allies ruptured in the 1960s, and a struggle over areas along the countries' Far East border resulted in minor skirmishes in 1969. The clashes fed fears that the two giants could wage a full-fledged war.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, however, Moscow and Beijing have developed what they call a strategic partnership, pledging commitment to a "multipolar world" — a term that reflects their opposition to U.S. domination in global affairs.
In October, Russia and China settled the last of their border disputes, signing an agreement fixing their 2,700-mile-long frontier for the first time.
Moltenskoi said the military exercise will be attended by observers from other governments in the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security group led by Beijing and Moscow that also includes the former Soviet Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Last month, the security group called on the United States to set a date for withdrawing forces from bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — a move reflecting the growing unease Moscow and Beijing feel about the American presence in the resource-rich, strategically placed region.
Uzbekistan last week gave the United States 180 days to pull out of the base there.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050802/ap_on_re_eu/russia_china_military_exercise_1
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 3, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) -- Middle Easterners should be targeted for searches on city subways, two elected officials said, contending that police have been wasting time with random checks in efforts to prevent terrorism in the transit system.
The city began examining passengers' bags on subways and buses after the second bomb attack in London two weeks ago. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said several times that officers will not engage in racial profiling.
But over the weekend, state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police should be focusing on those who fit the ''terrorist profile.''
''They all look a certain way,'' said Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. ''It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism.''
On Tuesday, Republican City Councilman James Oddo said the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack by Middle Eastern men in hijacked airplanes prompted him to publicly declare his support for Hikind's statements.
''The reality is that there is a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life,'' he said. ''Young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror, and we should keep those facts prominently in our minds and eyes as we attempt to secure our populace.''
Oddo commended Hikind for ''rushing headlong against the strong undertow of political correctness.''
Hikind said he planned to introduce legislation allowing police to racially profile, and Oddo said he intended to introduce a resolution in the City Council supporting the measure.
The director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant.
''Terror comes in all shapes and sizes, and certainly there's no legislation or system that's going to identify terrorists on the spot,'' Nasr said.
The New York Police Department said in a statement that racial profiling is ''illegal, of doubtful effectiveness and against department policy.''
The Republican mayor reiterated Tuesday that it is against the law and doesn't work. ''I'm against it for fairness reasons, and we're not going to do it,'' he said.
Bomb kills 14 U.S. Marines in Iraq
Wed Aug 3, 2005 1:22 PM BST
By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb explosion tore through a U.S. assault vehicle in Iraq on Wednesday, killing 14 American Marines and a civilian interpreter in the deadliest attack of its kind against U.S. forces since the war began.
The bomb exploded near a Marine amphibious assault vehicle as it was travelling south of Haditha, a town on the Euphrates river about 200 km (120 miles) northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a short statement. One Marine was wounded.
Haditha is one of several violent towns in Iraq's western Anbar province. The Sunni Muslim province is the heartland of Iraq's insurgency and has defied repeated U.S. offensives.
Roadside bombs have become one of the most effective weapons used by insurgents against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Security analysts say insurgents may have developed more powerful "shaped" charges, making the bombs even more deadly.
The blast was the second major attack against Marines in the area in the past three days. On Monday, six Marines were killed in clashes with insurgents in Haditha, and a seventh was killed by a car bomb blast in Hit.
Last December, 22 people including 14 U.S. servicemen were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mess hall at a military base in the northern city of Mosul. That was the deadliest attack on a U.S. installation since the war began.
Wednesday's blast was the deadliest roadside bomb attack against American troops.
At least 1,800 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. In the past month, more than 60 have died, many of them in Anbar. U.S. forces have launched two major offensives around Haditha since May to try to crush insurgents.
AMERICAN JOURNALIST KILLED IN BASRA
In Basra, an American journalist was found shot dead a few days after he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times criticising the spread of Shi'ite Islamist fundamentalism in the southern Iraqi city.
Witnesses said Steven Vincent and a translator were kidnapped by gunmen after leaving a hotel on Tuesday evening. His body was found later that night, a U.S. diplomat said.
More than 40 foreign and Iraqi journalists have been reported killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
"An investigation has been launched to determine who was behind this," said the U.S. diplomat.
A nurse in a Basra hospital said Vincent, a freelance investigative journalist and art critic from New York City who had been working in Basra for several weeks, was shot three times in the chest.
Reuters photographs from the morgue showed a red cloth around Vincent's neck and plastic handcuffs on his wrists, suggesting he had been blindfolded and bound. "Steve, Hay al-Rebaat," said an Arabic tag identifying Vincent and the area of central Basra where his body was found.
His Iraqi translator, Nouriya Ita'is, was hit by two bullets in the chest and two in a leg but was in stable condition, her sister said.
The New York Times opinion piece criticised the failure of British forces to clamp down on what Vincent described as a city that was "increasingly coming under the control of Shi'ite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream ... to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr".
The article also focused on the Basra police force, quoting a police lieutenant as saying a few officers were behind hundreds of assassinations each month, mostly of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party.
© Reuters 2005
Wednesday, August 03 2005 @ 09:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time
The US Embassy in Bagdat (Baghdad) has confirmed the killing of American journalist Steven Vincent.
Embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell said he could confirm that the body of Vincent has been found.
The Embassy has also made contact with Iraqi officials in Basra and British Army officials to discover the identity of the killer.
Vincent was shot and killed last night on Al-Istiklal road in Basra and his translator Nur Veidi was seriously injured say Iraqi Police, adding that Vincent had been in Basra for a few months.
14 Marines, Civilian Interpreter Killed in Iraq IED Attack
American Forces Press Service
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq, Aug. 3, 2005 – Fourteen Marines and a civilian interpreter assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action early this morning when their amphibious assault vehicle was attacked by an improvised explosive device, military officials here reported.
The incident occurred during combat operations about two kilometers south of Haditha, officials said. One Marine was wounded in the attack.
Names of the dead are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. No other details about the attack were immediately available.
(From a Multinational Force Iraq news release.)
http://www.dod.mil/news/Aug2005/20050803_2314.html
02 August 2005
Rumsfeld Says There Can Be No Moderate Solutions to Extremism
Op-ed by U.S. Secretary of Defense
(This op-ed by Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, appeared August 1 in the Financial Times and is in the public domain. There are no republication restrictions.)
(begin byliner)
There Can Be No Moderate Solutions To Extremism
By Donald Rumsfeld
Last month Britain was twice attacked by an enemy that takes advantage of the openness of free societies to kill and terrorise from within. Shortly after the July 7 massacre, one American, summarising the sentiments of his countrymen, wrote to the British embassy in Washington: "Anyone who would attack London must not know history. The people who did this will find that while you can never have a better friend than the British, you can also never have a more fearsome enemy."
In the wake of such an atrocity it is essential that we take care in understanding what motivates -- and does not motivate -- extremists to commit mass murder. As they have in previous attacks, the extremists and their sympathisers will offer the usual empty justifications. In the past, these have included a range of real and imagined affronts going back centuries, including, but not limited to: US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia after 1991 to deter an attack by Saddam Hussein; the founding of Israel in 1948; the break-up of the Ottoman Empire some 80 years ago; the reconquest of Spain from the Moors in 1492; and the Crusades, the first of which was in 1095.
Chief among these today is the coalition's campaign against extremists worldwide and the so-called "occupation" of Muslim countries by the west. In fact, coalition forces operate in Afghanistan and Iraq at the request of democratically elected governments. It is the extremists, not the coalition, who are intentionally targeting and killing countless Muslim civilians in a series of barbaric attacks in recent months.
Some seem to believe that accommodating extremists' demands -- including retreating from Afghanistan and Iraq -- might put an end to their grievances, and, with them, future attacks. But consider that when terrorists struck America on September 11, 2001, a radical Islamist government ruled Afghanistan and harboured al-Qaeda leaders, virtually undisturbed by the international community. And Saddam Hussein tightly clung to power in Iraq, and appeared to be winning support for his efforts to end United Nations sanctions.
In reality, Islamic extremists have long demonstrated an interest in attacking Britain. In January 2003, British police thwarted a likely planned attack using ricin -- a poisonous agent -- two months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
And in the two decades before September 11, long before coalition involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq, extremists killed or kidnapped hundreds of innocent civilians in places such as Tehran, Beirut, Saudi Arabia, Berlin, New York, on ships in the Mediterranean and a jet over Scotland.
The extremists do not seek a negotiated settlement with the west. They want America and Britain and other coalition allies to surrender our principles and commitment to Muslim friends around the world. In 2002, Osama bin Laden advocated the overthrow of moderate Muslim governments. And the fantasies of al-Qaeda and its ilk to impose intolerance and indoctrination extend far beyond the Middle East. In particular, the extremists are enraged by equality for women and the freedom of expression that are the hallmarks of free societies.
Just a few days after the first London attack, an extremist accused of murdering a Dutch filmmaker over a film deemed offensive to Islam stated openly that he would kill again if given the chance. There is no "separate peace" to be had with such an enemy.
The attacks of September 11 roused a nation and a civilisation to anger and action. Since then, the extremists have lost sanctuaries and popular support in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are being hunted down on every continent by an unprecedented global coalition.
They have struck back using everything from knapsacks to cars to kill hundreds of innocent people in places such as Spain, Turkey, Kenya, Indonesia, Russia and, now, London. They seek to destroy things they could never build in 1,000 years and kill people they could never persuade.
They failed on September 11. They are failing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, knowing what we know about the British people, in attacking London the extremists have no doubt failed again.
[The writer is U.S. defense secretary.]
(end byliner)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=August&x=20050802161522EAifaS0.5645105&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
By Al Pessin - Washington
03 August 2005
U.S. military officials say the deaths of 21 U.S. Marines near the Iraqi town of Haditha this week are the result of an ongoing offensive against insurgents who use that town, and others in the area, as bases for their operations. The explosion along a roadside in the early morning hours Wednesday was the deadliest single attack on U.S. forces since December. Fourteen Marines died, along with their Iraqi interpreter, even though they were riding in an armored vehicle.
U.S. officials say such roadside bombs continue to be the insurgency's most lethal weapon. The U.S. military's deputy director for regional operations, Brigadier General Carter Ham, says while the number of such bombs is declining, they tend to be larger than they used to be and are "very, very lethal." General Ham says the insurgents are making other changes, too.
"We are seeing different techniques that are being used in an effort to counter the efforts of coalition and Iraqi security forces to protect folks while they are moving, different types of penetrators, different techniques of triggering the events," he said. "This is a very brutal, lethal and adaptive enemy."
On Monday, another U.S. Marine was killed in a bombing near the same town, and that same day in the same area six Marines died in gun battle with insurgents. General Ham reports that the series of attacks in and around Haditha appears to be related to a new offensive being conducted by coalition forces in western Iraq in traditional insurgent strongholds. The general says the troops are securing several towns along the Euphrates River northwest of Baghdad, including Haditha, and limiting the insurgents' ability to move around the area.
"Perhaps previously they may have had an opportunity to move," he said. "For example, if there was pressure in Haditha, they could perhaps move someplace else. Well, now because of the simultaneity of operations that Multi-National Force-West is conducting they don't have that freedom of movement. And I think that's one of the contributing causes to the number of direct contacts that occurring."
General Ham says additional coalition forces have been brought to the area from other parts of Iraq, and that the operation involves about 1,000 Iraqi troops as well.
Aug 3, 2005
Some 2,000 Afghan security forces rushed to an eastern province today after dozens of suspected Taliban rebels wearing army uniforms killed eight police and soldiers in an attack on a region that has been largely peaceful in recent months, officials said.
As dozens of army trucks carrying reinforcements made their way to Nuristan province, a roadside bomb exploded, killing a soldier and wounding five others, Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Mohammed Saher Azimi said.
By the time the troops reached the site of the attack in Nuristan, the militants had already fled into the nearby rugged mountains that stretch into neighbouring Pakistan, Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said.
He said that dozens of rebels had assaulted a police post in the region yesterday, sparking a gun-battle that lasted several hours and left four soldiers and four police officers dead.
A local official said the attackers were wearing uniforms of Afghanistan’s new US-trained army.
Nuristan has been spared much of the violence that has killed more than 900 people since a major upsurge in attacks in March across other eastern provinces and the country’s south. But, Nuristan does border Kunar province, where militants killed three US commandos and shot down a special forces helicopter a month ago.
Afghan and American officials have warned that attacks by Taliban-led rebels are likely to increase ahead of legislative elections on September 18 – the next key step toward democracy after a quarter century of war.
Elsewhere, gunmen shot dead an election official as he walked home in southern Helmand province’s Lashkar Gah city yesterday, provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin said.
However, Bronwyn Curran, a spokeswoman for a joint United Nations-Afghan government electoral commission, said she could not confirm an election worker had been killed.
Meanwhile, suspected Taliban rebels attacked Afghan forces in south-eastern Paktika province, sparking a gunfight that left one insurgent wounded and led to the seizure of a weapons cache, the US military said.
Afghan forces also detained two of the militants, who had opened fire on them on Monday, the US military said in a statement.
Afghan police pursued the attackers into a nearby compound, where they seized a cache of bomb-making materials, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade parts and machine gun and AK-47 assault rifle ammunition, it said.
In neighbouring Zabul province on Monday, a local Taliban commander and 29 other guerrillas surrendered to Afghan authorities as part of a government amnesty, said a spokesman for Zabul’s governor, Ali Khail.
The rebels also handed over ammunition and weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, hand grenades and rockets, the spokesman said today.
Roadside Bomb Kills 14 Marines in Iraq
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fourteen U.S. Marines were killed Wednesday when a huge bomb destroyed their lightly armored vehicle, hurling it into the air in a giant fireball in the deadliest roadside bombing suffered by American forces in the Iraq war.
A civilian translator also was killed and one Marine was wounded. The victims were from the same Ohio-based Reserve unit as six members of a Marine sniper team killed on Monday in an ambush claimed by the Islamic extremist Ansar al-Sunnah Army.
The deaths brought to 23 the number of Marines killed in the past week in fighting along the volatile Euphrates Valley of western Iraq and marked one of the bloodiest periods for U.S. forces in months. In all, 44 American service members have died in Iraq since July 24 — all but two in combat.
A Marine officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the attack occurred as troops were traveling in an armored amphibious vehicle to assault insurgent positions around a village near the Haditha dam, a longtime way station for foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq from Syria.
Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rang out and the vehicle flipped over in a fireball, he said. The surviving Marine scrambled from beneath the overturned vehicle, the officer said.
The Marines killed Wednesday were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines based in Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb, and attached to the Regimental Combat Team-2. Nine of them were from a single smaller unit in Columbus.
President Bush lamented the deaths of the 14 Marines, calling the attack a "grim reminder" America is still at war.
"These terrorists and insurgents will use brutal tactics because they're trying to shake the will of the United States of America. They want us to retreat," Bush told some 2,000 lawmakers, business leaders and public policy experts in Grapevine, Texas.
The heavy loss of life cast new attention on a longtime Marine complaint — the lack of protection provided by their armored amphibious vehicles, or AAVs. The vehicles are designed to be dropped from ships for coastal assaults. Although fast and maneuverable, the vehicles have armor plating that is lighter than those used by the Army — a critical issue in a war where the roadside bomb is the most common threat.
Moreover, American commanders have warned that while insurgent bombings have been declining in number, they have been increasing in power and sophistication. Villagers reached by telephone said the blast blew the vehicle into pieces, and a large crater could be seen nearby.
"This is a very lethal and unfortunately very adaptable enemy we are faced with," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, a Pentagon staff officer and former commander of U.S. forces in Mosul.
Marines have been fighting for months in a string of towns along the Euphrates to try to seal a major infiltration route for foreign fighters slipping into Iraq from Syria. Late Wednesday, insurgents fired two mortars at Marine positions near Haditha. Moments later, U.S. warplanes could be heard mounting counterattacks, residents said.
The Marines stepped up operations in May in hopes of pacifying the area so Iraqi military and civilian forces could assume effective control. However, government authority in the heavily Sunni Arab region is tenuous.
U.S. officials have long complained that American forces seize Sunni areas only to have Iraqi authorities lose them again to the insurgents once American troops leave. Despite those complaints, the Bush administration is talking about handing more security responsibility to the Iraqis and drawing down forces next year.
At least 1,821 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
On Wednesday, the Web site of the Ansar al-Sunnah Army posted photographs from Monday's attack on the Marine sniper team. One picture shows a bloody, battered body wearing Marine camouflage trousers. Another shows two hooded gunmen standing in front of several rifles, apparently taken from dead Marines.
In a statement accompanying the photos, Ansar al-Sunnah said the insurgents lured the Marines out of their base and ambushed them.
"The intention was to capture them alive, but they opened fire on the mujahedeen," the statement said. "The heroes slaughtered those who were still alive ... except for one, who begged the mujahedeen for his life. They captured him and he is in our hands."
At the Pentagon, Ham said no Marines were missing and believed captured.
In Brook Park, the Cleveland suburb where the battalion was based, businesses tied red, white and blue ribbons on their doors, and some had American flags hanging in the windows. A bouquet of red roses was placed at the gate of the Marine headquarters, an old brick schoolhouse.
Among the six killed Monday was Cpl. Jeffrey A. Boskovitch, 25, of North Royalton, Ohio, an aspiring police officer who planned to set a wedding date with his girlfriend when he returned home this fall.
A New York City police officer serving in the Army Reserve was shot and killed Tuesday by a sniper while guarding prisoners at the Camp Victory military base, outside Baghdad, city officials said Wednesday. Staff Sgt. James McNaughton, 27, was the first member of the police force to be killed in action in Iraq.
In Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, an American freelance writer was found dead late Tuesday — the first U.S. journalist slain in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. Steven Vincent of New York was shot multiple times hours after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint, police said.
The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded. Five gunmen in a police car abducted them as they left a currency exchange shop Tuesday evening, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
Vincent had been in Basra for several months working on a book about the city's history. In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, he wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
He quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra. He also criticized British forces for failing to curb the infiltration.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 46 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed covering the war in Iraq since March 2003. Insurgent actions are responsible for the bulk of the deaths.
The Vienna, Austria-based media watchdog International Press Institute condemned Vincent's killing and urged Iraqi authorities to conduct a speedy and thorough investigation.
The death underscored how "Iraq continues to be the most dangerous country in the world in which to work as a journalist," the group said.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press photographer Jacob Silberberg in the Haditha area, and AP writers Abbas Fayadh in Basra and M.R. Kropko in Brook Park, Ohio.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa at a news conference in Lusaka, Zambia, Wednesday Aug. 3, 2005. Mwanawas said that British citizen Haroon Rashid Aswat, who is suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden, would be deported to Britain. (AP Photo)
First Suspect in July 21 Bombings Charged
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - British police filed their first charges in the London terror investigations Wednesday, accusing a 23-year-old man of withholding information about the July 21 transit bombers.
Police say that in the week after the attack, Ismael Abdurahman of southeast London had information he knew might help police capture suspects involved in "the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism."
He was charged under antiterrorism legislation and is to attend a hearing in London on Thursday.
The charges could mark an important step forward for police seeking to build cases against the 17 people in custody in connection with the July 21 assault, in which bombs planted on three subways and a bus failed to fully detonate.
Police also are trying to uncover the larger network that may have supported those attackers, who struck exactly two weeks after four suicide bombers — also on three trains and a bus — killed 52 victims on July 7.
One of the suspected July 21 bombers, Hamdi Issac, has been charged in Italy with association with the aim of international terrorism. Britain is seeking to extradite him. Italy also has two of Issac's brothers in custody, and Britain is holding 14 suspects.
No suspects are being detained in connection with the July 7 attacks.
Police pursued international links Wednesday — to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Zambia — as they hunted for possible conspirators in the bombings and tried to determine whether the two sets of attackers were linked.
Zambia announced it was deporting Haroon Rashid Aswat, a British citizen of Indian descent, to Britain, and President Levy Mwanawasa said he was an alleged terrorist. However, it was unclear whether Britain suspected him of involvement in the London bombings.
British newspaper reports, citing security sources, have said in recent days that investigators don't believe he was linked to the London attacks. But Zambian authorities have questioned him about 20 phone conversations he reportedly had with some of the suspected bombers.
News reports have said suspects in both attacks worshipped at the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, known as a hotbed for Islamic radicals. They may have gone whitewater rafting in Wales weeks before the attacks, although The Times newspaper reported Wednesday that investigators had discounted the possibility.
Also, a Pakistani official said authorities there were trying to determine whether Ethiopian-born Muktar Said Ibrahim, a suspect in and possible ringleader of the July 21 attacks, may have been in Pakistan at the same time as two of the suspected July 7 attackers.
"Our immigration officials are checking whether he arrived here," said the official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about the investigation.
Investigators believe that any confirmation of a visit by Ibrahim to Pakistan would strengthen the theory of a link between the two groups. London's Metropolitan Police declined to comment.
Pakistan's Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi said there was no evidence that any of the London suicide bombers visited religious schools in Pakistan.
Police have also been pursuing a possible Saudi connection. The Sunday Times newspaper said Ibrahim took a month-long trip to Saudi Arabia in 2003, telling friends he was to undergo training there.
British investigators told their Italian counterparts that Issac made a call to Saudi Arabia before his arrest in Rome, according to Italy's anti-terror police chief Carlo De Stefano. Issac apparently was trying to get a number for one of his brothers, De Stefano said.
Many have questioned how Issac was able to slip out of Britain on the Eurostar train from London's Waterloo Station.
Sky News reported Wednesday that one of its journalists had traveled by train from London to Paris using a colleague's passport. The Home Office declined to comment on the report directly but said it was working closely with police on checks of those leaving the country.
In Zambia, Aswat told investigators he used to be a bodyguard for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, according to a Zambian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to communicate with journalists.
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Aswat — from the same town in northern England as one of the bomb suspects — was wanted in the July 7 attacks. The Foreign Office said only that British consular officials in Zambia were seeking a meeting with a Briton detained there.
The United States also reportedly wants to question Aswat about possible links to a plan to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - An explosion killed two people and wounded at least five others on the Asian side of Istanbul late on Wednesday, CNN Turk television reported.
It said the blast occurred in a moving car in the Pendik district of Turkey's largest city. The NTV channel said the explosion happened in a nearby rubbish bin.
Television footage showed police sifting through the wreckage of destroyed cars and ambulance workers helping the injured.
It was not clear what caused the blast and police were not immediately available for comment.
Turkey has suffered a series of bomb blasts in recent months, mostly blamed on militant Kurdish separatists. Islamic militants and far-left radicals have also been behind bomb attacks in Turkey in the past, including in Istanbul.
Five people were killed last month when a bomb struck a minibus in the popular Aegean resort of Kusadasi. Kurdish militants claimed responsibility for that attack.
Two explosions ripped through rubbish bins on Tuesday in the southern resort city of Antalya, injuring six people. A government minister said a gas leak was behind those blasts.
A recent but undated photo of killed US journalist Steven Vincent dressed in Arab garb taken in the southern city of Basra, 500kms from Baghdad. Vincent, who had been in Basra for the past two months, was killed after he was snatched yesterday evening along with his female translator, police and the US embassy in Baghdad said. The Iraqi translator was also shot twice but she survived.(AFP/File)
US journalist shot in Iraq feared rise of religious extremists
Wed Aug 3, 2:41 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - US journalist Steve Vincent, who has been killed in Iraq, was a staunch supporter of the war but a fierce critic of the United States and Britain over what he saw as the growing influence of religious extremists, especially in the Iraqi security forces.
A freelance journalist, Vincent's work was regularly published on the Internet and he also contributed articles to the New York Times, the US magazines the Christian Science Monitor and the National Review.
He was found shot dead in Basra, where he had been staying for several months to research a book on the history of the the southern port city.
In a commentary piece published in the New York Times on Sunday and titled "Switched Off in Basra," Vincent offered a scathing critique of British policy in Basra for failing to address what he saw as efforts by Shiite organisations to take control of the city.
British troops are responsible for security in southern Iraq, including Basra.
Vincent wrote that Shiite parties and clerics were populating the local police with their supporters who had "dual loyalties to mosque and state" and were enforcing religious social policies -- like dress codes -- on fearful residents.
"Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, (the British) avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination," he said. "In my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society."
Vincent's previous experience had been as an investigative reporter and art critic in New York City, where he had lived for 25 years.
Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, which he witnessed from the roof of his East Village apartment, and the start of the Iraq war, Vincent decided to travel to Baghdad.
Two trips in the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2004 resulted in a book: "In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq."
Despite the volatile security situation, Vincent spurned the security guards employed by most reporters travelling in Iraq and was known to often take taxis to interviews with his translator, Noor al-Khal.
Khal, who was kidnapped in Basra along with Vincent on Tuesday evening, was also found shot and seriously wounded.
Vincent writings expressed his support for the Iraq war as part of a broader struggle against religious extremism, but they also reflected disappointment what he saw as the failure of the occupying forces to foster genuine democracy in the country.
"Not for the first time, I felt I was living in a Graham Greene novel," he wrote in his Weblog in July.
"This about about a US soldier -- call it The Naive American -- who finds what works so well in Power Point presentations has unpredictable results when applied to realities of Iraq," he said.
Journalists who had recently met with Vincent in Basra said he had almost finished research on his second book and was thinking of taking a break in New York before returning to cover national elections in Iraq scheduled for December.
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