*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Fallujah Update

CAIRO (NFTF.org) -- Iraqi doctors and independent Arab media sources have accused the U.S. Military of breaking the ceasefire in Fallujah as "several Abrams tanks attempted to breach the city defenses in the Anzal district of the city." This could not be independently confirmed. Iraqi resistance fighters claimed they had stood by the ceasefire but were routinely shot at by U.S. snipers.

A live Al Jazeera report from Fallujah revealed the sounds of ordnance exploding in the surroundings. The loud sounds associated with jet fighters could also be heard. The Al Jazeera correspondent said that the U.S. armored battalion was forced to withdraw as it came face to face with intense and fierce resistance. The Al Jazeera reporter said that the U.S. F-16s or F-18s (unknown at this point) began bombing the city once the U.S. forces had withdrawn.

Sources close to the negotiating team said U.S. sniper fire had claimed seven more lives Tuesday morning, an apparent indication that the U.S. had broken its promise of withdrawing snipers. Al Jazeera TV also showed one of the city's central mosques coming under intense gunfire.

http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1881

 

[Barking_Mad]

A good piece by Al-Jezeera

Every day and night there is war in this civilian neighbourhood where any given street is the frontline. On one side is the US military, which has holed up in several spots, including the Royal Tombs where the former kings of Iraq are buried.

On the other are scores of bare-footed, masked Iraqi youth bobbing through alleyways with rocket propelled grenades, some sporting soccer jerseys with the word Iraq emblazoned on the back. One fighter kneels directly in front of an M1-Abrams tank carrying US soldiers and blasts them with a rocket-propelled grenade. As the tank bursts into flames, the fighters begin to shout: "God is greatest!"

"I wish I could be one of them and defend my country," says 17-year-old Karrar, watching the battle from a window. "I would be so honoured to join them," he says....

.....While US military personnel were withdrawing from al-Kadhimiya shrine area out of respect for an important Shia shrine, across the river, US tanks were ramming down the gates of al-Adhimiya's 900-year-old Abu Hanifa mosque.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/83CDF83B-72A4-4515-95D7-43751FFA421E.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Excuse the snip, the Iraqis were added as an after thought in this report

Iraqi Dead reaches 880 in 7 days

Iraqis also are dying in their case, by the hundreds, particularly in Fallujah. About 880 Iraqis have been killed since April 5, according to an AP count based on statements by Iraqi hospital officials, the U.S. military and Iraqi police.

US Dead in April reaches 83. Injured 560

Even the opening days of the conflict, while bloody and tense, were not as costly in American lives. In the first 12 days after invading U.S. and British forces crossed the Kuwaiti border into southern Iraq on March 20, 2003, a total of 77 U.S. troops died, including several from non-hostile causes.

The toll climbed further Tuesday. The U.S. military reported that one soldier of the 1st Infantry Division was killed and another was wounded in a roadside bomb attack south of Baghdad.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of the number of U.S. deaths over the past several days, in part because of the military's complex reporting channels and its system of next-of-kin notification.

All 83 of the confirmed U.S deaths so far this month were caused by hostile action, mainly attacks on road convoys, firefights in the Sunni strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi and battles in and around Baghdad.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040413_1734.html

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq

BASRA, April 12 (MNA) -– Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.

Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.

An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor’s Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed by their organizations.

The Iraqi source also confirmed the report about suspicious trucks with fake Saudi and Jordanian license plates entering Iraq at night last week, stressing that the Saudi and Jordanian border guards did not attempt to inspect the trucks but simply delivered them to the U.S. and British forces stationed on Iraq’s borders.

However, the source expressed ignorance whether the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan were aware of such movements.

A professor of physics at Baghdad University also told the MNA correspondent that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military, chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD equipment.

The professor also said these people have been openly asked to confirm or deny the existence of research or related WMD equipment. A large number of these scientists, who are believed to be under the surveillance of U.S. intelligence operatives, have claimed that if they refuse to comply with this request, they may be killed or arrested on charges of concealing the truth if these weapons are found by the Bush administration in the future.

He said that the Iraqi scientists believe their lives would be in danger if they decline to cooperate with the occupation forces, especially when they recall that senior U.S. officer Michael Peterson once said, “Iraqi scientists are at any case a threat to the U.S. administration, whether they talk or not.”

A source close to the Iraqi Governing Council said, “In the meantime, many suspect containers disguised as fuel supplies have been moved about by some units of the U.S. special forces. The move has been carried out under heavy security measures. Also, there are unofficial reports that the containers held biological and bacteriological toxins in liquid form. It is possible that the news about the discovery of the WMDs would be announced later.”

He also said that such mixtures had been used by the Saddam regime in the 1990s.

The source added that some provocative actions such as the closure of Al-Hawza periodical by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the secret meetings between his envoys with some extremist groups who have no relations with the Iraqi Governing Council, the sudden upsurge in violence in central and southern Iraq, a number of activities which have stoked up the wrath of the prominent Shia clerics, and finally, the spate of kidnappings and the baseless charges against the Iranian charge d’affaires in Baghdad are providing the necessary smokescreen for the transportation of the WMD to their intended locations.

He said they are quite aware that the White House in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has directly tasked the Defense Department to hide these weapons. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush’s public opinion rating as the election approaches.

MS/IS/HG

End

MNA

http://www.mehrnews.com/wfNewsDetails_en.aspx?NewsID=70071&t=Political

(sorry for the long C+P, I just don't want to lose that one).

 

[Barking_Mad]

For fucks sake, they really dont have a clue.

Iraqi 'beaten to death' by US troops
April 14, 2004

AN Iraqi has died of his wounds after US troops beat him with truncheons because he refused to remove a picture of wanted Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr from his car, police said today.

The motorist was stopped late yesterday by US troops conducting search operations on a street in the centre of the central city of Kut, Lieutenant Mohamad Abdel Abbas said. After the man refused to remove Sadr's picture from his car, the soldiers forced him out of the vehicle and started beating him with truncheons, he said.

US troops also detained from the same area five men wearing black pants and shirts, the usual attire of Sadr's Mehdi Army militiamen and followers. Qassem Hassan, the director of Kut general hospital, identified the man as Salem Hassan, a resident of a Kut suburb.

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9282015%5E1702,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

This blog is worth reading.

The mosque was full of people, including 90 down from Kirkuk (many with the Red Crescent). They were all pushed down on the floor, with guns put to the backs of their heads. Another person associated with the mosque, Mr. Alber, who speaks very good English, told us that he repeatedly said, "Please, don't break down doors. Please, don't break windows. We can help you. We can have custodians unlock the doors." (Alber, by the way, was imprisoned by Saddam for running a bakery. As he said, "Under the embargo, you could eat flour, you could eat sugar, you could eat eggs, all separately. But mix them together and bake them and you were harming the economy by raising the price of sugar and you could get 15 years in prison.)

The Americans refused to listen to Alber's pleas. We went all around the mosque and the adjacent madrassah, the Imam Aadham Islamic College. We saw dozens of doors broken down, windows broken, ceilings ripped apart, and bullet holes in walls and ceilings. The way the soldiers searched for illicit arms in the ceiling was first to spray the ceiling with gunfire, then break out a panel and go up and search.

They even went and rifled through students' exam papers (in Arabic), messed up offices. An old man who is a "guard" at the mosque (actually a poor man with a large family who is slightly lame and is missing several teeth) was hit in the head with a rifle butt and then kicked when he was down -- all because he was a little slow in answering the door. He says he never carries a weapon -- the whole mosque has only three Kalashnikovs, for security, kept in the imam's room. The Americans took the ammunition there too. And, of course, they entered the mosque with their boots on.

http://www.empirenotes.org/

 

[consumer135]

French Red Cross suspends operations in Iraq

PARIS, April 14 (AFP) - The French branch of the Red Cross said Wednesday it has suspended its operations in Iraq because of the growing risks created by the spate of hostage-takings there.
"Confronted with the risk of hostage-taking and violence, the French Red Cross has decided to provisionally close its office in Amman, Jordan, from which it organised its presence in Iraq," a Red Cross statement said.

As a result, programmes to restablish some networks for distributing drinking water in Iraq would be suspended, it said.

The decision comes after a rash of kidnappings of journalists, aid workers and contract employees in Iraq in an apparent bid to force troops from occupying nations out of the country.

Several companies and organisations have ordered their staff out of Iraq, which has been under US-led control for a year.

 

[Gumbert]

Italian hostage killed - Aljazeera TV

if you go into a country to occupy it on false pretenses whilst killing over 15000 men women and children these people arnt going to be to happy...

i bet the leaders of the free world sleep tonight though eh...

A group calling itself the Green Brigade has killed one of the four Italians hostages it had abducted.

The group said in a statement sent to Aljazeera along with a video tape on Wednesday that it had killed the hostage because the Italian president Silvio Berlusconi said pulling his troops out of Iraq was "not in question."

Responding to the news of the killing, the Italian president, however, insisted his resolve was firm and unchanged.

"They have destroyed a life, they have not cracked our values and our efforts for peace," the Italian president said.

Gruesome tape

Aljazeera earlier described the tape as "too bloody" and said it will not air it "in order not to upset viewers sensitivities".

In a statement accompanying the tape, the abductors of the four Italians justified the killing.

"When your president says pulling the troops out of Iraq is non-negotiable then this means he does not care for the safety of his citizens as much as he is concerned with satisfying his masters in the White House," the statement said.

"They have destroyed a life, they have not cracked our values and our efforts for peace"

Silvio Berlusconi
Italian President

"We have killed one of the four hostages we have in order to teach a lesson for those who are involved. We know they are guards working for the American occupation in our country.

"We ask you one more time to revolt once again in the face of your leaders and reject this unjust war on us so that we can protect your citizens. We are waiting for that from you or else we will kill them one by one," added the Green Brigade.

Victim's identity

While confirming the death of one of the four hostages, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini identified the killed hostage as Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

A former baker, Quattocchi,35, was shot in the back of the neck with a pistol.

Asked about the possible fate of the other hostages, the minister said "he did not know."

"Our duty is to do everything we can to get them out of there," he added.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7ADCD736-4180-4DF3-9198-FE953342604A.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Hmmm. Digging unnels eh? Worth the read.

In Fallujah, Marines and insurgents were fortifying their positions in preparation for more fighting. In abandoned homes a few blocks into the city, Marines punched bricks out of walls to make holes through which to fire, and knocked down walls between rooftop terraces to allow movement from house to house without descending to the street. They spread shards of glass across doorsteps to hear the boot of an approaching insurgent.

Insurgents were also organizing. Gunmen were believed to be digging tunnels under the houses they hold to allow them to move without being targeted by Marine snipers, Marines said...................Tuesday night, insurgents launched near simultaneous attacks on several positions of a company of Marines controlling a few blocks in the city's northeast. In one attack, the gunmen sent up flares to light up the American position, then unleashed heavy, continuous gunfire, Marines said.

In a five-hour battle the same night, one of two armored vehicles sent to resupply a front-line Marine position got lost during an ambush and ended up nearly half a mile inside the southern part of city. The vehicle, with 20 Marines inside, came under an even larger ambush. At least 100 gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades, hitting it at least 10 times, knocking out its communications and its engine and paralyzing it....

.....Elsewhere in the city, gunmen wore police flak jackets looted from Iraqi police stores.

http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,205~12220~2085120,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Article about Basra

BASRA, 13 Apr 2004 (IRIN) - A few weeks ago, some 100 protesters who were demanding salaries, threw stones and set tyres on fire. On 3 April angry unemployed Iraqi protesters stormed the central post office, setting the building on fire, and clashing with police and British forces. Some took advantage of the chaos and stole from the local post office building.

"The demonstrations occurred because of false promises we keep hearing about reconstruction either by the Iraqi Governing Council (ICG) or the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)," Ahmed Eissa, a former government employee who lost his job after the war, told IRIN in Basra. "If the security situation is better and kept under control, many foreign companies will come and work and create job opportunities. If people can't find food for their families, there will be more and more violence," he maintained.

http://www.oneworld.net/external/?u...5&SelectRegion=Iraq_Crisis&SelectCountry=IRAQ

 

[Barking_Mad]

CPA spends $367m on Iraq rebuild

From 15 April, under the so-called Iraqi business set-aside programme, all contracts with an estimated value of less than $500,000 will be reserved for Iraqi-owned businesses. Both Iraqi and non-US international contractors have previously complained that they have been missing out on business opportunities under the US-led reconstruction programme.

The coalition authorities are also under pressure to ensure the enormous reconstruction programme produces rapid improvement in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Iraqis. More than 30 CPA contracts remained outstanding as of 14 April, with bid deadlines from 15-28 April.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3626861.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Report from inside Iraq and Fallujah.

There was fear. There was a great deal of fear. But I see -- I actually see Iraqis losing their fear, and seeing it translated into anger. The same people that have said, you know, "Al Sadr's people are thugs", well, some of them still say it, but now they say it, in a sense, "they're our thugs and they're protecting us against the brutal occupiers". People of Fallujah say that the Mujahadin, they're our boys and our people and, you know, we support them. So, I don't think that the Iraqi people feel -- I think that they do feel that there will be consequences. There are women in Baghdad who go around with uncovered heads who know that in Fallujah, if they do that, they're very likely to be the subject of violence, but they still support the Mujahadin because they're so much against the brutal occupation. So I see much less fear and much more anger.......

..........AMY GOODMAN: And have you gotten an chance to talk to U.S. soldiers?


RAHUL MAHAJAN: Initially I did, when I was in Sadr city, a couple of days after the outbreak of violence there, and I talked to some young men who were posted there. They had only been in Iraq three weeks, so they were more friendly and easier to approach. There was one we tried to talk to who simply kind of waved at us in the way that most troops will do if they've been in the country a long time, they get extremely wary and nervous. But these guys talked to us. They were perfectly nice. They were very, very ignorant of what was going on in Iraq. They were there in Sadr city because of clashes with Al Sadr's Madi army. So, I asked them, "What do you think about the stuff with Al Sadr. What do you think about the Madi army?" They said, "What? Who is that? Who are they? In fact one of them was very curious and came up and asked us several questions trying to figure out who these people were. They were thrown in here. They don't know any Arabic. They don't even know how to say, "please get away from the tank" in a respectful way, and they're sent over here to kill people and die. And it is a shame. I haven't been able to talk to any in more recent days.


http://www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights/doc4291.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

article from The Independent

Bremer 'is powerless to restrain the US military'

Divisions within the US leadership in Baghdad are hampering negotiations to end the stand-off between the radical cleric Muqtada Sadr and the 2,500 American troops who are surrounding him. Sadr, who has taken refuge with his black-clad militiamen in the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, has dropped all conditions for talks with the US. Previously he demanded that US soldiers leave Najaf, free his followers who had been arrested and end the siege of Fallujah.

"It is very difficult to know who is taking the decisions on the American side," said Hussain al-Shahristani, an influential Shia figure, in an interview with The Independent. "You hear one thing from [Paul] Bremer [the chief US civilian official] and another thing from the US army."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=511587

 

[Barking_Mad]

ZMag has a Chomsky blog

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fox News reports.....

<<<TERROR ALERT : ELEVATED>>>

Despite Bush saying he's made the world and the USA a safer place........

 

[fela fan]

There they sit, the leaders of US, UK, Italy, and other 'allied' countries in their high offices, directing events. Put in a western puppet called Saddam.

Then decades later, invade that country with forces from their own populations to 'rescue' the citizens of Iraq from their brutal dictator. Now even more brutalites visit this country. Far more extensive than under SH. Both iraqi civilians and the individuals comprising the western forces get killed and butchered. Hell has visited on this country on citizens from the west, and their own citizens.

Those responsible are still in their high offices making proclamations every day. Directing events. Continuing the policies that mean death and destruction for thousands of families.

And yes boys and girls, these leaders sleep soundly at night, convinced of their own righteousness. Only when they need our votes do they pay any kind of lip service to citizens.

I maintain, there are two sides in this world: the peoples and the leaders.

The peoples of the world must unite and stop doing the bidding of their terrorist leaders.

 

[fela fan]

These leaders, eg bush rumsfeld cheney blair straw berloscuni are filthy fuckers.

They're liars and orderers of death and mayhem. They destroy countries. And people.

They play games with life, leaving only genocide in its wake.

And they keep on saying that they will 'fight' for 'peace'.

How long is it before we the peoples of the world wake up and say no more?

Why are the british electorate, for example, going to vote back in their prime minister?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Update from today:

04/15/04 Reuters: Two Soldiers Killed in Attacks in Northern Iraq
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in action in separate attacks in the northern Iraqi cities of Samarra and Mosul in the last 24 hours, a U.S. army spokesman said on Thursday.

04/15/04 cjtf7: Task Force Olympia Soldier Dies
A Task Force Olympia Soldier died April 14 from an acute cardiac event.

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

 

[Barking_Mad]

Analysis: US 'emulates' Israeli tactics

US soldiers in Iraq have been faced with revolts on more than one front
With sporadic fighting in Falluja and US forces moving into position outside Najaf, the Arab press is pointing to similarities between US military operations in Iraq and the tactics Israeli forces employ in the West Bank and Gaza. Such similarities are not coincidental.

The Israeli army has long experience of offensive operations in urban areas and it is experience that the Pentagon has been eager to draw upon. Israel and the US have developed a close military relationship over the years.........

.........The Pentagon has already bought some Israeli equipment. It is planning to buy more.And senior US commanders have visited Israel specifically to discuss what the Pentagon jargon calls "Military Operations on Urban Terrain".


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3625315.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iran diplomat shot dead in Iraq

A senior Iranian diplomat has been shot dead in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. First secretary Khalil Naimi was reportedly attacked while driving. A Reuters correspondent saw a bullet-marked car with a body inside. At this stage it is not clear who carried out the attack or whether the diplomat was specifically targeted. An Iranian foreign ministry delegation had arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday to assist in the crisis over the rebel leadership of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3628985.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Good article.

Locals widely expect the fight for Fallujah will continue indefinitely. Resistance fighters seem determined not to relent. Ehab (last name withheld), an embattled, Kalashnikov-toting guerilla who spoke readily with reporters, summed up the mood of the local resistance when he said, "They will never take Fallujah until they have killed every Iraqi here."

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=169

 

[Stibs]

Al jazeera has some "breaking news".

It would appear that the Japanesse hostages release has been negotiated.

No story just yet, just a banner on the site's homepage

 

[Jessiedog]

Al jazeera has some "breaking news".

It would appear that the Japanesse hostages release has been negotiated.

No story just yet, just a banner on the site's homepage

TVB News (Hong Kong), have confirmed that the three were today handed over to the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad.



Woof

 

[Barking_Mad]

US troops to stay longer in Iraq

Some 20,000 US troops now serving in Iraq will have their tour of duty extended, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has announced.
Mr Rumsfeld said they would spend another 90 days in Iraq beyond their original one-year deployment. "The country is at war and we need to do what is necessary to succeed," he told a news conference.

The announcement comes as the US-led coalition faces the biggest outbreak of violence since Saddam Hussein's fall. "We are engaged in a test of will and we will meet that test," Mr Rumsfeld told reporters. "A small band of terrorists are not going to be permitted to determine the fate of the 25 million Iraqi people," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3630433.stm

 

[bigfish]

It looks increasingly like the Shiite elites, in collusion with the theocracy in Tehran and the British, are preparing to betray the asperations of the Shiite masses for a piece of the power pie from the Americans.

Since the weekend, delegations including Sistani’s sons and representatives of Al Dawa have met with Sadr and sought to pressure him into calling off the insurrection.


The motives of the Shiite elites are twofold. Firstly, they fear that any attack on Najaf—which one US officer compared with attacking the Vatican—will unleash a rebellion among Iraqi Shiites they cannot control. Khither Jaafer, a spokesman for Al Dawa, told the Los Angeles Times: “The situation is so dangerous because it doesn’t just involve Moqtada [Sadr]... the Shias are feeling in general that this is a confrontation. If the US moves militarily, it will be understood as a message against all Shiites. We are very concerned that if this sedition breaks out, it will be hard to stop.”


The second motive is even more base. The Shiite elites are making a venal gamble that by betraying the aspirations of the mass of Iraqi Shiites for an end to the US occupation, the Bush administration will give them a dominant position in the puppet state it is attempting to establish in Iraq. The main demand of Sistani and the Shia parties is that Iraq’s interim constitution is revised to remove clauses that give a degree of power to Iraq’s minority Kurdish and Sunni communities. Iraqi Shiites make up some 60 percent of the population. The Shia clerics and parties hope to be able to mobilise them on a sectarian basis in elections and dominate any future parliament.


Sadr, a member of one of the most powerful families of the Shiite establishment, is bowing to the pressure. At the start of the week, as the US made its preparations for a massacre, he ordered his militiamen to hand back police stations and strategic buildings in Najaf to Iraqi police. Yesterday, Sadr’s spokesman declared the cleric was “ready accept what the Marjaiya [the Shiite religious leadership] ask for and to drop the conditions he had set for mediation”.


Sadr’s conditions had been that the Bush administration pull US troops out of all Iraqi cities, release hundreds of his militiamen who have been detained over the past two weeks and give guarantees as to when the US military would completely withdraw from the country. Sadr has also declared his willingness to disband his militia and submit to being tried for murder in the future, under a “legitimate and democratic government” established after the end of the US occupation.


Representatives of the Iranian government were invited by the British to take part in talks with the Shiite leadership in Iraq—giving rise to speculation that an attempt was being made to strike a deal with Sadr in which he is given temporary asylum in Iran, in exchange for calling on his supporters to lay down their arms. The Iranian regime is also anxious to end the uprising. The theocracy in Tehran fears it could galvanise the urban poor and oppressed in Iran against its brutal rule and its efforts to reestablish relations with US imperialism


The various efforts by the Shiite establishment, the British and Iran for some type of compromise appear to have broken down, however, due to US refusal to accept anything less than Sadr’s total submission and the destruction of his militia. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters late Wednesday that Iran’s involvement in negotiations had ended. “We felt we were going nowhere,” Kharrazi said. “The Americans give promises but don’t keep their promises. Currently, they are taking a wrong path.”


A US assault on Najaf, with all the potentially explosive consequences, may be imminent.

source

 

[Barking_Mad]

Good piece in the Guardian

The negotiations are under way and we are reaching a good result," said Sheikh Qais al-Khazali. Mr Sadr's deputies insisted this week they had withdrawn their militia from Najaf and the town of Kufa nearby as a sign of willingness to compromise.

Yet although policemen manned the final checkpoint before Kufa yesterday, the town was crawling with armed militia.

On the outskirts of Najaf a few wary traffic policemen tried to direct the jumble of cars, but around the shrine in the centre of the city there was not a policeman to be seen and the gunmen ruled unchallenged, however unpopular they may be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1193136,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Updates for Friday.

04/16/04 AP: U.S. businessman kidnapped from his hotel in Basra
U.S. businessman was abducted from his hotel in the southern city of Basra by kidnappers disguised as policemen, Basra police chief said Friday

04/16/04 cjtf7: 4 Iraqis Killed and 7 Wounded by Katushya Rockets in Mosul
Four Iraqi civilians were killed and seven wounded when insurgents fired two Katushya rockets into a crowded market place in Mosul around 12:30 p.m

04/16/04 Novinite: More Iraqis Killed in Falluja
US occupation troops have fought fierce clashes in the western city of Falluja killing at least fifteen Iraqis over the last two days

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

 

[Barking_Mad]

Civilian casualties mount in Fallujah

HALF the Iraqis killed in a US offensive in the town of Fallujah were women, children and elderly people, a mediator claimed yesterday as US officials insisted that they took all precautions to avoid non-combatants.

Fouda Rawi, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party spearheading efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the city west of Baghdad, quoted hospital sources as saying more than 600 Iraqis had been killed and 1250 wounded.

"Among those killed were 160 women, 141 children and many elderly," he said, providing the first figures on the number of civilian deaths from the nearly week-long offensive.

US officials said it was impossible to determine how many civilians had died in the drive by Marines on the Sunni Muslim bastion before the weekend ceasefire.

They also stressed their forces used precision weapons to minimise the risk of hitting civilians as they sought to root out insurgents after the brutal murders of four US contractors in Fallujah on March 31

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,9272789%5E912,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Dispatches - Correspondent Dahr Jamail reports from Baghdad

April 15, 2004
A Threatening Leaflet, a Threatening Mr. Bush - by Dahr Jamail | Posted April 15, 2004 at 05:48 PM Baghdad time.

Save us from the horrendous rumor mill of Baghdad. Yesterday we heard a good one: that the Mehdi militia is spreading leaflets around sections of Baghdad instructing people to inform them of any westerners residing in their area. Almost everyone I know, including most of the NGOs, is leaving now the first chance they get. I've still been able to work yesterday and today, but when that becomes impossible, there is no use in my staying here any longer. The biggest threat is, of course, being kidnapped.

One can work around the fighting -- just stay away from it. But the randomness of the kidnapping is another story. We are all completely powerless over that situation. Fortunately I was able to work some today. Over in Adhamiya we had an interview with Professor Adnan Mohammed Salman al-Dulainy at the Diwan Wakfa-Sunni. He is the director of the board in charge of all of the Sunnis in Iraq, with over 10,000 Imams under his control, who also serve as the Friday prayer speakers in the mosques.

He has been a teacher for 51 years. His first words to us were, "Our situation is bad. We are struggling now." He went on to tell us that in the past few days, three mosques in Baghdad have been attacked by the Americans: Abu Hanifa, which I reported on yesterday, and two others on Palestine Street.

He discussed the obviousness of the problems: high unemployment and the dissolving of the Iraqi Army by Bremer as being two huge problems caused by the American occupation that need to be resolved promptly if there is to be any stability here. He went on to say, "Mr. Bush declared Iraq will be the example of democracy for the Middle East. What has happened here does not give that impression."

http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000190.html#more

 

[Barking_Mad]

Missing US soldier 'is hostage'

A US soldier missing since an attack last week on a US fuel convoy is being held hostage in Iraq, militants say. Arabic television station al-Jazeera broadcast a video showing masked gunmen and a Caucasian man in army clothes. The claim that a soldier was in custody came as some foreign hostages were released in Iraq, while a further two civilians were reported kidnapped.......

........The man on the tape later identified himself as Keith Matthew Maupin.
" I am married and have a 10-month-old son," he said in an American accent.
"I came to Iraq to liberate it. But I was not at all willing to come, because I wanted to stay with my child."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3633781.stm