Free Republic

Foxnews Alert! Sheik Ack Heal a high value insurgent has been captured in Iraq!

OMED: Reports began to seep out late in April. There was a new and strange Portland-Iraqi connection. Not the business of the famous (and well watched) local mosque, but something truly bizarre. We ran across it on the famous internet forum, Free Republic, some text of which follows. Iraq Workers Are Promised 1000 Pct. Raise Posted on 04/23/2003 9:12 AM PDT by areafiftyone BAGHDAD, Iraq -Baghdad's self-proclaimed rulers said Wednesday they will use Iraqigovernment funds to pay all state employees their salaries this month - with a 1,000-percentraise - and took credit for advances in getting power, water and hospitals...

April 28— By Rosalind Russell BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior U.S. military commander said on Monday there was no question of releasing Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, the self-proclaimed Baghdad mayor arrested on Sunday for exercising authority he did not have."He's not going to be released. He's a criminal," Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, told Reuters in the Iraqi capital."He's broken multiple laws, from theft to intimidation," Blount said, giving no details of any charges."Right now he's in a holding center and his movements will be decided in the next few days," the general added.U.S. Central Command...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi exile who had proclaimed himself Baghdad's mayor and begun issuing directives to city workers was arrested Sunday by U.S. forces, who accused him of exerting authority he didn't have.</p> <p>Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was arrested at 5 p.m. in downtown Baghdad "for his inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," U.S. military spokesman Capt. David Connolly said in Baghdad.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces on Sunday arrested an Iraqi exile who had proclaimed himself Baghdad's mayor, saying he was exerting authority he didn't have. Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was arrested at 5 p.m. in downtown Baghdad "for his inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," said U.S. military spokesman Capt. David Connolly, speaking in Baghdad. Soldiers arrested seven others found with al-Zubaidi, Connolly said without identifying them. Al-Zubaidi, who has cast himself as a volunteer to help Iraq (news - web sites) get back on its feet, never discouraged widespread rumors that...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - The retired U.S. general overseeing Iraq's reconstruction promised Thursday to remove Baghdad's self-proclaimed mayor if residents of the capital rejected him. But Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, who declared himself the city's new administrator earlier this month, met aides he has appointed to run Baghdad's public services and toured hospitals and water plants, undaunted by the threat from the general, Jay Garner. Zubaidi has appointed 22 committees to function in place of ministries, including health, education, water, electricity, oil and industry. Garner, put in charge of rebuilding Iraq by the United States after the three-week war that ousted...

<p>American forces in Iraq have captured a former spymaster believed to know about Iraqi espionage in the United States. In Baghdad, U.S. officials warned the self-proclaimed "mayor" not to arm his followers and conferred Thursday with civic leaders on how to restore order.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq -Baghdad's self-proclaimed rulers said Wednesday they will use Iraqi government funds to pay all state employees their salaries this month - with a 1,000-percent raise - and took credit for advances in getting power, water and hospitals back up and running. They also claimed that the U.S. Army recognizes their authority, meets with them daily and even drove them from Kuwait to Baghdad on American military vehicles. The United States said it doesn't know who they are.Amid the power vacuum left by three decades of one-man dictatorship, it remained unclear who was running Iraq, or if anyone was...

The hunt for Saddam Hussein's inner circle claimed its biggest success so far last night when American military officials announced the arrest of Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi, a former Iraqi prime minister who was implicated in the suppression of Shia uprisings after the 1991 Gulf war. Mr Zubaidi, accused of masterminding the slaughter of thousands of Marsh Arabs, was seized at about 9.30pm local time at a house in Hillah, 56 miles south of Baghdad, by a brigade of fighters affiliated to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), working with American special forces. A former member of the Iraqi revolutionary command council,...

American governor for Baghdad says she does not recognise 'mayor' By Andrew Buncombe in Baghdad 22 April 2003 She has held some of the hardest jobs of any American diplomat, yet Barbara Bodine may be about to take on her toughest challenge yet. Ms Bodine is to become the US co-ordinator for central Iraq, assuming a position that will make her responsible for Baghdad. She arrived in the Iraqi capital yesterday with retired Lieutenant-General Jay Garner, the man who is heading the civilian administration for the entire country. She immediately placed herself at the centre of controversy, saying America did...

U.S. says does not recognise Baghdad "governor" BAGHDAD, April 21 (Reuters) - The United States does not recognise a former exile who says he is governor of Baghdad and Washington thinks his deputy cannot represent Iraq at an OPEC meeting this week, a senior U.S. official said on Monday. Barbara Bodine, coordinator for central Iraq in the U.S. civil administration supervising the country's reconstruction, said Washington did not recognise Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi. "We don't really know much about him except that he's declared himself mayor," said Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. "We don't recognise him. There hasn't been...

THE United States faced a renewed challenge to its interim authority in Iraq last night after a leading member of the exiled Iraqi National Congress appointed himself mayor of Baghdad. Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, a leading Muslim cleric who returned to Iraq last week after almost 20 years of exile in Paris and Tehran, presented a direct challenge to US forces by announcing the establishment of an interim administration to govern the Iraqi capital. Speaking at a rally in central Baghdad, Mr al-Zubaidi, the deputy leader of the US-backed Iraqi National Congress, also designated his own chief of police and appointed...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — A longtime Iraqi exile who has proclaimed himself in charge of Baghdad pledged Sunday that the country's new constitution would be derived from Islamic law and promised to try anyone whose "hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people."</p>

Ringed by US tanks and guarded by US soldiers with a very exclusive admission list, Iraq's oil ministry on Sunday appeared secluded from the disorder that reigns in the rest of Baghdad. One question nevertheless provoked a great deal of confusion: who is in charge of the world's second largest petroleum reserves? The former minister is barred from entering, as are his deputies. A man in a green suit, standing outside the barbed wire, introduced himself as Fellah al-Khawaja and said he represented the Co-ordinating Committee for the Oil Ministry, which few of the employees had heard of. It draws...