US Commander: Insurgents Driven from Tal Afar in Northern Iraq
US Marine, left, patrols with soldiers of Iraqi Army in streets in Iraq.
By Meredith Buel - Washington
27 January 2006
A senior U.S. military commander in Iraq says coalition and Iraqi forces have driven insurgents from the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, and that reconstruction of the area is well under way. Army Colonel H.R. McMaster made the remarks during a teleconference from Iraq.
Colonel McMaster says when his forces first arrived in northern Iraq last May, insurgents, including foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists, had choked the life out of the region by conducting systematic attacks throughout the area.
McMaster says many of the insurgents infiltrated the city of Tal Afar, which lies about 60 kilometers from porous Syrian border.
"What the enemy really needed to do is intimidate the population in the area, to give them safe-haven so people would be afraid to cooperate with our forces or Iraqi security forces trying to bring security to the area," he said. "They also hoped to incite sectarian violence, which they did by collapsing the police force, turning the police force, in effect, into a sectarian militia that further fed the cycle of sectarian violence."
A turning point came last September when, for the first time, U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces took the lead in a major military operation against insurgents in Tal Afar.
Colonel McMaster says the Iraqi army and police forces backed by U.S. troops successfully drove most of the foreign fighters out of the area.
"As a result of our combined efforts with Iraqi security forces, some brave Iraqi leaders, soldiers and police I am happy to report to you that the situation in Tal Afar, and in western Niniweh, has fundamentally changed," he added. "What we have been able to achieve there together alongside our Iraqi brothers is to bring life back to this area, to rekindle hope."
Colonel McMaster says the success at Tal Afar means that a major staging area has now been taken from those dedicated to the defeat of coalition forces and the new Iraqi government.
"This was an important physical defeat for the enemy because they lost this safe haven and support base in an area they hoped to use to destabilize the northern region of Iraq," he explained. "It was also a very important psychological defeat to the enemy, because people now understand that these anti-Iraqi forces want Iraq to fail."
Colonel McMaster says basic services, such as water and electricity, have now been restored in Tal Afar, and people in the city feel safe to move around the region.
He says in the recent Iraqi elections some 90 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
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US to Review Aid to Palestinians if Hamas Runs New Government
By David Gollust - State Department
27 January 2006
The Bush administration said Friday it will review all aspects of the U.S. aid program to the Palestinians if, as expected, the militant Islamic group Hamas controls the next Palestinian government. U.S. law bars provision of any funds to terrorist organizations.
Officials insist the aid review is not a threat, or punishment for the Palestinian people for voting for Hamas, but rather a requirement under laws barring U.S. aid to terrorist organizations.
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the review will apply to all facets of U.S. aid to the Palestinians that last year totaled nearly $400 million.
The United States has traditionally been the single-largest aid donor to the Palestinians, most of it in past years channeled through non-governmental organizations and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which assists Palestinian refugees.
Spokesman McCormack said the United States and other governments recognize Palestinian needs, but that the probable emergence of a Hamas-run government poses a unprecedented dilemma for donors:
"The international community understands that the Palestinian people have humanitarian needs," he said. "They are poor people. But let us be very clear: the law and policy of the United States is that we do not provide funding, money to terrorist organizations. Hamas is a terrorist organization. So if any future Palestinian government wishes to engage in peaceful development, that must take place at the international level in the context of the requirements of the international community."
The spokesman said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will discuss the aid issue and other implications of the Hamas election victory in a meeting of the Middle East "Quartet" - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - next Monday in London.
McCormack said U.S. officials hope to reach a "common understanding" with the European Union on how to proceed on the aid issue, though stressing that any decision to follow the United States' lead with a review is for the Europeans to make.
Rice held a telephone conference call with her Quartet partners Thursday, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The four parties, sponsors of the international "road map" to Middle East peace, said in a joint statement later that there is a fundamental contradiction between armed group and militia activities and the building of a democratic state.
They said the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires all participants in the democratic process to renounce violence and terror, accept Israel's right to exist, and disarm as outlined in the road map.
Spokesman McCormack gave no time-frame for the U.S. aid review and said the United States will continue dealing with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and, at least for the time-being, with the caretaker Palestinian cabinet.
Administration officials from President Bush on down have made clear since the election outcome became apparent that there would be no change in the policy of refusing to deal with Hamas.
Last year's U.S. aid to the Palestinians included a one-time payment of $70 million to the Palestinian Authority to help it deal with a financial crisis and pay long-overdue electricity bills to Israel.
The current aid program totals more than $230 million, more than a third of that for the U.N. refugee agency. Spokesman McCormack said only part of this year's money, for the 2006 fiscal year, has actually been delivered and spent.
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