*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

interesting, a couple of reports say he was shot by Iraqis, but the Telegraph says he was shot by British troops...

The leader of the Shia Mahdi Army militia in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has been killed in a shoot out with British soldiers, Iraqi police said.

Wissam al-Waili, 23, also known as Abu Qadir, was shot and killed along with his brother and two aides during the battle.

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The Mahdi Army of radical Shia Muqtada al-Sadr is fiercely opposed to the presence of US and British troops in Iraq. However, the militia has lowered its profile since US-led forces began a security crackdown in Baghdad in February.

The gunbattle began about 4pm when British forces attempted to arrest al-Waili after he left a mosque in Jumhoriyah a middle class, residential area in central Basra, police said.

Al-Waili and his three companions opened fire and were killed in the subsequent gunbattle, police said.

The British military could not immediately be reached for comment.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/25/wmahdi125.xml

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. Spy Agencies Warned of Iraqi Sects, Panel Says

U.S. spy agencies' predictions about post-war Iraq were mostly accurate, according to a new Senate Intelligence Committee report. But several Republican senators object to conclusions in the report on pre-war intelligence assessments.

Senators and their staff considered a number of documents and previous investigations. But they relied most heavily on two papers from the National Intelligence Council — both of them previously classified — dated January 2003.

The papers looked at what the main challenges would be in a post-Saddam Iraq, and at the regional consequences of a war.

Their judgments were mostly on the mark: The authors warned about the danger of sectarian violence and said al-Qaida and Iran would try to exploit the situation.

The report was approved by a vote of 10-5, with two Republicans — Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — crossing over to vote with the Democrats.

The five Republicans who voted against the report have a number of issues with it.

On one front, they say the report's conclusions only highlight issues that seem important to those looking at Iraq now — a prism that they say distorts the picture that was presented to policymakers at the time.

The dissenters were also angry that a large chunk of the report — 81 pages — contains names of people to whom the two National Intelligence Council reports were distributed.

While many of the names are blacked out, a good number of them are not.

Scooter Libby and Stephen Hadley at the White House are among names on the first page. The authors, it can be assumed, included the names for the sake of accountability, to show who had access to the warnings.

Republicans pointed out that just because the reports were sent out doesn't mean everyone on the list received them. Some people might have been on leave, for example, and may never have seen the documents. The list, they said, sets a bad precedent.

The Senate panel has yet to produce its findings on a central question: whether the intelligence on Iraq was hyped by senior Bush administration officials to make the case for war.

 

[Barking_Mad]

4 police officers, 6 civilians injured by suicide car bomber

A source in the joint operations center in Diyala said that four police officers from the Muqdadiyah police force and six civilians were injured when a suicide car bomber detonated near a Muqdadiyah police station around 10 a.m. Friday.

Gunmen kill 3 farmers in Diyala province

Colonel Hussein Abbas Kadhim, the commander of the town of Jdaidat Al Shat, said that gunmen of the Islamic State of Iraq broke into nearby orchards and executed three farmers.

Mortar fire kills 3, wounds 15 in separate incidents in Baghdad

Two civilians were killed and seven others were injured when a mortar shell hit the Amil neighborhood of southwest Baghdad at 8 p.m Friday...A civilian was killed and eight others wounded when a mortar shell hit Abu Disheer area in the Doura...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bodies foud in Baghdad

Twenty anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad Friday. Thirteen bodies were found in Karkh...Seven bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern part of Baghdad: four in Sadr City; one in Ur; one in Adhemiyah and one in Fadhil.

Iraq vet - 'My brain will not let go'

A year after coming home from Iraq, AJ Jefferson is still fighting the war in eerie nightmares about the bomb that left him and two comrades seriously wounded. The 21-year-old soldier has been diagnosed by doctors with several ailments...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq funeral attack kills dozens

At least 27 people have been killed and dozens wounded after a suicide car bomber drove into a crowd of mourners at a funeral in Falluja, in the province of Anbar, according to police.

Elsewhere on Thursday, armed men stopped a minibus and shot dead all 11 passengers, police said.

They then planted a bomb among the bodies that exploded when police arrived, killing two people and wounding four, including two policemen.

The incident took place in Husseiniya, a mainly Shia district of Baghdad.

 

[corporate whore]

US tells Iran to stop supporting insurgents

The United States urged Iran on Monday to stop supporting militias in Iraq but described the two countries' most high-profile meeting in almost 30 years as positive.
The meeting in Baghdad between the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq covered only sectarian violence in Iraq and did not touch on Iran's controversial nuclear program, the most contentious issue in U.S.-Iranian relations.

 

[RhymnRzn]

from the Tulsey World

BAGHDAD -- American forces freed 42 kidnapped Iraqis -- some of whom had been hung from ceilings and tortured for months -- in a raid Sunday on an al-Qaida hide-out north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Military officials said the operation, launched on tips from residents, showed that Iraqis in the turbulent Diyala province were turning against Sunni insurgents and beginning to trust U.S. troops.

"The people in Diyala are speaking up against al-Qaida," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.

U.S. military officials have said they expected insurgents to step up attacks as U.S.-led forc es worked to crack down on violence in Baghdad and the surrounding areas during their 14-week-old security operation.

As part of the crackdown, the military sent 3,000 more U.S. troops to Diyala, a turbulent province north of Baghdad that has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks. Sunday's raid, the military said, was a sign that the increase was working.

"The more contact we have (with) the Iraqi citizens, the more confidence that they develop in us, and in the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army. That leads to greater cooperation from the Iraqi citizenry," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman.

Some of the men suffered broken bones. Some had been captive for as long as four months. One said he was just 14 years old, Caldwell said.

The 42 freed Iraqis marked the largest number of captives ever found in a single al-Qaida prison, he said.

Meanwhile, in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned from an elite police unit and handed over their weapons, saying they were afraid of the Mahdi Army militia of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, police said.

Strange how there has been alot more mention of al-qaida lately. The good news to bad news ratio still makes me feel that its a massive force wanting to fight with anybody who counts themselves as embattled and chooses not to submit: carnal as it all is.

 

[Barking_Mad]

35 bodies found dumped or buried in Diyala province

35 were bodies dumped or buried in a newly dug mass grave in Diyala province.

Gunmen abducted more than 40 people in Samarra

gunmen in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and members of two tribes that had banded together against local insurgents...

Car bomb kills 18, wounds 42 in southwestern Baghdad

At least 18 people were killed and 41 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a busy market of a mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

21 bodies found in Baquba, 5 bodies pulled from Tigris river

The bodies of 21 people were found shot dead in two different districts of Baquba...Police retrieved the bodies of five men, two of whom were decapitated, from the Tigris river in the town of Suwayra, 40 km south of Baghdad, police said.

4 policemen killed in Shirqat

Gunmen killed two policemen and wounded three in the town of Shirqat, 80 km south of Mosul, police said...A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two policemen and wounded three others on Monday in Shirqat, police said

Editor-in-chief of Hawadith weekly newspaper in Kirkuk

Gunmen killed Mahmoud Hakim Mustafa, the editor-in-chief of Hawadith weekly newspaper, on Monday near his home in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad, police said.

U.S. forces detain 14 suspected insurgent

U.S. forces detained 14 suspected insurgents, including the suspected al-Qaeda leader of a violent western Baghdad neighbourhood, during operations in the capital, Mosul and Taji, the U.S. military said.

38 Killed in Baghdad Explosions

A parked minibus packed with explosives blew up Tuesday in a busy section of central Baghdad, killing 23 people and injuring 68, police said. A second car bombing in the western part of the capital killed 15 others.

Minibus bomb in Baghdad kills 17

A parked minibus packed with explosives blew up Tuesday afternoon in a busy section of central Baghdad, killing 17 people and injuring 53 others, police said. The attack in Tayaran Square occurred about 1 p.m. in an area filled with bus stops and shops

Mortar fire kills 8, wounds 35 in central Baghdad

Eight people were killed and 35 wounded when mortar rounds landed in the Shi'ite district of Karrada in central Baghdad, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Mortar attacks in Fallujah kill nine civilians

BAGHDAD (AP) - At least nine Iraqi civilians in Fallujah have been killed by mortar rounds which apparently missed the American base they were aimed at and landed in a residential area.

Police and medical officials say at least 15 people were wounded.

The attack this morning sent many of the mortar rounds into a courthouse and nearby homes. Most of the casualties came from the courthouse.

Also today, two guards were killed and two injured south of Baghdad today when a police commander's convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in the town of Hamzah.

Police in the capital say another roadside bomb in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City apparently targeted a passing police patrol but missed, killing one civilian and wounding four others.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Disillusion Rises For Some G.I.s As Iraqi Allies Turn Foe

Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi police detonated a huge truck bomb

....near the Finance Ministry in Baghdad on Wednesday in a controlled explosion that collapsed part of the main highway linking the north and south of the capital. Police said they discovered the truck bomb parked under the Mohammed al-Qassim highway just metres from the ministry building. The explosives were hidden under a pile of lettuces. They detonated the bomb in a controlled explosion but were apparently taken by surprise by the force of the blast, which reduced a section of the raised highway to rubble, punched holes in the ministry building and blew out its windows.

British forces launched a crackdown operation in Hussein neighborhood

....west of Basra, in the early hours of Wednesday that targeted two houses, believed to be involved in indirect shooting against the British Consulate in central Basra,” Captain Katie Brown told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by phone. “Three suspected gunmen fled from the place during the operation, while the forces managed to arrest a suspect in the second house,” she added. “The British patrol came under attack while leaving the area and a shootout started with a group of gunmen, during which one of the attackers was wounded,” she said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S.-Iraqi troops backed by American warplanes battled al-Qaida-linked insurgents

....for more than five hours in clashes near Fallujah that left eight killed and five Iraqi policemen wounded, the military said. Local police then killed two al-Qaida fighters and wounded five in a gunbattle, Hollenbeck said in an e-mailed statement, adding that five policemen also were wounded. Insurgents using a roadside bomb during the 10-hour operation killed one civilian and wounded five, it said.

New Mass Grave in Iraq

Of the 120 reported killed or found dead nationwide on Tuesday, 35 were bodies dumped or buried in a newly dug mass grave in Diyala province. A morgue official in Baqouba, the provincial capital, and a spokesman at the provincial police operations center in the province both reported the same figure, but refused to be named fearing reprisal from al-Qaida militants and Shiite militias battling for control of the region.

Kurds and Shia Fight for Power in Baghdad

An eyewitness to the 14 Sunni men being detained by the Mehdi army spoke with IPS, requesting his name withheld. He believes the U.S. military has taken sides between the militias and are pitting them against one another. "This area was peaceful and the mixture of Shia and Sunni had no dispute whatsoever," he said. "It's the militias who started all the killing in order to divide people and rule them."

Desperate Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade in Syria

Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba's daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. Hiba, who is now 16, wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes. But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba’s elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes. Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and took her daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution. “We Iraqis used to be a proud people,” she said over the frantic blare of the club’s speakers. She pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders bathed in colored light.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi's Internal Refugees

Escalating fighting and sectarian violence are forcing hundreds of families in Iraq to flee their homes on a daily basis, aid agencies say. According to a report released on Sunday by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated 822,810 Iraqis are now displaced within their country.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turkish army bolsters forces on Iraq border

Turkey has sent large contingents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Might of the militias

It was one of the most brazen attacks on a government building in Baghdad. More than 40 men in police uniforms drove up in a convoy of 19 government-issued SUVs, to the technology and information directorate of the finance ministry...

48 leave Australian military with mental health issues

NEARLY 50 military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been discharged from the Australian Defence Force with service-related mental health problems, a senate estimates committee has been told.

3 civilians killed 21 wounded by mortar fire in Mahmudiya
Three civilians were killed and 21 were wounded when several mortar rounds

landed in the Shi'ite Abu Shama'a village in Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Gunmen kill police Brigadier and police Colonel in Baghdad

Gunmen killed police Brigadier Alla Abdul Razaq with two of his bodyguards in southeastern Baghdad, police said...Gunmen killed police Colonel Mohammed Shakir in a drive-by shooting in west-central Baghdad, police said.

One civilian killed 5 wounded by car bomb in Sadr City

One civilian was killed and five were wounded when a parked car bomb exploded in the Shi'ite Sadr City district of Baghdad, police said.

23 bodies found in Baghdad

The bodies of 23 people were found in different parts of Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

2 Iraqi employees of U.S. embassy believed kidnapped

The US has confirmed that two Iraqi employees of the American Embassy in Baghdad are believed to have been kidnapped. A State Department spokesman could not say when the pair went missing...

Ten killed in fighting north of Baghdad - police

Ten people were killed, including four policemen and an Iraqi soldier, on Wednesday in gunfights that erupted in a small town north of Baghdad during a raid to arrest suspected Sunni Arab insurgents, police said.

Iraqi Police Chief Is Arrested

“We cannot tolerate criminal behavior and this complete disregard for the rule of law, particularly by those who are charged with the responsibility of upholding the law”

A Sunni police chief praised by U.S. forces for clearing his city of insurgents has been arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption and crimes against the Iraqi people, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Col. Hamid Ibrahim al-Jazaa, his brother and 14 bodyguards were taken into custody Tuesday in the city of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, according to a statement by the public affairs office of Multinational Corps-Iraq.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen shoot Iraqi policeman dead, one gunmen killed in Baghdad

Baghdad - Five gunmen killed Wednesday an Iraqi national police officer outside a bank in the Sheik Marouf neighborhood of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the US military disclosed Thursday.

Five gunmen shot dead Lt. Col. Mohammed Shaka Mohammed as he prepared to enter the bank to make a withdrawal.

A US-led coalition forces patrol nearby responded to the sounds of small-arms fire. A firefight between the extremists and coalition forces ensued, with one of the gunmen killed. Three civilian vehicles were damaged and there was light damage to surrounding buildings.

 

[corporate whore]

Going well, innit?

Bush says US troops may never leave Iraq

President Bush would like to see the U.S. military provide long-term stability in Iraq as it has in South Korea, where thousands of American troops have been based for more than half a century, the White House said Wednesday.
Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, told reporters that Bush believes U.S. forces eventually will end their combat role in Iraq but will continue to be needed in the country to deter threats and to help handle potential crises, as they have done in South Korea.

Saudis refuse to take down contentious TV channel

Outraged by video footage of bloody attacks on American troops, U.S. officials have worked for about half a year to close down a satellite television station that promotes the cause of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents to millions of viewers in the region.
Yet Al Zawraa is still beaming calls for violent resistance — thanks to one of America's most important Mideast allies, Saudi Arabia.
U.S. and Iraqi troops chased Al Zawraa television's staff out of Iraq last year, and this year Washington pressured the Egyptians and Europeans to stop bouncing the station's signal from their satellites. But despite pleas from Washington, the Saudi government has declined to use its influence as a major stakeholder in the satellite company Arabsat to stop the transmissions, U.S. officials say.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turkish Forces Mass on Iraqi Border Amid Talk of Incursion

Turkey has sent more troops and tanks to the Iraqi border, as speculation grows about a possible Turkish incursion against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his patience has run out for the United States and Iraq to take action against the Kurdish rebels. But U.S. officials have expressed concerns that a cross-border operation could destabilize northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, Turkish security forces continue large-scale operations against the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, rebels in southeast Turkey. A Turkish soldier in the region was killed Wednesday by a landmine blast.

Pressure for action against the PKK is mounting as Turkey prepares for national elections on July 22, and after two bombings last week.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984.

The United States, the European Union and Turkey classify the PKK as a terrorist group.

 

[Barking_Mad]

related to the above post......

Troops kill 2 Kurdish rebels in clash in southeastern Turkey

Soldiers killed two Kurdish militants in Turkey's rebellious southeast, where troops massed along the border threatened an incursion into Iraq. Turkey's military has stepped up its campaign against separatist rebels who cross into country...

 

[corporate whore]

Sunni v Sunni in West Baghdad

Iraqi and U.S. troops fanned out in a devastated Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad on Friday, residents said, adding they were holed up in their houses under a curfew that was imposed to restore calm after days of internal fighting between insurgent groups.
The developments were the latest in an apparently growing Sunni insurgent power struggle as U.S. and Iraqi officials try to isolate the terror network by turning other militant groups and tribal leaders against it. The tactic has proven relatively successful in the western Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, and Washington and the Iraqi government are trying to replicate it elsewhere.

 

[corporate whore]

US commander says longer stay for US troops a great idea

A top U.S. commander in Iraq Thursday backed an apparent White House plan to maintain long-term troop presence in Iraq.
"I think it's a great idea. I think it would be very helpful to have a force here for a period of time to continue to help the Iraqis train and continue to build their capabilities, but that would be based on them asking us to stay," said Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps-Iraq, the organization in charge of day-to-day prosecution of the war.

 

[corporate whore]

24 Iraq civilians shot by US Marines

Some of the 24 Iraqis killed by Marines in Haditha in late 2005 had been shot in the head, several of them at such close range that the bodies had powder burns, a prosecutor said Thursday.
As a hush came over the courtroom, Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury listed some of the victims, including an unarmed 66-year-old woman, a young woman shot while sitting with her back to a wall, a teenage girl shot while on a bed, an elderly man who had his leg severed by a grenade and a woman killed while trying to protect several small children.
Atterbury added that five young men killed near their car apparently were standing still, possibly with their hands in the air to surrender.
No weapons were found in the car or near the bodies,

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. dropping bombs on Iraq at twice last year's rate

BAGHDAD: Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago.

The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its surroundings — an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven with sectarian violence.

It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties.

In the first 4 1/2 months of 2007, American aircraft dropped 237 bombs and missiles in support of ground forces in Iraq, already surpassing the 229 expended in all of 2006, according to U.S. Air Force figures obtained by The Associated Press.

"Air operations over Iraq have ratcheted up significantly, in the number of sorties, the number of hours (in the air)," said Col. Joe Guastella, Air Force operations chief for the region. "It has a lot to do with increased pressure on the enemy by MNC-I" — the Multinational Corps-Iraq — "combined with more carriers."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Hundreds go missing or get killed at checkpoints

BAGHDAD, 6 June 2007 (IRIN) - Samir Waleed, 39, said he is scared to go out into the streets of Baghdad after his brother was stopped at a road block, taken away and killed two weeks ago. The deteriorated security situation in the capital has given rise to an increasing number of checkpoints in the city, which, ironically, have become dangerous in themselves.

Manned by the Iraqi police, Iraqi soldiers or sometimes by militias, checkpoints are adding to the immense strain already felt by Baghdad residents. Locals say that people are often arrested at checkpoints on suspicion of working with armed groups - and after being arrested, anything can happen.

"My brother was in a car with his wife and children when police officers stopped him at a checkpoint in Mansour district. They arrested him and we never heard from him again. One week later, after looking everywhere for him, we found his body with three shots to his head in the city morgue," Waleed said.

"My sister-in-law told me that when they stopped them, they were accusing my brother of being an insurgent because of his long beard. He tried to explain to them that he was a pharmacist and just had a long beard for aesthetic purposes but even so they arrested him," he added.

Police deny any wrongdoing

Waleed asked the police why his brother was killed but officials in the police station in the district his brother was arrested told him they do not have any information concerning his brother's arrest. They said his brother was probably killed by insurgents when the police released him after interrogation.

"I know that they [police] killed him but I cannot prove it. It is the reality in Iraq. They stop you wherever they want and from there on you don't know what will happen to you. I have three cousins and an uncle who had the same fate; two were killed at insurgents' checkpoints while leaving Iraq and two others went missing at a Baghdad checkpoint while going to their jobs, and were later found dead," Waleed said.

Given the high rate of killings in Iraq today, security forces have been given the right to arrest whomever they want. But while citizens also want to see killers arrested, they have equal fear of the authorities.

"Checkpoints are important in Iraq to prevent terrorism but unfortunately security forces aren't behaving correctly with the local population. Even the military has to offer the minimum of respect to Iraqis while passing though checkpoints but these sad incidents [of people being killed at checkpoints] are increasing and sectarian violence is also in the background," Professor Bakr Muhammad, a security analyst at Mustansiriyah University, said.

 

[corporate whore]

Turkish troops enter northern Iraq

Hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq on Wednesday pursuing Kurdish guerrillas who stage attacks on Turkey from hideouts there, Turkish security officials and an Iraqi Kurd official said.

The reports came amid worries Turkey might launch an offensive against the rebel bases, touching off a conflict with U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds in one of Iraq's most stable regions. The U.S. is urging its NATO ally not to strike, and Turkey's foreign minister denied any incursion occurred.

 

[corporate whore]

Or do they?

Turkey's Foreign Ministry and military General Staff on Wednesday denied a Web site report that 50,000 Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels hiding there.

"This report is not true," a Foreign Ministry source told Reuters.

A General Staff official described the report as "disinformation".

 

[Barking_Mad]

I've seen several articles over many months saying there have been "brief excursions" into Iraq. They've been getting very pissed off because the US seemingly won't or can't do anything about the increased activity of the Kurds on the border.

This story has been noticably missing from most of the mainstream media. I mean the north of Iraq is 'flourishing' - right?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turkey declares 'security zones' in areas near border with Iraq

Turkey has declared several areas near the border with Iraq to be "temporary security zones" in a sign of increasing activity by the military in its campaign against Kurdish rebels.

That's 150 UK dead including 16 in the last 12 weeks.

British soldier killed in Iraq on Thursday 7 June 2007

...the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a British soldier from 4th Battalion The Rifles, in southern Iraq today, Thursday 7 June 2007. The soldier was part of a patrol conducting a search and detention operation in the Al Atiyah district...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bomb in Iraq kills 19

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombers struck in Baghdad and at a police headquarters in a northern Iraqi border town on Thursday, killing 19 people, and gunmen shot a reporter in the latest attack targeting Iraqi journalists.

In the worst violence, a suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives rammed a police headquarters and adjoining municipal building in the northern town of Rabea, near the Syrian border, killing nine people, police said.

The attack, which also wounded 22 people, including five British civilian contractors, largely destroyed both buildings, police said.

The town is northwest of Mosul, where U.S. military commanders blame Sunni Arab insurgents and criminals for stoking much of the violence. Iraqi security officials, however, say Shi'ite and Kurdish militias are also involved.

In Mosul, gunmen shot dead Sahar al-Haideri, a journalist working for the independent Aswat al-Iraqi news agency. She was the second staff member to be killed in just over a week.

The agency said the married mother of three had been on a "death list" issued by an al Qaeda-led group.