Free Republic

Chief, council honor Cherokee citizen killed in Iraq By Will Chavez Staff Writer TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - Fern Holland, a Cherokee citizen who was killed in Iraq on March 9, was honored by the Tribal Council during its meeting March 15. A resolution honoring her was approved by the council and read by Principal Chief Chad Smith. "Fern Leona Holland understood that she was at great risk because of her work, but expressed to her family that she loved the work she was doing and that many Iraqi women were depending upon her. "(She) was assassinated in Iraq because of her...

Iraqi cops arrested in Americans' slaying Sat Mar 13, 9:40 AM ET Chicago Tribune By Mike Dorning Tribune correspondent Coalition officials announced Friday that they had arrested four Iraqi police officers in the ambush killings of two American occupation officials on a rural highway south of Baghdad earlier this week. One of three people slain, Fern Holland, 33, was coordinating efforts to promote women's rights in the region and was well-known in the local area for her work, which is controversial with social conservatives in the Islamic country. But coalition spokesmen said the motive for the killings--the first slayings of...

  Facts Still Unclear in Civilian Employees' Deaths in Iraq By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USAAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 12, 2004 -- Clear facts have yet to emerge as the FBI and Iraqi police continue investigating the March 9 murder of three Coalitional Provisional Authority workers, two of whom were Americans who worked for the Defense Department, officials reported today in Baghdad. Despite media reports that the workers and an Iraqi translator were killed by Iraqis posing as police checkpoint guards, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Combined Joint Task Force 7, told...

BAGHDAD, March 12 -- Four men suspected in the slaying of two Americans working for the occupation authority in Iraq appear to be active Iraqi police officers, U.S. officials said Friday. The Americans, Fern L. Holland, 33, and Robert J. Zangas, 44, and Holland's Iraqi translator, Salwa Ourmashi, were shot dead around 6 p.m. Tuesday near Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Shortly afterward, Polish troops apprehended six Iraqi men riding in the victims' car and discovered that four carried cards that identified them as police, officials said.

(CBS/AP) Gunmen shot to death two Americans and their Iraqi translator south of Baghdad, and the Polish military said Wednesday that the attackers were disguised as police and stopped the car at a roadblock. The American victims were the first U.S. civilians from the occupation authority to be killed in Iraq. CBS News Anchor Dan Rather reports one of the Americans killed in the ambush was Fern Holland, 33, program manager for women's initiatives in Iraq. Holland was working with Iraqi women on the newly developed Iraqi constitution and was leading women's rights efforts in the part of the country where...