*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

..........

Halliburton staff killed in Mosul
FOUR employees and three subcontractors of KBR were among those killed in an attack on US forces in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, parent company Halliburton said today.

Rare Pneumonia Found Among U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
A rare and sometimes deadly pneumonia has hit 18 U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq, and Army medical investigators are at a loss to explain the cause, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Turk PM Urges Bush to Act on Kurd Rebels in Iraq
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged President Bush to act against Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq during a telephone call on Tuesday, Turkish officials said.

Mystery surrounds fate of five Jordanian drivers arrested in Iraq
The fate of five Jordanian truck drivers arrested in Iraq on suspicion of carrying weapons remained unclear Tuesday, with a union leader saying they had been released and officials denying that.

Saboteurs hit north Iraq oil pipeline complex
Saboteurs have set a complex of oil pipelines ablaze in northern Iraq but exports on the line had already been halted by a separate attack at the weekend, oil officials and witnesses said on Tuesday.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Majority of US Public now believe US war in Iraq wasn't worth it.

56% say the cost of the Iraq conflict outweighed its benefits.
A slight majority believe the war has contributed to the long-term security of the US.
70% say these gains have come at an "unacceptable" cost in military casualties

Source: ABC News/Washington Post (20 Dec 2004)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4117245.stm

 

[Gumbert]

Hhmmmm...

So just over eighteen months in... eighteen months too long mind.

and the iraqis are opposed to these elections next month. 'The road is so foggy foggy...'

 

[Barking_Mad]

Couple of things from this article

Water treatment plants not working in Fallujah, ICRC spokesman says

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Water purification plants in Fallujah remain out of use after last month's U.S.-led offensive that left the city in ruins, and any displaced families that return will depend on mobile tanks, a Red Cross spokesman said Wednesday.

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross said they visited Fallujah for the second time Tuesday to assess the humanitarian situation there. Their first entry to the devastated city was on Dec. 7.

The director of the Fallujah water board told the six-member, all-Iraqi team that none of the four water treatment plants in the city are operational, said Ahmed Rawi, an ICRC spokesman.

``Most of them have been bombed or damaged because of the military operations,'' Rawi said. ``In the future, when the people return they will be served by mobile tanks that are placed in several areas in the city.''

Last week, Iraq's interim Cabinet announced that residents of Fallujah who were displaced by November's bloody U.S.-led campaign to retake the city from rebels, will start returning to their homes. Most of Fallujah's 300,000 inhabitants fled the city ahead of the campaign to uproot insurgents based there.

In the first visit, Red Cross officials did not inspect a potato warehouse where the U.S. military says bodies of insurgents were sent to be prepared for burial. The ICRC had been wanting to inspect the site to verify the death toll. The U.S. military claimed that 1,200 insurgents died in the fighting. No civilian casualty figures have been released.

On Tuesday, the group visited the former potato chip factory on the outskirts of the city. ``We were told by the American army the warehouse is now empty. We headed there ... (and) the store was truly empty,'' Rawi said. ``We saw many rooms with traces of blood and the odor indicated that the place housed bodies.'' It was not immediately clear where the bodies were buried and the ICRC said it is following up on the issue.

 

[Barking_Mad]

The End Of Warfare

Against the most heavily armed opponent in the history of War, Fallujah has still not let itself be "taken" to date. The mightiest military machine in history has met its match. A turning point in military affairs? The end of warfare, as practiced by the Americans - the application of overwhelming force to obtain a victory?

Fallujah per se, on the face of it, is not a strategic or a militarily significant target. It however represents the "great challenge" to the US/UK's military occupation of Sovereign Iraq since April 2003.

In the first siege of Fallujah in April 2004, the Iraqi Resistance inflicted a severe defeat on the Americans. In April 2004, while over 1,200 Iraqis were killed, blown up, burnt or shot alive by the Americans -- two thirds of them civilians, mostly women and children -- while 2,000-pound bombs were falling on the the city, AC-130 Spectre gunships were demolishing entire city blocks in less than a minute and of course silence of the plop as Iraqis targeted by marine snipers hit the ground, nonetheless the operative portion remains: the Marines were beaten back in no uncertain terms. This was followed by a "truce".

The truce did not hold for very long.

This humiliation of the American military was spun as a "strategic retreat" but the desire to get rid of the "weeping sore that Fallujah was" has been on top of the US agenda since then. Fallujah represented a "stellar act of defiance" one that allowed the resistance to "actually secure and control a city, and to beat off the US military"

The second formal large scale assault on Fallujah (Nov./Dec 2004) pitted images of the world's most powerful military force against fighters in tennis shoes, wielding homemade rocket launchers. There were three declared tactical objectives. The first was to either kill or capture the Jordanian born "terrorist" "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" (if indeed he exists) and to "battle and destroy some 4000 to 5000 suspected fighters". The Americans also vowed to "liberate" the residents of Fallujah from "criminal elements" and to "secure Fallujah" for the January elections. Lastly, it appears an additional declared tactical/political objective of the American Military's task was to engage in a "fight of good versus evil". Additionally it appears (presumably per their intelligence reports) that the mission also was to "destroy" "Satan" since it appears that "he lives in Fallujah"

On the face of it, it appears as if none of these tactical/military objectives have been met, including, it appears, the desire to presumably meet Mr Satan, resident of Fallujah.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US troops sweep Mosul after blast

Mosul's governor banned the use of all five bridges into the city, and said anyone breaking the order would be shot. Hundreds of US troops spread around neighbourhoods on Wednesday, backed up by Bradley fighting vehicles as helicopter gunships and fighter jets flew overhead. "We are conducting offensive operations to target specific objectives," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings.

City streets were deserted, with shops and even mosques closed, residents in the city of two million - and Iraq's third largest - said. "Students went to school but were told to go home. People went to the shops, saw American troops in the streets, and went home," a resident told Reuters news agency. Munitions experts sent from Baghdad were "in the middle of" determining what caused Tuesday's explosion, said Lt Gen Thomas Metz, the commander of the US-led forces in Iraq.

"If it was a bomb, I think they'll be able to figure out the size and the kinds of materials that were put into it," he told CNN. Mosul has experienced a wave of violence since last month's offensive on the former rebel stronghold of Falluja. Insurgents have overrun police stations in the city, prompting most of the police force to desert.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Agencies warn Bush that U.S. isn't defeating Iraq insurgents

WASHINGTON — The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department have warned President Bush that the United States and its Iraqi allies aren't winning the battle against Iraqi insurgents who are trying to derail the country's Jan. 30 elections, according to administration officials. The officials, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity because intelligence estimates are classified, said, however, that the battle in Iraq wasn't lost and that successful elections might yet be held next month.

But they said the warnings — including one delivered this week to Bush by CIA Director Porter Goss — indicated that U.S. forces hadn't been able to stop the insurgents' intimidation of Iraqi voters, candidates and others who want to participate in the elections.

"We don't have an answer to the intimidation," one senior official said.

Nor have the United States and interim Iraqi government been able to find any divisions they can exploit to divide and conquer the Sunni Muslim insurgency, the intelligence reports say. The elections are key to U.S. strategy in Iraq, and Bush and his team have insisted that they proceed as scheduled. Bush and other top White House officials have steadfastly predicted the insurgency will fail, even as they have acknowledged lately that violence is rising.

"The terrorists will do all they can to delay and disrupt free elections in Iraq, and they will fail," Bush told cheering Marines last week in Camp Pendleton, Calif.

But several of the officials said a vital effort to woo Sunnis, who held privileged status under Saddam Hussein and are now leading the insurgency, hasn't borne fruit. "It all boils down to the aura of the former regime. I think there are a lot of people sitting on the fence. They don't want to be seen as collaborating," one defense official said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Destroyed Fallujah "Uninhabitable"

Iraq's Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) has ruled out the return of Fallujah evacuees to their homes during the coming days, dismissing statements by the interim government, due to wide scale destruction caused by the US military campaign that rendered the city "uninhabitable". A statement issued Monday, December 20, by the interim Iraqi government, said that displaced Iraqis will start returning Thursday, December 23, to Fallujah, which was virtually abandoned by its residents ahead of last month's massive US assault to regain control of the city from resistance fighters.

.......On the ground, the sufferings of Fallujah displaced and evacuees have critically escalated seven weeks after being forced to leave their hometown. The sufferings are manifested in severe shortage of foodstuff, medical requirements and services as well as the freezing cold, featuring Iraq's winter. In an exclusive statement to IslamOnline.net Tuesday December 21, AMS secretary general, Sheikh Hareth Suliman Al-Dari said, "Fallujah is completely destroyed and sabotaged. It has become uninhabitable with no water, electricity or wastewater facilities."

"The rotten smell of the dead is widespread and smokes of internationally banned weapons [used by the US occupation] cover its sky. So, I don't think they will return to it even if the occupation forces depart. They will probably be back in months or even years", Al-Dari resumed. Thousands of evacuees suffer severe difficulties due to the impossibility of accommodating them in the camps that have been established by some charities; a matter that led many of them to gather in schools. Mosleh Al-Gamily, a secondary school teacher who took refuge in a camp in Ameriyat Fallujah, said, "I left Fallujah one day before the US occupation managed to control the town and headed with my nine-member family to this camp."

"We receive aids from philanthropists but feel that the interim government has done nothing to extend a helping hand. No official visited us, as if the responsibility of the government towards us has come to an end by destroying the city", he added.

 

[slaar]

Still, at least they're home for christmas, eh?

 

[Barking_Mad]

US contractor quits Iraq as violence threatens elections

...a big US contractor has pulled out of the $20bn (£12bn) reconstruction effort. According to The Los Angeles Times, Contrack International, which heads a partnership that won a $325m contract, one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, has stopped work on the project because of "prohibitive" security costs.

The deal is the largest so far in Iraq to fall victim to the insurgency. The fear is that other companies may follow Contrack's example, or decline to tender for work, further imperilling the prospects for reconstruction.

For Mr Bush * described by one visitor to the Oval Office as "distraught" by the carnage * the onrush of events could not happen at a worse time. At his press conference a day before the attack, he admitted the insurgency was "having an effect", but vowed the elections would go ahead on schedule.

Now, the attack could further undermine support for Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, widely blamed for not sending enough troops to Iraq, and for not ensuring adequate protection for those who are there. Even worse, the President's ambitious domestic agenda could be at risk if the Iraq crisis spirals out of control.

The Pentagon says it expected attacks on both US troops and Iraqi officials working with Americans in the run-up to the elections. But the attack in Mosul has nonetheless come as a dreadful shock, made even worse amid the festivities of Christmas. Some American media have suggested it could be a watershed in the unhappy history of post-Saddam Iraq.

 

[Barking_Mad]

You Break It, You Pay For It

So let's be absolutely clear: The United States, having broken Iraq, is not in the process of fixing it. It is merely continuing to break the country and its people by other means, using not only F-16s and Bradleys, but now the less flashy weaponry of WTO and IMF conditions, followed by elections designed to transfer as little power to Iraqis as possible. This is what famed Argentine writer Rodolfo Walsh, writing before his 1977 assassination by the military junta, described as "planned misery." And the longer the United States stays in Iraq, the more misery it will plan....

The failure to develop a credible platform beyond "troops out" may be one reason the antiwar movement remains stalled, even as opposition to the war deepens. Because the Pottery Barn rulers do have a point: Breaking a country should have consequences for the breakers. Owning the broken country should not be one of them, but how about paying for the repairs?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Foreign observers planning to watch Iraqi elections in Jordan

Representatives of seven nations met in Ottawa, Canada, this week to recruit international observers for the Iraqi elections and agreed to watch the vote, but from the safety of Amman, Jordan. They said it was too dangerous to monitor the balloting in Iraq, meaning that international observers are unlikely for the elections on Jan. 30 - making them the first significant elections of this sort recently with no foreign presence, U.N. officials say.

The United Nations, the European Union and many nongovernmental organizations involved in election and democracy projects are helping to organize and administer the elections. As a result, they argue, acting as monitors would be a conflict of interest. The United States, a senior State Department official said, "will have as low a profile as possible during the election."

 

[Barking_Mad]

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria. Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps acting independently - are involved in Iraq's bloody insurgency.

"Prime Minister Iyad Allawi wrote a letter to the Syrians saying he had the pictures but was not going to release them despite being under pressure from the Americans to do so," says Hassan Allawi, Iraq's newly appointed ambassador to Damascus. The ambassador said that the photographs were found in the possession of Moayed Ahmed Yasseen, also known as Abu Ahmed. He is the leader of the Jaish Mohammed group, which is composed of former Baathist intelligence personnel. One picture showed Mr. Yasseen standing beside a senior Syrian official, the ambassador said. He would not identify on the record the Syrian officials in the photos.

9 killed in Iraq suicide attack

Nine people were killed and 13 wounded yesterday when a suicide bomber rammed a car into an Iraqi forces checkpoint south of Baghdad, a National Guard officer said by telephone from the scene. The Guardsman said a suicide attacker drove his vehicle at high speed into the checkpoint, on the northeastern entrance to the town of Latifiya. Traffic was heavy at the time. The blast destroyed around five civilian cars.

US air strike on Iraqi town kills civilians

US warplanes have launched air strikes on the Iraqi town of Hiyt, west of the capital, killing six Iraqi civilians and wounding nine others. Hospital officials said a woman and child were among those wounded in the strikes which began on Monday night on the Jamaiya and al-Sinai districts on the eastern edges of the town, which lies about 170km west of Baghdad.

Aljazeera has learned that houses, shops and vehicles belonging to civilians have been destroyed in the bombing that continued until Tuesday morning. US marines based in the area had no immediate comment. Hiyt is situated in the tense Anbar province, which includes Falluja, where US-led forces launched a major offensive last month to target anti-American fighters.

 

[Barking_Mad]

A must read from a former soldier who is now a camera man for Channel 4. He filmed inside Fallujah and here are his thoughts on what went off....

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion ... but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do".

Samuel P Huntington

http://www.channel4.com/news/2004/12/week_4/fallujah.html#7

 

[Barking_Mad]

Whose war is it now?

Now Arab commentators are saying that America is fighting "Iran's war." The US invasion has, besides facilitating the creation of a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, wrecked the military power of Iraq, Iran's historic adversary. Iraqi Shi'ites aren't a monolith, and the elections could be followed by an intra-Shi'ite power struggle, alongside a broader one among Shi'ite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Sunni Kurds.

The United States is deepening the Shi'ite-Sunni divide. President Bush got his Sunni Arab proteges King Abdullah and interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar to denounce Iranian "interference" in Iraqi affairs. Also, the Americans are prodding interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi to try to put together a Sunni-dominated party to counter the pro-Iranian Shi'ite alliance.

All these are alienating America from Iraqi Shi'ites, prompting them to align more closely with Iran. If ethnic and sectarian strife splits Iraq, the Shi'ite south would be the natural ally of Shi'ite Iran. If Iraq stays in one piece, the Iranians are likely to exert influence on its politics and policies through its Shi'ite majority.

Iran isn't the only "fox" making hay from the fall of Saddam. The war has mobilized anti-American and antiregime forces in the region to an unprecedented level. Muslim guerrillas from neighboring countries have joined the Iraqi insurgency. Islamist activists have ratcheted up their campaign against Jordanian and Saudi Arabian monarchies, citing these regimes' tacit support for the US invasion of Iraq. An Arab-American friend who has returned from a tour of the region tells me that in Jordan's cafes and college campuses King Abdullah II is being "openly denounced" as America's "lackey" and "collaborator." My friend had not seen Jordanians criticize the monarchy so harshly and publicly before.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US administration living "in a fantasyland" re: Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq because, as in the Vietnam war, it failed to honestly assess facts on the ground, according to a new think tank report. The report, prepared by Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said administration spokesmen had appeared to live "in a fantasyland" when giving accounts of events in Iraq.

Cordesman, a former Pentagon official who has made several trips to Iraq, said Iraqi spies were a serious threat to U.S. operations and that there was no evidence insurgent numbers were declining despite vigorous U.S. and Iraqi counterattacks. The report was updated after Tuesday's attack on a U.S. base in Mosul which killed 22 people. Defence officials said the explosion was apparently caused by a suicide bomber, underscoring the problem of infiltrators in U.S. operations.

After the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the United States "assumed that it was dealing with a limited number of insurgents that coalition forces would defeat well before the election" of a new Iraqi government, Cordesman asserted.

"It did not see the threat level that would emerge if it did not provide jobs or pensions for Iraqi career officers or co-opt them into the nation-building effort. ... It acted as if it had years to rebuild Iraq using its own plans, rather than months to shape the climate in which Iraqis could do it," he said.

Cordesman said in the first year of the U.S. occupation, Washington "failed to come to grips with the Iraqi insurgency ... in virtually every important dimension." Under the heading "Denial as a method of counter-insurgency warfare," the report accused the United States of minimizing the insurgent and criminal threat in Iraq and of exaggerating popular support for U.S. and coalition efforts.

Washington "in short ... failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam," Cordesman wrote.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Three U.S. Marines Killed in Iraq

Iraqis look on as a passing US military humvee stirs up the dust, as they wait on the city limits to be allowed to enter Fallujah Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004, as the first of the town's 300,000 residents who fled last month's US lead offensive started returning. People are returning despite reconstruction problems, including the water purification plants which remain out of use, forcing families to depend on mobile tanks. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) Height
Three U.S. Marines were killed in action in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province on Thursday, a military spokesperson said.

The spokesperson would not say where the three were killed, but the deaths were reported as U.S. troops fought insurgents in the city of Fallujah, which is in Anbar. F-18 fighter jets dropped several bombs in the city, sending up plumes of smoke, while tank and machine gun fire could be heard to the south.

The Marines do not give details of such deaths for security reasons, fearing the information could help Iraq's insurgents.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Oil Pipeline in Northern Iraq Is On Fire

An oil pipeline in northern Iraq is on fire, reported AP. The Iraqi Ministry of Oil announced that insurgents had attacked the oil pipeline. According to witnesses, a fire erupted after an explosion. Four of the attackers were injured.

The psychological effect of this on US troops inside bases must be quite profound.

U.S.: Mosul Bomber Wore Iraqi Uniform

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The suicide bomber believed to have blown himself up in a U.S. military dining tent near Mosul this week, killing more than 20 people, was probably wearing an Iraqi military uniform, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The top U.S. general in northern Iraq acknowledged that the bomber may have gotten through the vetting process conducted by U.S. and Iraqi authorities to check the backgrounds of Iraqis joining the security services.

Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, spokesman for Task Force Olympia in Mosul, said a general officer will be flying in from headquarters in Baghdad to take over the investigation into how the devastating attack on the base near Mosul was carried out. The FBI is also participating in the probe.

"He'll initiate an investigation ...then we will be in a better position to find out what happened," Hastings said in a telephone interview.

The Ansar al-Sunnah Army, the military group that earlier claimed responsibility for the attack, issued a new statement reiterating that it was a suicide bombing.

"God enabled one of your martyr brothers to plunge into God's enemies inside their forts, killing and injuring hundreds," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site Thursday. "We don't know how they can be so stupid that until now they have not figured out the type of the strike that hit them."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Falluja Residents Returning Home

Inhabitants of Falluja are returning to their homes for the first time since the American-led assault on insurgents left much of the Iraqi city in ruins.

An initial group of 2,000 is being allowed in to inspect their homes, and decide if they want to stay.

Most of Falluja's population of about 250,000 fled November's fighting.

As residents waited, explosions shook the area followed by a huge plume of smoke. Iraqi authorities say people insist on returning despite the risks.

There are continuing clashes and unexploded mines in the streets of the city, they say.

… snip….

At US checkpoints, returning men of military age are being fingerprinted and having their irises scanned to try to ensure that no insurgents return.

… snip….

American military officials have acknowledged that returning residents will be shocked by the state of their city.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Mosul base had warning over 'attack'

US base had warning over Dec. 22, 2004 -- Three weeks before the deadly attack on a U.S. base in Mosul, commanders at the base had a warning that insurgents were planning a "Beirut"-type attack on U.S. forces in northern Iraq, ABC News has learned. The warning prompted them to take additional unspecified security measures on the base.

On Tuesday, 22 people — including 13 U.S. soldiers — were killed in an attack on the crowded mess tent at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul. The Pentagon said today the deadly attack was apparently the work of a suicide bomber.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi politician accuses U.S. of meddling on poll

BAGHDAD, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Adnan Pachachi, a leading Iraqi politician and one-time foreign minister, on Thursday accused Washington of interfering in Iraq's affairs by insisting that the Jan. 30 election go ahead on time no matter what.

Pachachi, a secular Arab leader who was foreign minister before Saddam Hussein came to power, said he found it strange that the United States and Iran -- ostensibly enemies -- both agreed that Iraq's election had to happen next month.

Sunni Arab political and religious leaders, including Pachachi, have called for a six month delay arguing that the violence sweeping the country meant a free poll could not go ahead.

"The strange thing is that America and Iran, who differ on everything, agree on one issue of holding elections on Jan. 30," Pachachi told reporters.

"It is not the business of the United State or Iran or any other country to talk about delaying or sticking to the date.

"We are very upset by such attempts as foreign states sharing their opinion in this issue. Let us try to agree among ourselves because external attempts might deter any agreement."

Pachachi, who has formed his own party called the Iraqi Independent Democrats to contest the poll, said he remained in discussion with Shi'ite political leaders about the possibility of postponing the election.

 

[laptop]

Iraqi politician accuses U.S. of meddling on poll

"The strange thing is that America and Iran, who differ on everything, agree on one issue of holding elections on Jan. 30," Pachachi told reporters.

There have been repeated reports that an early election favours the Shia majority and Sistani's mates. Which would be a reason for Iran going for it.

So why would the US? Simply on the basis that Saddam Hussein's power base was among the Sunni minority - given a leg-up into power by the Brits when the Ottoman empire crumbled - and therefore their enemy's enemy is their friend?

Drunken thought: I can recall seeing nothing on the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabism (in many ways 19th-century responses to Victorian Xtian missionaries) and Sunni and Shi'a Islam. Supporters of the general concept of "al Q" would claim these as their roots

These "militant protestantish purist" sects grew up in Sunni-ruled areas - but then they would, because those are the majority of Islam-dominated territories, simply because Sunni is the party of the Caliphate, the secular power, and the Shia'al'Ali are the partisans of the theological trend ("Shia" = Partisans, Ali = grandson of the Prophet [formula]).

All of which is to say: do the US planners have some idea Sistani and the Iraqi Shia in general are somehow anti-Bin-Laden? Do they even have thoughts this complicated?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Unrest sweeps Iraq

Three people including a tribal shaikh and a child were killed in attacks north of the Iraqi capital, the US military and local police said, as fighters shelled a police station with mortars. Shaikh Zaid Khalifa Muhsin al-Bani-Wais was killed late on Thursday as he drove through his hometown of Sadiya, 40km northeast of Baghdad, said Master Sergeant Robert Powell. Bani-Wais served on the local city council set up by US forces, Powell said, adding that the Americans considered him a "moderate"....
...

In Duluiya, 70km north of Baghdad, an Iraqi was killed and four others wounded in clashes between fighters and the national guard. And on the road between Samarra and Tikrit, a child was killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb, medics in the nearby town of Samarra said.

Meanwhile, a police station and the governor's mansion in Bahruz, just south of Baquba, were hit by small arms and mortar fire early Friday, without causing casualties, Powell said. Three Kurds working for the Kirkuk water and sewerage authority were kidnapped and a fourth wounded while they were travelling back to the city from Baghdad, said an official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

They were allegedly ambushed by fighters posing as Iraqi national guardsmen at a checkpoint up near Sulaiman Baigh, 80km south of Kirkuk, said Ramadan Rashid. Anwar Amin, commander of the national guard in Kirkuk, said a car bearing a license plate from the main Kurdish town of Arbil was also shot at, wounding some of the occupants, who were from the same family.

And in the city of Ramadi, 100km west of Baghdad, US marines reported that the local mayor's office was dynamited.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Mayors Office in Ramadi Dynamited

RAMADI, Iraq -- Elements of the 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force responded to attacks by insurgents against the city’s local government and civilians here, which may be part of a broader intimidation campaign by the insurgency in advance of the upcoming elections that are slated to occur January 30, 2005.

Dec. 22, a group of masked insurgents set and detonated at least two boxes of explosives after storming into the mayor’s office at approximately 2:15 p.m. The explosion destroyed the entire first floor of the building, which caused most of the structure to crumble. An estimated 50 to 60 windows in the surrounding area were broken as a result of the blast. There were no known casualties.

Marines from the 1st Marine Division assisted in securing the site and provided plastic sheeting and other materials to temporarily fix broken and damaged windows in local houses that were affected by the blast.

Insurgents launched three mortars into an eastern Ramadi neighborhood, injuring five children on Dec. 20 at about 3 p.m.

Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Marine Division responded to the scene to investigate the explosions. After arriving at the site of the impacts, U.S. Army medics treated two of the children for minor wounds, and the remaining three children were taken to the local hospital by their parents.

 

[bigfish]

U.S. Families of Dead Raise $600,000 for Fallujah Refugees

Agence France Presse

Friday 24 December 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...041223/ts_alt_afp/usiraqrefugees.041223173737

Los Angeles - Families of US troops killed in the offensive on the Iraqi city of Fallujah are to travel to Jordan next week with 600,000 dollars worth of humanitarian aid for refugees of the attack.

The November assault on Fallujah left 71 US military dead, according to the families, and the Iraqi government said more than 2,000 Iraqis were killed (Red Crescent estimate 6,000 Iraqi's killed bf).

"This delegation is a way for me to express my sympathy and support for the Iraqi people," said Rosa Suarez of Escondido in California.

"The Iraq war took away my son's life, and it has taken away the lives of so many innocent Iraqis. It is time to stop the killing and to help the children of Iraq," she added in a statement released by the families.

The families said with peace groups, physicians' organisations and relatives of the September 11, 2001 attacks victims, they raised 100,000 dollars in an internet appeal. Humanitarian groups such as Middle East Children's Alliance and Operation USA contributed 500,000 dollars worth of medical supplies.

The families are to fly to Amman on December 26 and hand over the supplies to humanitarian and medical workers there.

 

[someoneelse]

British soldier found dead in Iraq (probable suicide)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1273379.htm

poor bugger...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq blast kills 28 during police raid

A powerful blast has destroyed a house in western Baghdad during an overnight raid by police, flattening several nearby buildings and killing at least 28 people including seven policemen, police say.

Attacks in Iraq kill 42

At least 42 people were killed in a string of attacks on Iraqi security forces and other targets after Osama bin Laden declared fugitive Jordanian Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his "emir" in the country.

'Ghost' jet used for terror suspects

The Gulfstream V turbojet had been seen at US military bases around the world, often loading hooded and shackled suspects and delivering them to countries known to use torture, a process the CIA calls "rendition", the newspaper said

Iraqi infiltration on U.S. bases well-known

American commanders are fully aware that Iraq's insurgents exploit their policy of employing locals on U.S. military bases but insist the practice will not stop, though some security measures may be tightened.

Rebel raids hit Iraqi police, 17 killed

TIKRIT, Iraq - Insurgents killed at least 17 Iraqi policemen in a string of attacks near Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Tuesday, Iraqi and US officials said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Humvees linked to 1 in 5 U.S. deaths in Iraq

In the earliest days of the war in Iraq, an enemy grenade destroyed the Humvee carrying Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and four other soldiers caught in an ambush in Nasiriyah. Though Lynch was spared, the others died. Last week, nearly two years later, Army 1st Lt. Christopher Barnett, 32, of Baton Rouge, La., was killed on a patrol mission in the outskirts of Baghdad when a roadside bomb eviscerated his Humvee. Throughout the 21-month war, no other piece of military materiel has been associated with so many U.S. fatalities. According to a Scripps Howard News Service study, at least 1 in 5 of the 1,320 fallen American troops has died in incidents involving the ubiquitous vehicles. Hundreds more have been wounded in them.

Iraq Pipeline Watch

December 28 - 0:30am attack on a gas pipeline in Barjisiyah, southwest of Basra. The pipeline, which links Iraq's second largest refinery in Shueiba to the storage units of South Oil Company, was blown up by a single attacker using a gas cylinder.

U.S. Soldier Dies After Car Bomb Blast in Iraq

A U.S. soldier died in hospital Wednesday from wounds sustained in a car bomb attack on a patrol in the city of Mosul, the American military said on Thursday.

Militants destroy telephone exchange in Mosul

A statement issued by the multinational forces said a group of militants ?destroyed early of today's mourning a telephone exchange near Al-Maghreb district in western Mosul.

Mosul election workers resign

Three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in Jan. 30 elections, saying Thursday that people participating in the "dirty farce" risked attack. All 700 employees of the electoral commission in Mosul reportedly resigned after being threatened.

Fire at Baghdad oil refinery

A MORTAR strike set fire to Baghdad's Dura oil refinery today, an Iraqi interior ministry official said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rage of Fallujah residents boils over

FALLUJAH (AFP) — Three-year-old Mustapha stands at the door of his family's torched living room in the devastated Iraqi city of Fallujah. He has not had a hot meal in nearly two months. Residents of the city battered by a massive US-led onslaught against Sunni Muslim rebels are being allowed to gradually return to their homes despite ongoing clashes with some pockets of insurgents.

But the US military and the interim Iraqi government are having to confront the rage and despair of many returning residents and the few that lived through the massive assault in November and its aftermath. Mustapha's father, Omar Khalil, 38, moved his family of eight about 10 days ago to a nearby Red Crescent compound because he was told Iraqi and US troops wanted to sweep through homes to make sure no insurgents were hiding there. They came back a week ago and found their home — a living room and one bedroom — destroyed by fire, along with all their contents. "We were heartbroken," said Khalil's wife Thana, 30. "This is worse than the shelling and bombing."

The family survived the worst moments of the fighting and did not join the few hundred thousand people that fled the city before the start of the assault and settled in makeshift camps or with relatives. The US military has promised to reopen more sections of Fallujah one week after it started allowing Iraqis to return to three western neigbourhoods.

"We take our direction from the Iraqi interim government of Iyad Allawi, we were instructed to let residents in even though some neighbourhoods are unsafe and we continue to combat insurgents," said Major Naomi Hawkins, a civil affairs officer with the Marines. She said troops find weapons caches and defuse roadside bombs daily. Hawkins told Khalil he can go to the mayor's office to file a claim or to Baghdad and receive $100 from reconstruction funds deposited at designated banks to tie him over until his application is processed. But a weary-looking Khalil was not convinced and spoke of the perils of venturing out of his neighbourhood as sporadic blasts echoed in the background.

Every single home, shop and shed in Khalil's neighbourhood has a big "x" mark sprayed in red to indicate that US and Iraqi forces have searched it. Some are burnt or simply levelled to the ground.

"I saw them burn homes with my own eyes on the 14th (of December), there was no fighting, why?" said an angry Ismail Ibrahim Shaalan, 50.

His son was angry at both sides. "Insurgents beheaded people and the Americans destroyed our city, we do not know who to believe now," said Wisam, 14. Another neighbour emptied a pair of shoes and a sweater from inside a paper bag on to the ground, saying this was all he was able to salvage from his destroyed home.

"Is this the olive branch that Allawi extended?" said a bitter and tearful Alaa Abdullah, 25, who has just returned to the city. Most are returning to destroyed and looted homes in a city that resembles a disaster zone with no power, heat or running water. Some are finding bodies of relatives that stayed behind. "I buried my father three days ago," said Qisma Diab, 55, as she waited with nine other women at an intersection for a special bus to take them back to a checkpoint through which they entered earlier. The few that stay are setting up tents next to the rubble of their homes and living off rations handed out by US and Iraqi forces.

A US Marine admitted that in some cases they were forced to use "alternative means" like torching or bombing homes they believed were being used as sanctuaries for insurgents. "If we could not get in there we had to use alternative means," said Sergeant John Cross.

But an Iraqi soldier nearby admitted that in some cases Iraqi troops burnt homes if they found pro-insurgency literature or material.

His remarks provoked the anger of a man who overheard him and a scuffle ensued, which is broken up by a passing national guard patrol. In a similar scene of anger and frustration, an argument broke out between an old-man and an official with the Red Crescent handing out blankets and heaters.

The humanitarian agency tried to venture Wednesday into some of the worst neighbourhoods of Fallujah to look for bodies, but was told by the US military this work was being done by the health ministry and that it was better off distributing aide to returning residents.

It takes about six hours for people to make it through a security checkpoint at the entrance of the city. They are then handed small orange cards that list 13 "new rules of conduct" such as a ban on graffiti and public meetings.

"This is an insult," sayd Khalid Ibrahim, 42. "They treat us like Palestinian refugees."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fewer than 1% of Iraqis register to vote

60,000 people register to vote in Iraq. Fewer than 1 percent of eligible Iraqis have responded to a voter-registration drive, forcing authorities to look for other ways to build up voter lists, whilst for the overseas voting, registration in most parts has not yet even started.