*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Well, well, well.....

Hamas Appeals For Release Of French Hostages In Iraq

GAZA CITY, Aug 31 (AFP) - The radical Palestinian movement Hamas appealed Tuesday for the release of two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq, recalling France's opposition to the US-led war and its policy towards the Palestinians.

"Hamas appeals to the Islamic Army in Iraq to release the two French journalists without delay and we think that such a measure would have a positive influence on the popular French policies towards Palestine and Iraq," the movement said in a statement.

"Hamas has been following with great concern the developments over the kidnap of the two journalists who were carrying out their work which is to report on the facts." The kidnappers of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot have threatened to kill the pair unless France repeals a controversial law banning Islamic head scarves, and other religious insignia, from state schools.

Iraq's Southern Oil Exports Bounce Back To 1.8 Million Bpd

BASRA, Iraq, Aug 30 (AFP) - Crude exports from southern Iraq bounced back to 1.8 million barrels per day Monday night following several attacks on pipelines, an official from the state-run South Oil Company said. "Exports are being loaded at a rate of 75,000 barrels per hour as of this evening," the official said on condition of anonymity.

They had slumped to 800,000 bpd on Saturday following a string of sabotage attacks on southern pipelines before quickly surging back to around 1.5 million bpd.

Iraq Oil Exports Receive Fresh Boost With First Kirkuk Contract

KIRKUK, Iraq, Aug 31 (AFP) - Iraq resumed oil exports from the northern region of Kirkuk on Tuesday after securing its first post-war term contract for the crude, an oil ministry official told AFP. "Our first cargo of Kirkuk oil is being loaded," the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that he hoped to seal deals for 300,000 barrels a day in exports through term contracts.

Kirkuk oil was also being pumped at a rate of 600,000 bpd Tuesday to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan, he said. Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation had yet to set an official selling price.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Go-betweens Set Terms For Peace In Sunni Insurgent

SAMARRA, Iraq, Aug 30 (AFP) - Tribal leaders and former Iraqi army officers have presented Prime Minister Iyad Allawi with a 10-point deal for a halt to the insurgency plaguing the Sunni Muslim bastion of Samarra, a tribal source said. "On Saturday, a delegation issued Baghdad with 10 conditions for the situation to return to normal in Samarra," said Taha al-Hindira, a former diplomat and member of the al-Bubaz tribe, which is influential in the city.

"We want the bridge shut by the American army, which cuts the city in two, to reopen, arrests and the confiscation of property to stop, and an amnesty for all those already sentenced," he said. The delegation also said US troops should stay out of the city and called on the military to compensate people whose homes have been damaged in US counter-insurgency operations.

"In exchange, we promise to disarm the city" and security will remain in the hands of police and national guardsmen, he added. He said Allawi agreed in principle with the delegation's conditions, but said the US military would also have to approve the package. According to the Washington Post, Allawi has met privately with insurgent representatives, including those from Samarra, in a bid to convince them to accept an amnesty.

Although no deal has been reached so far, Allawi was quoted as saying some of the representatives are "changing horses... and taking the amnesty seriously".

 

[Barking_Mad]

Criminal charges against Chalabi 'dropped'

Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi has said that counterfeiting charges against him have been dropped. Chalabi on Wednesday said an Iraqi judge had informed him to this effect. A former US ally, Chalabi also told reporters that an arrest warrant for his nephew Salim Chalabi, who was supervising Saddam Hussein's trial, had been reduced to a summons and he would return to Iraq to face it. Salim Chalabi was accused of murder.

US troops, Iraqi security come under attack

US military convoys and Iraqi security forces have come under renewed attacks throughout Iraq, US sources have said. A US military truck convoy has come under attack on a highway west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Aljazeera has learned. One of the trucks was completely destroyed after a rocket-propelled grenade hit it. An Iraqi civilian was killed and three others were injured when an explosive device detonated in Arkhita market in Karrada area in central Baghdad, medical sources told Aljazeera.

The explosion was targeted at a US military patrol as it passed through the area. US casualties were not known at the time of publication.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Two die in Nepal protest against Iraq killings

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali police shot dead two men on Wednesday after crowds attacked a mosque in Kathmandu and charged through the streets chanting "Down with Islam" to protest against the killing of 12 Nepalis in Iraq (news - web sites). Protesters stormed inside the city's main mosque, set furniture and carpets on fire and tore up a copy of the Koran, before police drove them out. Authorities clamped an indefinite curfew on the capital and later fired on a group who gathered in downtown Kathmandu despite the ban, killing one man, an official said. Another man was killed and three wounded when police fired to break a mob trying to storm the Egyptian Embassy in Kathmandu before the curfew was imposed, the interior ministry said.....

......"We must ensure this tragic incident does not weaken the age-old fraternal ties, unity and mutual tolerance that exists among the Nepalese people," the royal palace said in a statement.

 

[Barking_Mad]

This was from Monday, Ive not spotted anything to confirm this has been confirmed since...

Radical cleric 'calls Iraq truce'

The radical young cleric is backed by thousands of armed militiamen
Rebel Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has called on his armed supporters across Iraq to observe a ceasefire, according to key aides. However, a US spokesman in Baghdad said no ceasefire had been announced.

Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia has been involved in numerous clashes with US-led forces in Iraq in recent months. A peace deal ended weeks of fighting in the city of Najaf last week, but sporadic fighting has continued elsewhere since then. One of Mr Sadr's aides, Sheikh Ali Smeisim, told Lebanon's al-Manar television: "Due to the situation in Najaf and the provinces... we call on all members of the Mehdi Army to cease fire unless in self-defence, and to be patient until the political programme which Sadr's followers are planning is revealed."

Another aide, Sheikh Naim Kaabi, said: "He has called for a halting of all military operations in Iraq, and we are studying the idea of joining the political process." Mr Sadr's aides also said he was also going to reveal plans to join the political process.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq's Universities Still Recovering

BAGHDAD, Iraq Sept. 1, 2004 — At the entrance to Baghdad's al-Mustansiriyah University, an administration building lies in ruins. Its windows are shattered, its walls charred and its broken floors are covered in rubble.
The student union and the dorms are badly damaged, and the science and computer labs remain unusable.As Iraq's universities prepare for a new school year more than 16 months after Saddam Hussein's ouster, they are still coping with the damage caused by looters who stole or destroyed more than 80 percent of the universities' infrastructure.

Minister of Higher Education Taher al-Bakaa calls the damage a "big disaster.""We will go ahead as scheduled, no doubt," al-Bakaa said. "But there's so much that needs to be done." When Mivan Abdullah returned to Baghdad University after the war, the school was a "dump," she said. "Labs were looted and burned down, classrooms were destroyed. Even the chairs were stolen," said Abdullah, who graduated this year.

Reconstruction efforts started soon after the war, but the damage was enormous and the universities' budgets were, in Al-Bakaa's words, "destitute." "For instance, the operational budget of Baghdad University, the largest in Iraq, is $2 million," he said. Nearly 70,000 students attend that university.

The Education Ministry asked for help from the government and sympathetic donor countries.......Nearly 350,000 students attend Iraq's 20 universities and 50 technical institutes. In the academic year that starts this month, the number of freshmen admissions is expected to reach 90,000. Sonia Abdel Amir, an administrator at al-Mustansiriyah, where almost 40,000 students attend, showed visitors photos of the university's empty buildings burned and pocked with bullet holes. "We were all in tears that such a beautiful place was burned down. We started cleaning and rebuilding with our own hands," she said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

British military limits patrols in Basra amid violence

LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH

BASRA, Iraq — After three deaths in as many weeks, the British army has stopped patrolling the streets of Basra despite pleas from residents to take on the Iraqi insurgents. With troops now moving only in armored vehicles on patrols not more than 100 yards from base, forces loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have stepped into the vacuum, roaming the streets with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s. Vital reconstruction has been halted, and citizens are suffering deprivations daily.

But the military insists that its strategy of waiting out daily bombardments by Sheik al-Sadr's Mahdi's Army is preferable to attacking the militia, which they say would lead to an escalation of violence and civilian deaths. Instead, they have thrown up a ring of steel around Basra with tanks guarding almost every bridge, watching for an estimated 600 insurgents who are expected to return from Najaf, where they left the Imam Ali shrine Friday......

........."These last three weeks have been very difficult for us," said a 26-year-old teacher who identified himself only as Arrif. "It is not safe to go out on the street because there are bombs and shootings. We are afraid the situation will escalate and that this will affect the economy because people cannot go to work. "The majority of Basra people want the [British] army to enter the city." Others agreed.

"People in Basra blame the British forces for this situation. They want them to deploy outside their barracks, because this would get rid of the Mahdi militia," said student Wa'il, 24. "Of course, people will be killed, but we will accept casualties if the British deploy. We need your help now to prevent these bad things."

With special forces operating in the city, the British army has gathered enough intelligence on the key leaders of the estimated 400 insurgents to "take them out if we want to," according to military sources who said any decision to retake Basra by force must come from the politicians in London. "I can understand what the Iraqis are saying, but confronting violence with violence is not going to work," said Maj. Ian Clooney, a British military spokesman in Basra. There are frequent gunbattles between the British and insurgents, who sustained losses of about 400 in the past four months.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Little bit different to this piece, bar the last paragraph.....

MoD refuses plea for more Basra troops

REQUESTS from British commanders in Iraq for reinforcements to cope with an upsurge in violence have been rebuffed because it would be too politically embarrassing at a time when the Ministry of Defence is proposing to make sweeping cuts to the armed forces. British commanders have repeatedly asked for additional forces to back up those already in southern Iraq, only to find their requests falling on deaf ears. Privately, some officers serving there believe the security threat is being downplayed by the MoD to avoid having to send out extra troops.

After three deaths in as many weeks, British forces have reduced their patrols in Basra to the limited areas around their bases to avoid further confrontations with militants. Some senior officers are unhappy that they do not have enough troops to bring the situation under control. They are barred from speaking out publicly but one former senior officer with recent experience of the situation in southern Iraq said there was mounting frustration with the MoD........

........But yesterday Captain Donald Francis, spokesman for British forces in Basra, said he was unaware of any requests from senior officers for additional troops, and he said the difficulties were easing. "The situation in Najaf has calmed down and similarly in Basra," he said. "It is a full vindication of our tactics."

 

[laptop]

confronting violence with violence is not going to work

 

[pbman]

Good news guys peace has broken out everywere.

But iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=515&u=/ap/20040829/ap_on_re_af/war_and_peace_1&printer=1

The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television screens worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers report.

In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number.

"International engagement is blossoming," said American scholar Monty G. Marshall. "There's been an enormous amount of activity to try to end these conflicts."

For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.


The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a 2004 Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication, says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.

*****************************

You can now get back to your doom and gloom.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Seems peace hasn't broken out in Falluja.....Delusion is a speciality of the Peebster.

More than 12 die in Falluja raid

More than a dozen Iraqis have died in a US air strike on the city of Falluja, hospital officials have said. Reports put the death toll between 14 and 20 including children and a woman. At least six people were injured. US officials say the strike was aimed at followers of the wanted militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mr Zarqawi has been accused of leading the violent Sunni Muslim resistance to the US-led coalition in Iraq and the interim Iraqi government.

..........

The AFP news agency says two buildings were destroyed when a US fighter jet hit a target in the southern Jubail district of Falluja on Wednesday night. "We have received 17 dead people and six wounded, several in serious condition", said Doctor Seifeddin Taha, from the Falluja general hospital. "All the wounded are families. Among the dead, there could be two or three children but the bodies are torn to pieces and it's difficult to tell," he told the AFP news agency.

 

[pbman]

Seems peace hasn't broken out in Falluja.....Delusion is a speciality of the Peebster.

More than 12 die in Falluja raid

I excluded iraq.

TRy reding next time.

The important thing is that world wide, war death is at its lowest since ww2.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I excluded iraq.

So why are you posting it in the Iraq forum?

Try reading next time - *IRAQ: latest news and developments

It's not difficult, even for someone of your mentally limited capability.

 

[pbman]

So why are you posting it in the Iraq forum?

Try reading next time - *IRAQ: latest news and developments

It's not difficult, even for someone of your mentally limited capability.

Clealry it showes our iraq policy is having an effect on the rest of the wolrds dodgy leaders.........none of them are starting new wars.

Peole tend to behave, when their is a sheriff in town.

Do the math.

 

[Barking_Mad]

What a load of tosh, take your pseudo-politics elsewhere, don't derail this thread.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Anyway, back in the real world......

Turkey Signals Possible Military Action Against Kurds in Iraq

The Turkish government hinted Sept. 1 that it may send troops into Iraq to fight Turkish Kurd rebels there. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters here that Turkey would do “whatever its security required.”

“The United States is not yet in a position to launch a military operation against the [rebel group] PKK,” Gul said in an apparent sign of growing Turkish impatience with the United States. “We shall not proceed by relying on another country. We know how to deal with our enemy.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Militia Disarmament Talks Stumble Over Access Of U.S. Troops To Sadr City

BAGHDAD, Sept 2 (AFP) - Talks between radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's office and the Iraqi government broke off Thursday over a demand by the firebrand Shiite leader's camp for US troops to be blocked from entering its Baghdad bastion. "The government had been responding positively and we were about to reach a final deal after all points were settled but one point of disagreement remained," Sadr aide Sayed Ali al-Yasseri told AFP.

"We want coalition forces should stay in their bases and not enter the city. In order to show we are not against the government, we accepted coalition forces could enter the city for reconstruction purposes or when they are asked to do so by the government," he added.

"But it was over that point the talks were suspended by the government," Yasseri said.

Huge Explosion On Iraq - Turkey Oil Line, Pumping Seriously Affected

KIRKUK, Iraq, Sept 2 (AFP) - The strategic northern Iraqi oil pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was ablaze Thursday after a huge explosion, which is seriously affecting oil exports, an Iraqi oil official told AFP. "We have received news of a huge explosion, seriously affecting the pumping of oil," said Northern Oil Co. (NOC) engineer Aidin Abdullah, head of the state firm's production and control department.

A bomb exploded at 6:30 pm (1430 GMT) on a road next to the pipeline near the town of Riyadh, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Kirkuk, said Major General Anwar Hamid Amin of the Kirkuk national guard unit. The huge blaze had blocked the road. A second bomb was found five kilometres away from the first, but it failed to explode, Amin said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Think tank paints bleak picture of Iraq's future

Thursday, September 02, 2004

By John Daniszewski, Los Angeles Times

LONDON -- Iraq will be lucky if it manages to avoid a breakup and civil war, and the country can become the spark for a vortex of regional upheaval, a report released yesterday by Britain's highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs has concluded.

In a bleak assessment of where Iraq stands nearly 18 months after the launch of the U.S.-led war to depose former President Saddam Hussein, the institute's Middle East team focused on the internal forces dividing the country and the danger that external pressures could make the tendency even worse. The report noted that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had called attention to the possibility of civil war during his visit to Iraq in February. "His warnings should be heeded," it said.

At most, the report suggested, the United States and its allies can hope for a "muddle through" scenario, holding the country together but falling short of their original goal: creation of a full-fledged democracy friendly to the West. The United States will have to keep all of Iraq's factions "more or less on board" through a combination of clever diplomacy and military restraint, it said, while avoiding any hint of U.S. interference in upcoming elections.

The fragmentation of Iraq is the "default" scenario, the report said, and would occur if U.S.-led forces were to pull out of the country too quickly or if the U.S. government were to impose its vision on the country too rigidly.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Press reports say the two French hostages have been released.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Around 3,000 people killed, 11,600 injured in Iraq over the last four months

BAGHDAD, Sept 3 (KUNA) -- The Iraqi health ministry announced on Friday that 2,956 people were killed and 11,669 others were injured due to clashes and terror attacks in several Iraqi cities over the last four months.

A well-placed source at the ministry told the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) the victims fell during the period from April 5 to August 31 this year.There are 157 women and 125 children among the killed, while 508 women and 310 children were injured during this period.

A total of 829 people including 57 women and 42 children were killed in the capital city, Baghdad alone, while the injured totaled 4,652 including 241 women and 151 children. In the Moslem holy city of Najaf, 528 people were killed including nine women and three children, while 2,039 others were injured including 37 women and 27 children. The case was worse in the Anbar governorate, to which the cities of Falluja and Ramadi belong; there were 620 persons killed including 33 women and 53 children and 1,441 injured including 88 women and 67 children.

Protestors dare Americans to fight in Fallujah

A Sunni Muslim insurgent leader in the strong Sunni bastion of Fallujah Friday challenged American troops to fight to the death as angry demonstrators protested the latest US air raid on the town. "This war will be over, only with their dead bodies or ours, and, if they want it like this, welcome to death," said Sheikh Abdullah Junabi, who heads the Mujahedeen (holy warriors) consultative council that effectively rules the town. Junabi was cheered by a crowd of several hundred demonstrators, still furious at Wednesday night's US air raid on Fallujah that killed 20 people.

"Air strikes are cowardly. Get down and face us on the battlefield," the crowd chanted.

Iraqi Police Fire Warning Shots Near Kufa

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police fired warning shots and barred vehicle traffic leading to Kufa on Friday, fearing an outbreak of violence as hundreds of worshippers descended on the holy city for the first weekly prayers since radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr relinquished control of its revered shrine under a peace deal.

........

Also Friday, firefighters fought a massive oil pipeline fire that raged in Riyadh about 40 miles southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, a day after saboteurs detonated explosives Thursday on the line linking fields near Kirkuk with the oil refinery of Beiji, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin of the Iraqi National Guard.

Al-Sadr aides initially said the cleric planned to give a Friday sermon at the Kufa mosque, but he later abandoned the idea amid fears that it could exacerbate tensions. Iraqi police and national guardsmen set up checkpoints, barring all cars from entering the city and limiting the number of worshippers allowed in. Nevertheless, some 700 people gathered around the shrine.

Ahmed al-Shaibani, an al-Sadr aide, accused police forces of arresting dozens of the cleric's followers in Kufa and the nearby city of Najaf, which was devastated by three weeks of bitter fighting between U.S. forces and al-Sadr's Mahdi militia that ended last week.

 

[Gumbert]

got this via email, might be of interest to subscribers of this thread...



If you want to receive these Iraq Occupation Focus newsletters regularly please subscribe directly at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus.

 

[oi2002]

Think tank paints bleak picture of Iraq's future

Just read the report its long but very useful.

 

[Gumbert]

got this via email, might be of interest to subscribers of this thread...



If you want to receive these Iraq Occupation Focus newsletters regularly please subscribe directly at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus.

not trying to derail the info service or anything though barking..

<kicks self>

too many lazy gits anyway innit?!

 

[jeff_leigh]

Press reports say the two French hostages have been released.

i think those reports could be a little premature

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9BC9754A-4596-4426-8D91-01DA6E6647AA.htm

yeah the good old yanks come through again

 

[Barking_Mad]

US soldiers killed in Iraq ambush

A number of US soldiers have been killed in an ambush on a military convoy on the outskirts of Falluja in Iraq, a US military official says. One report suggests up to six troops were killed and several more were hurt in what may have been a car bombing.

Falluja, 65km (40 miles) west of Baghdad, has witnessed some of the strongest resistance to US-led forces. US troops have not patrolled the city since April after a three-week siege there in which hundreds died.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Reuters: Roadside Bomb Blasts Kill 3 U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad

Separate roadside bomb attacks around Baghdad have killed three American soldiers, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

Four Iraqi National Guard soldiers killed

Four Iraqi National Guard soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded after gunmen had attacked their patrol on the road leading to Baghdad International Airport west of the capital

Warplanes hit Fallujah targets after death of 7 marines

U.S. warplanes conducted air strikes on the Iraqi flashpoint city of Fallujah, following a car bomb attack that killed seven U.S. soldiers and three members of the Iraqi National Guard.

Unmanned U.S. spy aircraft crashes in Iraq

An unmanned U.S. spy aircraft crashed Monday in Fallujah, spreading debris over the southern corner of the city, witnesses said.

Former reserve colonel criticizes Iraq war

The Iraq war was a mistake and as long as it continues to use up military resources the United States will be increasingly less safe, says a recently retired colonel who commanded West Virginia's largest Army Reserve unit, which served in Iraq and Kuwait.

Pipelines hit in northern Iraq

SABOTEURS set ablaze a vital oil pipeline between the Iraqi city of Kirkuk and Turkey today, just a day after the fire that had halted all northern crude exports had been extinguished, an oil official told AFP.

50 including 28 cops killed in Iraq

At least 50 people were killed in one of the bloodiest days since Iraq regained its sovereignty, as police suffered heavy losses in two separate incidents and clashes raged between US forces and insurgents.

Oil Pipeline Watch: 108 and 112

August 30 - blast on internal oil pipeline in the southeast New Baghdad district...September 4 - attack at 8:30am at Hartha, 19 miles (33kms) north of Basra, on southern pipeline that supplies oil to the Hartha electrical plant

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Dead in Iraq currently stands at 996.

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq attacks

Tue 7 September, 2004 09:38

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas have attacked U.S. troops in Baghdad's sprawling Shi'ite Sadr City slum district with rocket-propelled grenades, killing one soldier and wounding two, the U.S. army says.The attack followed four separate roadside bomb blasts on Monday that killed four U.S. soldiers.

33 die in Baghdad clashes

At least 33 people were killed overnight as US troops engaged in a fierce battle with militants in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. In a separate attack, gunmen attempted to assassinate the city's governor. In the Sadr City area of the Iraqi capital, the US military reported fighting between troops and militants loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The health ministry said 33 people had been killed and 193 injured in the fighting. Brian O'Malley, a US army captain, said several American soldiers had been injured. Capt O'Malley said the fighting had erupted when militants attacked US forces carrying out routine patrols in the area. "We just kept coming under fire," he said. Residents said loud explosions and gunfire could be heard across Sadr City last night and clashes had spilled over into this morning. The renewed fighting followed several days of calm in the impoverished neighbourhood after Mr Sadr last week called on his followers to end the fighting and announced he was considering entering politics.

British tread softly to win the peace

nday September 5, 2004

For almost all last month, McCarthy and 200 other men of B Company, First Battalion, The Cheshires, were under siege as their compound in the centre of the southern port city of Basra came under continuous attack. Rockets smashed through walls, mortar rounds thumped into hot sand. Elsewhere in Basra, four British soldiers died. A unit in Amarra, 200 miles north, suffered 30 per cent casualties.

According to The Cheshires' commanding officer, Lt-Col John Donnelly, the fighting in August was more intense than any during the war last year. 'We fired more rounds, killed more people and took more casualties,' he told The Observer.

'If there's a man on a corner with an RPG, I can shoot him and someone else will just take his place,' said Donnelly. 'Military force has to be part of a broad strategy.' A young corporal boasted that at least half his squad had basic Arabic. 'The Yanks will just start shooting. We know better,' he said.

A major part of 'consent winning' is a series of aid programmes. Millions of pounds from British taxpayers have been pumped into 'rapid impact projects', such as one that has brought fresh drinking water to 9,000 people.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US dead now stands at 998. Iraqi dead, unknown - but between 15,000 and 60,000 according to various estimates.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US dead now stands at 1003 with 24 dead in September.