Posted on 03/14/2006 11:00:37 AM PST by 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
good point, unfortunately our intelligence agencies are very inept and incompetent... but I would like to think someone other than you thought of it as well...
Maybe not, if they're actually redeploying out-of-area to seek other, softer targets. If so, then our presence in Iraq is devalued dramatically for our purposes of seeking more-favorable confrontations with the jihadis.
Bush has finally admitted that part of our rationale was that our presence in Iraq would act as a magnet for the most-susceptible and most-voluntary of Al Q'aeda's manpower resources, and lure them into not hard-on-soft attacks like the WTC, but hard-on-armorplated confrontations that they would for the most part lose, and in so doing die like flies. They've obliged, so far.
Maybe they've decided to abandon the attrition battle and go back to embassies and schoolyards and apartment-blocks.
Just an alternative explanation for the falloff in casualties. Which is good per se.
Partially: however it is also a result of turning over more of the patrolling responsibility to the Iraqi forces and having them participate heavily in most operations with just a small cadre of US advisers.
Reading between the lines, they have at least 421 fighters willing to take part in a huge martyrdom operation. I don't think Zarqawi is done yet!
"U.S. casualties have fallen by 60% since the October Iraqi referendum."
Thank God.
"This was their "Big Bang" in Iraq...and it fizzled."
Thank God again.
"I hope they'll soon be seen "hanging around" Baghdad."
Since Saddam's trial is not over yet, they may get to hang with him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.