Free Republic

BAGHDAD - Among the Iraqis who have recovered bodies from shallow mass graves at the country's largest prison is the family of a retired general they say disappeared after meeting with UN weapons inspectors. "We came to this place because someone told us that he may be buried somewhere here," said Abu Haldoon, the brother-in-law of retired Air Force Gen. Engineer Ali Hussein Habib. Habib retired in 1991 after heading a team of military officers in developing Iraq's chemical weapons program, Haldoon said. In early February, UN experts searching for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction interviewed the...

BUSH CONSIDERING SANCTIONS TO PUNISH CUBA FOR CRACKDOWN ON DISSIDENTS... possibility of cutting off cash payments to relatives in Cuba; halting direct flights to the island; president to issue stern warning to Castro that U.S. will not tolerate another exodus of rafters... MORE...

<p>This is terrible and barbaric news, but not unexpected. Pray for these fallen, whoever they may be.</p> <p>March 30, 2003 -- At least one of the bodies of the four American soldiers discovered in a shallow grave was "brutalized and mutilated," Pentagon sources revealed yesterday. The corpses were unearthed in the vicinity of the "hospital" at Nasiriyah where U.S. Marines found evidence that the Iraqis had operated a torture chamber.</p>

A court in Pakistan today convicted four men of organising last year's suicide bomb attack on the US consulate in Karachi. Two of the men were given death sentences by the anti-terrorism court, with the other two sentenced to life imprisonment. A fifth man was acquitted, Reuters reported. The judge, Syed Aalay Maqbool Rizvi, found the suspected Islamic militants guilty of filling a vehicle with explosives and ramming it into the perimeter wall of the consulate during the morning rush hour on June 14 last year. Twelve Pakistanis were killed in the attack. The explosion blew in the windows of...

The summary trials and executions of three accused Cuban hijackers Friday by the Cuban government were predictably condemned across the board by Miami's Cuban exile community.But there may be a local casualty that's less obvious: moderate viewpoints among many exiles, who until Friday had been leaning closer to dialogue with Cuba.''We didn't shut the door, Castro did,'' said Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of the Cuba Study Group, a moderate exile group that encourages increased communication between Cubans on the island and in Miami.``All I'm saying is that we are not going to shut the door. Let the Cuban government shut the...

U.S. officials believe that Cuba's execution of three ferry hijackers Friday, coupled with the biggest wave of repression against peaceful dissidents in more than a decade, may be an effort to strengthen political control by the regime of President Fidel Castro in the face of growing difficulties. ''I think the guy is scared,'' a well-placed U.S. official in Washington said. It is not unusual for Castro to step up repression in times of economic or political crisis as a way of sending a strong signal to potential opponents that his regime will not tolerate any insubordination, other officials said. Indeed,...

Three men who hijacked a passenger ferry and attempted to steer it to Florida last week were executed by firing squad at dawn Friday after summary trials, infuriating the U.S. government, international human rights organizations and Cuban Americans in Miami.The men were charged with ''very grave acts of terrorism'' and sentenced at trials Tuesday, according to an official statement read on Cuban state television. The men appealed -- but the sentences were swiftly upheld by Cuba's Supreme Tribunal and ruling Council of State and carried out shortly thereafter, the statement said.No one was hurt in the hijacking, ultimately foiled by...

HAVANA (AFP) - Amid an international outcry over its crackdown on dissidents, Cuba sent a clear message to anyone who would destabilize the regime from within, summarily executing three men who tried to hijack a ferry to get to the United States. An official statement said the men were tried "with full respect for their ... basic rights," convicted Tuesday and shot dead at dawn Friday. Another four of the men involved in the hijacking of the ferry with some 40 people aboard were sentenced to life in jail, and one man to 30 years in prison. The three women...

<p>KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- More than 950 civilians have been killed in a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations confirmed Monday.</p> <p>The massacre in and around the Roman Catholic parish of Drodro, near the Uganda border, is thought to have happened last Thursday, days after warring Congolese factions signed a political settlement to end several years of conflict.</p>

HUNDREDS of bodies have been discovered in a makeshift morgue by British soldiers in what may prove the first evidence of scores of execution and torture centres across Iraq. The skulls, bundles of bone and scraps of clothing were dumped in plastic bags and row upon row of unsealed hardboard coffins in an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of Al Zubayr. Every one of the victims had been shot in the head and many had been mutilated, it was claimed. Elsewhere in the country, British troops found records of ear amputations carried out on Iraqi civilians who had...

<p>IRBIL, Iraq (AP) --  Deserters from the Iraqi army say they were beaten by their superiors and one says he saw 10 fellow soldiers executed by a commander, according to a Human Rights Watch report.</p> <p>Some of the 26 soldiers interviewed by the group said officers frequently warned of executions if they tried to escape, telling them during air strikes to stand fast and "die like men."</p>

BRIEFING: AT WAR WITH IRAQBY WORLD TRIBUNE.COM WITH MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE Day 17 — April 5, 3003See Previous Briefings: Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Saddam regime executes senior officers LONDON — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is said to have ordered the execution of several senior officers who had refused to kill Iraqi civilians in a dirty tricks operation. The Iraqi National Congress said four Republican Guard officers were executed for refusing to attack a street in Baghdad and ensure the deaths of a large number of civilians....

SOUTHERN IRAQ (Reuters) - The desiccated remains of as many as 200 people have been found by British soldiers in an abandoned warehouse in southern Iraq along with catalogues of grisly photographs of slain men. Dozens of wooden coffins piled five high in places and plastic bags full of bones filled one building in the rundown military complex near Iraq's second city of Basra, said correspondents with British forces. The Arab television news channel al-Jazeera quoted an unnamed Iraqi official in Basra as saying the remains were those of Iraqi soldiers killed in the 1980-88 war with Iran and recently...

Three Iraqis who aided the CIA in the March 20 attempt by the United States to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were executed this week by Iraqi counterintelligence, former and serving U.S. officials told United Press International. A super-secret U.S. intelligence operation, working in Baghdad for weeks before the war, provided the crucial targeting data for the attack on Saddam and his sons, launched in an effort to pre-empt a full-scale war, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The war had been scheduled to start Friday, March 21, U.S. officials told UPI. But -- after getting intelligence that...

Three Iraqis who aided the CIA in the March 20 attempt by the United States to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were executed this week by Iraqi counterintelligence, former and serving U.S. officials told United Press International. A super-secret U.S. intelligence operation, working in Baghdad for weeks before the war, provided the crucial targeting data for the attack on Saddam and his sons, launched in an effort to pre-empt a full-scale war, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The war had been scheduled to start Friday, March 21, U.S. officials told UPI. But -- after getting intelligence that...

Bill O’Riley and Brett Beher (sp) of FNC both all but 100% confirmed that at least some of the 11 bodies that were brought back from Iraqi hospital were U.S. POWs. It appears that at least some were executed. Beher at DOD did not want to go too deep into story, as “notifications” were not yet complete. SEAL and Ranger teams found two of the eleven bodies in the morgue of the hospital where PFC Lynch was found. An employee of the hospital led them to a shallow grave were another 9 bodies were found. All were returned by helicopter...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan - Two U.S. special forces soldiers were killed and another was wounded Saturday when armed motorcyclists swept down on a reconnaissance patrol in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. At least three Afghan soldiers also were wounded, a military spokesman said. Afghan officials said Taliban fighters who still are active in the area were behind the incident. The U.S. soldiers, escorted by Afghan troops, had been at the opening of a new school and hospital, built with American aid, about 200 miles west of Kandahar. The attackers escaped. It was the latest reminder that the war in...

From: Press Service By Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 29, 2003 -- The remains of American troops have been discovered in southern Iraq near where paramilitary forces loyal to Saddam Hussein have been accused by the Pentagon of executing U.S. service members after they'd surrendered. U.S. Central Command spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart told reporters today in Qatar of the situation developing in the vicinity of Nasiriyah. He said a U.S. mortuary affairs team is en route to the site. He said he couldn't tell reporters whether the remains belonged to troops who'd been...

KILL YOURSELF AND AMERICANS OR BE KILLEDDana Lewis on MSNBC is reporting that (Iraqi civillian) men with bullet holes in their heads are being found.Reportedly they are being told to conduct suicide bombings, like the checkpoint one today, or be executed. Unknown if this is related to a man threatening to blow up a Beruit bank right now strapped with explosives.

March 29, 2003 U.S. Is Preparing to Try Iraqis for Crimes Against HumanityBy NEIL A. LEWIS ASHINGTON, March 28 — Senior administration officials said today that they were collecting evidence in Iraq of war crimes including the apparent execution of Americans held prisoner and the deceptive use of white flags. The evidence will be used to prosecute Iraqis after the war in military tribunals, they said. The officials also said that they were planning for a second set of trials at the conclusion of the war that would hold Iraqi officials to account for crimes against humanity, war crimes and...