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The deadly suicide attack on a US military base in Mosul this week was an "inside job" carried out by insurgents who are part of the Iraqi armed forces, Asia Times Online has been told. Sources said a strong nexus between Iraqi forces and the resistance is what allowed them to carry out the most devastating attack on US troops since the beginning of the invasion. US forces have imposed a curfew in Mosul and have launched a military operation in the city, but, the sources say, this will have little effect on the problem, for the simple reason that...

The Defense Department released on Friday a list of soldiers who died Dec. 21 in Mosul when the dining tent was attacked. The Pentagon has said 14 members of the military were killed in that explosion, but it released the names of only 13: -Capt. William W. Jacobsen Jr., 31, of Charlotte, N.C. Jacobsen was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash. -Sgt. Maj. Robert D. O'Dell, 38, of Manassas, Va. O'Dell was assigned to the United States Army Intelligence & Security Command, Fort Belvoir, Va. -Sgt....

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Attacks like the explosion that killed 22 at a U.S. mess hall in Mosul display increasingly sophisticated planning in insurgent operations, producing dramatic assaults that exact punishing tolls, boost militants' morale and recruit new fighters. The U.S. military suspects a suicide bomber, possibly wearing an Iraqi military uniform, got into the crowded mess tent to carry out Tuesday's lunchtime attack at the Mosul base. Investigators are also trying to determine if the attacker had inside help. ``This operation is much more sophisticated than previous ones,'' Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on Muslim militants, said in a...

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has paid a surprise, morale-boosting seasonal visit to US troops in Iraq. Despite admitting "setbacks", he told soldiers they should not doubt their ability to win the war. The first three stops of Mr Rumsfeld's visit took him to the frontline in the struggle - Mosul, Tikrit and Falluja, once Saddam Hussein's top strongholds. Recent clashes in Falluja have proved the bloodiest since the invasion, while an attack in Mosul this week killed 22. The visit comes amid mounting criticism of the defence secretary, after his recent admission that he used a machine to sign...

"Moral Cowardice Prevents Winning the War Thursday December 23, 2004 "IRVINE, CA--The blame for the murder of 19 Americans in Mosul yesterday lies not only with the insurgents who initiated the attack, but also with the Bush Administration's suicidal policies, said Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute. "The insurgency would have been crushed long ago, and yesterday's attack averted, were it not for America's altruistic policy of placing the lives of Iraqi civilians above its own self-defense. "America must destroy the insurgency if we are to implement a non-threatening government in Iraq," said Dr. Brook. "This can be done, but...

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a Christmas Eve mission to cheer up the troops in Iraq, promised them that no matter how bleak things might look at any one moment they will look back on their mission with pride. "There's no doubt in my mind, this is achievable," Rumsfeld told troops in Mosul just three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here. "When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't...

MOSUL (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday took a delighted dig at the media after troops he was visiting in Iraq complained their good works were ignored by the press while disasters grabbed the headlines. A soldier at his first stop in Mosul asked Rumsfeld how the "propaganda" worked? Rumsfeld, under attack since he appeared to brush aside a question about poor equipment from a U.S. soldier in Kuwait that later turned out to have been composed with help from a reporter, jumped at the opportunity to turn the tables. "That doesn't sound like a question placed...

EVEN BEFORE THE DOCTORS had completed their evacuation of the wounded to Germany in the aftermath of the attack on the Mosul dining hall, and certainly before all the next of kin of the dead had been notified, New York Times reporter Richard Stevenson had sat down at his word processor to manufacture a story on how the attack would cripple George W. Bush's second term domestic agenda. It wasn't Tet, of course, and not even the Beirut bombing, and decent people might have allowed the dead to be buried before politicizing the Mosul massacre, but Stevenson wasn't going to...

The questions from the troops for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were considerably more friendly on his Christmas Eve visit to Iraq than they were on his previous trip to the region a couple of weeks ago. "How do we win the war in the media?" asked one soldier in Mosul. Another soldier in Tikrit wondered why there is not more coverage of reconstruction efforts going on in the country. "I guess what's news has to be bad news to get on the press," Rumsfeld responded to the first question - after supposing, with a big grin, "that does not...

MOSUL, Iraq - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a surprise Christmas Eve visit with the troops three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here, told soldiers he remained confident of defeating the insurgency and stabilizing Iraq (news - web sites), while noting that to some "it looks bleak." "There's no doubt in my mind, this is achievable," Rumsfeld, who flew here under tight security, told a couple of hundred 1st Brigade soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander's headquarters. He promised them that later in life they will look back and...

MOSUL, Iraq — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search), on a surprise Christmas Eve visit with the troops three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here, told soldiers he remained confident of defeating the insurgency and stabilizing Iraq, while noting that to some "it looks bleak."

US Marines with 2nd Battalion 5th Marines are seen as an explosion occurs in Ramadi, Iraq Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004. The troops were in the vicinity bringing food, water, and other supplies for residents of the neighborhood when the explosion occured. According to witnesses, insurgents entered the mayor's office, demanded that everyone present leave, and then set off explosive charges which ripped away half of the structure and left debris spilling out into the street.

BC-APNewsAlert,0031 MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visits U.S. troops at a base in Iraq where insurgents' attack killed 22. AP-NY-12-23-04 2124EST Will put in a link to a website when they all finally wake up...

U.S. troops were on alert at bases across Iraq on Thursday after concluding that a suicide bomber, probably in Iraqi military uniform, was behind the deadliest strike on Americans since they invaded last year. "I am concerned about ... copycat attacks," said Brigadier General Carter Ham, the U.S. commander in Mosul where the bomber killed 18 Americans and three Iraqi National Guards on Tuesday in a pre-Christmas lunchtime blast at a crowded base mess tent. "So we have to be on our best guard over the coming days, weeks and months for that kind of threat," Ham told CNN. He...

So many people are trying to make sense out of this mess hall attack in Mosul yesterday. I had a little bit of an opportunity to watch some of the coverage yesterday morning. And I had an opportunity, obviously have had an opportunity to watch some of the coverage today. I want to go back, and in setting this up, remind you of a story I told you earlier this week. I run into a lot of liberals. Let's face it, I'm a magnet for liberals and when I'm out there I run into a lot of these people and...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The suicide bomber who blew himself up in a U.S. military dining tent this week, killing more than 20 people was probably wearing an Iraqi military uniform, the U.S. general in charge of the region said Thursday. The FBI has joined investigations into how the devastating attack on the base near the northern city of Mosul was carried out. At the same time, the military is re-assessing security at bases across Iraq in light of the bomber's success in apparently slipping into the camp, entering a tent crowded with soldiers eating lunch and detonating his explosives. "The...

The U.S. military was re-examining security measures at bases across Iraq (search) on Thursday, a day after saying an attack that killed 22 people at a camp near Mosul (search ) was likely carried out by a homicide bomber who may have had inside information. The explosion on Monday at the tightly guarded U.S. base raised questions about how the attacker infiltrated the compound, which is surrounded by blast walls and barbed wire and watched by U.S. troops who search every person going in and check his identity. However Iraqis do a variety of jobs at the base, including translation,...

MOSUL, Iraq - A feature on senior soldiers in the latest AARP Bulletin shows Maj. John "Doc" Nelson, in full uniform at Forward Operating Base Marez, beneath the headline "What Are You Doing in the War, Grandpa?" Here's what: Just after noon Tuesday, ignoring the four pieces of shrapnel lodged in his back and neck, the 51-year-old chief medical officer for the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion saved an untold number of lives. Then he collapsed. "It knocked me for a loop," said Nelson, who was sitting about 15 feet from the explosion that decimated the base's huge...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq - Hunched and haggard, Sgt. Evan Byler hobbled around his camp in Northern Iraq yesterday, wondering how a suicide bomber could have infiltrated the chow hall. "It's kind of a shock that something like that was allowed" on the base, said Byler, a Fauquier County resident and member of the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion. "It is something we have been trying to prevent." "Basically, everyone is going to have to step up their alertness and have an eye out for anything suspicious. Home is coming up, but we still have a long way off." Byler...