This thread dedicate to the news from Iraq

 

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Iraq PM orders checkpoints removed

 

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister, in a very public demonstration of his influence over the U.S. military, ordered the lifting on Tuesday of a week-old cordon around the Baghdad militia stronghold of one of his key Shi'ite allies.

 

U.S. troops, at first apparently taken by surprise by the command, abandoned roadblocks within hours around the sprawling Sadr City slum, meeting Nuri al-Maliki's early evening deadline.

 

He also ordered the clearing of other checkpoints that have snarled traffic around the capital for the past week as U.S. and Iraqi forces have hunted an American soldier of Iraqi origin who was kidnapped, possibly by Shi'ite militiamen.

 

A Maliki aide said the move, which follows days of public friction between the prime minister and U.S. officials in the run-up to next week's U.S. congressional election, had been agreed with the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. military commander.

 

Reporters saw U.S. troops leave positions around Sadr City, the sprawling slum controlled by the Mehdi Army militia of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and Iraqi forces manning others open them up to let all traffic flow freely.

 

A crowd gathered outside the local headquarters of Sadr's organization, some firing in the air in celebration at the end of what a senior follower called a "barbaric and savage siege" that marred last week's Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.

 

Maliki and U.S. officials have been at odds for the past week ahead of November 7 elections that could cost U.S. President George W. Bush's Republicans control of Congress.

 

In the latest bout of mayhem in Iraq, police said more than 40 people were missing after a mass kidnap attack on minibuses traveling to Baghdad from the north. The killings of two more soldiers took the U.S. military death toll for October so far to 103, the highest since it reached 107 in January last year.

 

Maliki has rejected U.S. pressure to set a timetable for disbanding militias led by fellow Shi'ite Islamists and has demanded a freer hand to command the new Iraqi armed forces

 

"Coalition forces have seen the order," the main U.S. spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said. "Our commanders are determining how coalition forces can best address the prime minister's concerns about checkpoint operations."

 

Sadr's Mehdi army, blamed by the U.S. military and minority Sunni leaders for kidnappings and death squad killings, had ordered the two million people in the area to stay at home and shops to close in protest.

 

An aide to Maliki told Reuters he had "discussed" the lifting of the blockade with U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey, the U.S. military commander.

 

"The areas covered by the order are those places where there is terrible traffic because of the checkpoints," he said.

 

Drivers have spent hours at a standstill in parts of the city as U.S. forces have hunted for the missing military linguist, who was kidnapped, possibly by Shi'ite militiamen, while visiting Iraqi relatives in the eastern half of Baghdad.

 

 

"For days the people there have been suffering. It can't go on," the aide said. "Even if you have intelligence information, you can't punish millions of people."

 

Sadr, a firebrand young preacher, is a powerful figure within the Shi'ite bloc that dominates Iraq's government. His Mehdi Army is a nationwide movement that controls police and much else in Sadr City.

 

An abortive U.S. raid against an alleged death squad leader in Sadr City that killed 10 people last week angered Maliki.

 

The military has not identified the missing soldier but Maliki told Reuters last week his name was Ahmed al-Taie and that he was snatched during a visit to relatives.

 

The New York Times on Monday quoted Iraqis who said they were Taie's relatives, as saying they believed the kidnappers were from the Mehdi Army. They told the paper Taie had married a fellow Sunni Muslim this year and visited her frequently. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Mariam Karouny)

Cheney: Insurgents 'very sensitive' to upcoming election

 

Raw Story | October 30 2006

 

In an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Vice President Dick Cheney has said that an upswing in insurgent attacks is meant to swing the U.S. elections.

 

A transcript of the relevant exchange follows:

 

#

CAVUTO: Do you suspect that these insurgent attacks are timed to influence our midterm elections?

 

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: That's my belief. I think they are, very, very cognizant of our schedule, if you will. They also -- you've got to remember what the strategy is of the terrorists. They specifically can't beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have. But whether it's al Qaeda or the other elements that are active in Iraq, they are betting on the proposition they can break the will of the American people. They think we won't have the stomach for the fight long-term. Osama bin Laden says as much. He talks about this.

 

And in fact, their belief is that the same thing will happen here that happened in Beirut in 1983, or Somalia in 1993, when after we lost a number of people, then we packed it in and came home. The thing that's different, of course, is 9/11. And there may have been a time when we'd be safe behind our oceans in the past, but that pretty well went by the boards on 9/11. And since then, we clearly have to be engaged. We've got to be active. We've got to prosecute the global war on terror.

 

We've been able to defend the country successfully for five years now, have not had other attacks against the U.S., although they've tried. But that's primarily because we've gone on offense. We've put in place some very robust measures here at home to protect the country, as well as taking the fight to the enemy overseas.

 

CAVUTO: Do you think, though, that the insurgents are better at these polls than even we are, that they are reading them and seeing frustration growing with the war, and regardless of the good economy, saying, let's keep up the attacks, let's keep up the pressure?

 

CHENEY: It's my belief that they're very sensitive of the fact that we've got an election scheduled, and they can get on the websites like anybody else. There isn't anything that's on the Internet that's not accessible to them. They're on it all the time. They're very sophisticated users of it. And I do believe that that's a part of it. I think we've also seen, of course, a higher level of violence because of Ramadan. Traditionally, there's a spike about this time of year in terms of level of activity.

 

But again, I come back to the proposition, they know that the way they win is if they can, in fact, force America to withdraw on the basis that we aren't going to stay and finish the job, their basic proposition that they can break the will of the American people. That's what they believe. And that's what they're trying to do.

His fears depend on the awareness of American people

 

If Amircan people aware enugh for what happening in Iraq, I think they will kick in the midterm elections

Over 40 Shiites said kidnapped in Iraq

 

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - More than 40 Shiites were abducted along a notoriously dangerous highway just north of Baghdad, police said Wednesday, and the death toll from a suicide bombing at a wedding party rose to 23, including nine children.

 

At least eight other people were either found dead or slain in new attacks Wednesday, including one person killed in a car bomb attack in Baghdad's central market, which wounded five others, police Lt. Ali Hassan said. The death toll in the market attack was likely to rise, he said.

 

The abductions Tuesday near the town of Tarmiyah were another outbreak of sectarian violence in a region where scores were killed last month in reprisal killings among formerly friendly Shiite and Sunni neighbors in the city of Balad.

 

Unarmed men checked identification cards and seemed to be looking for familiar faces among travelers stopped in heavy traffic, said an eyewitness, who asked to be identified only by the pseudonym Abu Omar for fear of reprisals.

 

Armed gunmen stood nearby during the abductions, just out of sight of U.S. soldiers who were disarming a roadside bomb nearby, Abu Omar said. He and other Sunni travelers were allowed to travel onward after showing their ID cards, he said.

 

At least 40 travelers were missing and feared abducted, said an officer at the Joint Cooperation Center in the city of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

 

Qassim al-Suwaidi, a doctor at Al-Sadr Hospital, said, meanwhile, that 12 victims of Tuesday's attack on a Shiite wedding in Baghdad had died from their injuries. Eleven were killed on the spot, he said. Another 19 were still being treated at the hospital.

 

The attack, in which a bomber drove an explosives-rigged car into a crowd outside the bride's home, resembled recent killings aimed at sparking Shiite retaliation and pushing Iraq toward all-out civil war — a stated goal of the al-Qaida in Iraq extremist group.

 

Police said U.S. and Iraqi forces on Tuesday night stormed an office in the southwestern hamlet of Ahrar belonging to the al-Sadr organization, sponsors of the feared Mahdi Army militia linked to sectarian murders and other violence.

 

The troops, using U.S. air cover, and arrested five followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Mohammed al-Shammari of the provincial police. There were no reports of casualties. The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the report.

 

U.S. demands for a crackdown on the militia have been a sticking point in relations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose coalition government is heavily dependent on al-Sadr's political support.

 

On Tuesday, U.S. forces dismantled road blocks around the Mahdi Army's Baghdad stronghold, the Sadr City neighborhood, following an order from the prime minister that was the latest in a series of challenges to the U.S. designed to test Washington's readiness to give him a greater say in securing the world's most violent capital.

 

Aides to the prime minister say he hopes to expand his authority by exploiting the pressure on President Bush over rising voter dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war and the rising U.S. death toll.

 

Iraq has moved toward repairing a 24-year breach in formal diplomatic relations with neighboring Syria The Syrian foreign minister is considering a visit to Baghdad this month, a Syrian official said, in what would be the first trip by a top Syrian figure since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003.

 

Al-Maliki's government also reported progress expanding diplomatic ties, with eight countries agreeing to open Iraqi embassies in their capitals, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

 

Commitments have been received from South Korea Ukraine, Denmark, Slovakia, Serbia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Nigeria, the statement said.

 

Insurgents and Shiite militia groups continued attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqis who work with them.

 

 

An Iraqi translator with U.S. forces, Haidar Muhsin, was shot dead late Tuesday in front of his home in Diwaniyah, the second translator killed in the southern city in recent days. An Iraqi-American linguist with the U.S. army was abducted in Baghdad last week and remains missing.

 

In fresh attacks Wednesday, unknown gunmen riding in a private car shot dead police officer Izzaddin Abbas in central Baghdad as he rode his motorcycle home, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majeed said. A clerk with the Ministry of

Industry was shot and killed in northeastern Baghdad as he was driving to work, police Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said.

 

A police officer was among three people shot dead in the northern city of

Mosul, said Brig. Sa'eed Ahmed of the provincial Police Information Office. Mosul police also discovered the charred body of an apparent murder victim, Ahmed said.

The bodies of three people who were shot after being blindfolded and bound at the wrists were found dumped in the capital's eastern districts, Capt.

 

Mohammed Abdul Ghani, of the city's Rashad Police Station said. Scores of such bodies have been found in recent months, most believed to have been abducted and tortured by sectarian death squads.

Baghdad on alert awaiting Saddam verdict

 

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces drastically tightened security across Baghdad on Friday in advance of Sunday's expected guilty verdict against Saddam Hussien and the Iraqi prime minister said he hoped the ousted dictator will "get what he deserves."

 

Saddam has been on trial for murder and crimes against humanity and, if convicted, could be sentenced to death by hanging. Violence is already running high, with police finding the bodies of 87 torture victims throughout the capital between 6 a.m. Thursday and 6 p.m. Friday.

 

A verdict is expected to set off further bloodshed, underscoring the trial's failure to bring reconciliation to a country fractured ever deeper along sectarian lines.

 

"We hope that the verdict will give this man what he deserves for the crimes he committed against the Iraqi people," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has declared he hoped Saddam would be hanged.

 

"The Iraqi people will express their happiness in a way they see fit and we will call on the Iraqi people through a broadcast statement to remain calm and express their happiness in an appropriate way in this current situation, in a way that does not risk their lives," the Shiite prime minister said after a meeting with tribal leaders from the restive southern city of Amarah.

 

An aide to al-Maliki said authorities are imposing a 12-hour curfew on Baghdad

and three surrounding provinces starting at 6 a.m. Sunday. Not just cars, but people will be barred from the streets. Baghdad's airport also will be closed.

 

The curfew will cover all of Baghdad province, Salahuddin province, which includes Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, and the Sunni insurgent hotbeds of Diyala and Anbar provinces.

 

Leave for all military personnel has been canceled indefinitely and vacationing soldiers recalled to active duty.

 

New checkpoints sprang up around main roads, including within the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. and British embassies. Larger than usual numbers of policemen and U.S. troops patrolled city streets, while U.S. Army Stryker armored vehicles blocked traffic on both sides of the al-Jumhuriyah Bridge, one of the capital's most heavily guarded because it carries traffic past the Green Zone.

 

"We received orders to tighten security measures and to use any available policemen to tighten the security," police Lt. Ali Abbas said.

Any violence would be met with a stern response, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which commands the police.

 

"We warn anyone who intends to exploit this event that our response will be tough and severe," police Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press without elaborating.

 

Many of Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs are predicting a firestorm if the ex-president is sentenced to death. On the other hand, majority Shiites, who were persecuted under Saddam but now dominate the government, are likely to be enraged if he escapes the gallows.

 

Setting the tone, al-Maliki, said last month that a conviction for Saddam would help break the will of the former dictator's followers in the largely Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

 

Saddam and seven co-defendants including a half brother have been on trial since Oct. 19, 2005, for their alleged roles in the deaths of about 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against the president in 1982.

 

A second trial against Saddam — for alleged genocide against the Kurds began in August and more charges are expected to follow. It is unclear whether those cases would move forward if Saddam is condemned to hang.

 

On Wednesday, one of Saddam's lawyers said a death sentence would "open the gates of hell" to the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

 

Bushra al-Khalil, a Lebanese lawyer who was thrown out of Saddam's trial in May, also accused President Bush of exploiting the verdict — which comes two days before hotly contested U.S. Congressional elections for "electoral purposes."

 

 

In a letter addressed to the presiding judge, Saddam's 10-member defense team, including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, wrote that it would be premature to deliver the verdict on Sunday "because the court did not receive the final defense statements yet." It was not possible to confirm that the judges had received the letter.

 

Among those killed in violence Friday was Ahmed al-Rasheed, a correspondent for the privately-owned Sharqiya channel. The station said he was the third employee to be killed since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

With al-Rasheed's death, at least 88 journalists have been killed in Iraq since hostilities began in March 2003 including 28 this year according to an Associated Press count based on statistics kept by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Bush's legacy, Iraq war on line in vote

 

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans voted on Tuesday in elections for Congress that could curb the power of George W. Bush's Republicans, force a change of direction in Iraq and shape the legacy of a U.S. president with two years left in office.

 

Democrats are on course to recapture control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Republicans for the first time since 1994, opinion polls showed, with their chance of taking over the Senate hinging on several key

races that are too close to call.

 

A majority for the party in even one chamber of Congress could slam the brakes on Bush's second-term legislative agenda, hasten his lame-duck status and give Democrats a chance to investigate his most controversial policy decisions, such as the war in Iraq.

 

Polls opened at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT) in some areas of the eastern United States and will start to close at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT), but it could be hours before results are known in many crucial races.

 

Bush cast his ballot in Crawford, Texas, joking that he had "pretty much" made up his mind.

 

After a five-day swing through 10 states to fire up supporters in Republican strongholds, Bush urged all Americans to vote no matter which side they backed.

 

Ann Balentine of Des Moines, Iowa, said she was insulted by the flood of negative campaign advertising and felt that members of Congress should have their terms limited.

 

"I'm thinking these morons need to be out of office after eight or 12 years," she said.

 

For Jan Mitchell, a 54-year-old nurse voting at Miami's city hall, Iraq was the major factor.

 

"We've got to get out of there," she said. "We shouldn't have been there in the first place, but that is sort of beside the point."

 

All 435 House seats, 33 Senate seats and 36 governorships are at stake and Democrats need to pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats to seize control of both chambers.

 

About 50 contested House races and 10 Senate races are the chief battlegrounds. Independent analysts predict Democrats could gain 20 to 40 House seats, while polls show races for Republican-held Senate seats in Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, Montana and Rhode Island are too close to call.

Democrats probably need to win four of those five Senate races to take control of the chamber.

 

Two national opinion polls on Monday showed Democrats still held a double-digit advantage when likely voters were asked which party's candidate they would support. The new polls contradicted two surveys released on Sunday that showed Republicans closing the gap on Democrats.

 

History was with Democrats -- the party holding the White House traditionally loses seats in a president's sixth year.

 

STRONG CHALLENGES

 

The battle for the House will be fought largely in the East and Midwest, where scores of Republican incumbents are fighting for their political lives amid what polls show is a strong desire for change.

 

 

At least three Republican incumbents face strong challenges in Indiana and Connecticut, while four Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania and five New York seats could fall to Democrats.

 

In a campaign dominated by Iraq, Bush defended his handling of the war to the end and questioned what Democrats would do differently.

 

"We have a plan for victory. We've got a strategy to win. And part of that is to elect Republicans to the Congress and to the Senate," Bush told a rally in Bentonville, Arkansas on the eve of the election.

 

Bush, who has been hampered by low approval ratings, said Republicans were coming back and would retain control of Congress.

 

"I knew we were going to finish strong. I knew that we were going to come roaring into Election Day, because we've got the right position on taxes and we've got the right position on what it takes to protect you from attack," he said.

 

Democrats put leaders like former President Bill Clinton , former Vice Preside, former Vice President Al Gore and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail to drum up votes in the final hours.

16 killed in bus bombing in east Baghdad

 

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb exploded in a minibus in eastern Baghdad on Monday, killing 16 people and wounding 20, police said.

 

The bombing occurred shortly after midday in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, police Lt. Ali Muhsin said.

 

Sunni insurgents have routinely carried out such attacks against Shiite Muslims in apparent bids to incite sectarian violence, which now rages across central sections of the country

 

 

On Sunday, the Shiite prime minister promised to reshuffle his Cabinet after calling lawmakers disloyal and blaming Sunni Muslims for raging sectarian violence that claimed at least 159 more lives, including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join Iraq's police force.

 

Among the unusually high number of dead were 50 bodies found behind a regional electrical company in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, and 25 others found scattered throughout the capital. Three U.S. troops were reported killed, as were four British service members.

 

Also Sunday, the country's Sunni defense minister challenged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's contention that the U.S. military should quickly pull back into bases and let the Iraqi army take control of security countrywide.

 

Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi rejected calls by al-Maliki for the U.S. military to speed transfer of security operations throughout the country to the Iraqi army, saying his men still were too poorly equipped and trained to do the job.

 

"We are working hard to create a real army and we ask our government not to try to move too quickly because of the political pressure it feels. Our technical needs are real and that is very important, if we are to be a real force against insecurity," al-Obaidi said.

 

Al-Maliki wants the Americans confined to bases for him to call on in emergencies, but he boldly predicted his army could crush violence within six months if left alone to do the work.

 

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey last month said it would take 12 to 18 months before Iraq's army was ready to take control of the country with some U.S. backup.

 

Key lawmakers from al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party said that in the coming Cabinet shake up, which the prime minister promised during a closed-door parliament session Sunday, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani was at the top of the list to lose his post because police and security forces were failing to quell the unbridled sectarian killing that has reached civil war proportions in Baghdad and the center of the country.

 

Al-Bolani, a Shiite who was chosen in June and a month after al-Maliki's government was formed, is an independent. The United States demanded that the defense and interior posts be held by officials without ties to the Shiite political parties that control militia forces.

 

Al-Maliki is under pressure both from his people and the United States to curb violence, with Washington leaning on him to disband Shiite militias believed responsible, through their death squads, for much of the killings.

 

Al-Maliki is dependent on both Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, with its Badr Brigade military wing, and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement for his hold on power.

 

The interior minister controls police and other security forces which already are infiltrated by the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of al-Sadr's political movement.

 

After nearly 48 hours without reporting a death, the U.S. military said three soldiers assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Saturday of combat wounds in Anbar Province, the insurgent stronghold west of the capital. Their deaths raised to 2,848 the number of service members who have had died since the start of the war in March 2003.

 

Four British servicemen were killed in an attack on a patrol boat in Basra's

Shatt al-Arab waterway, southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defense said in London.

 

 

In Sunday morning's bombing targeting police recruits, two men detonated explosives strapped to their bodies simultaneously, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. The attack, killing 35 men outside the police station near western Baghdad's Nissur Square, was one of several blasts in the capital.

 

Police and police recruits, who are largely Shiite Muslims, have been regularly targeted by Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist organizations aligned with it.

 

In Baqouba, the Iraqi army's provincial public affairs office said troops found 50 bodies dumped behind the offices of the provincial electric company.

 

Nineteen of the bodies were taken to the morgue in Baqouba and the army was waiting for U.S. bomb disposal teams, fearing the 31 other bodies behind the electrical company were rigged with explosives.

 

Abdul-Razaq said Baghdad police had found 25 bullet-riddled, handcuffed bodies in several parts of the capital. Dozens more bodies were found around the country.

 

Al-Maliki confirmed an Associated Press report 10 days ago about the coming government shake-up during a closed-door parliament session in which he responded to public charges by lawmakers that the government was complicit in the killing of members of the Sunni minority, two parliamentarians told AP.

 

Some Shiites had complained al-Maliki was being unduly harsh in dealing with

Shiite militia members. Al-Maliki told the lawmakers that their speeches were affecting the security situation, according to Shiite legislator Bassem al-Sharif.

Dhafer al-Ani, of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, told AP that al-Maliki's comments "were disappointing because they were sidelining (Sunnis) and included threats." In remarks earlier in the week, al-Maliki blamed Sunnis alone for Iraq's violence.

 

On Saturday, al-Maliki told editors of local newspapers that Syria which the U.S. and his government accuse of allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq, wants to start afresh with Iraq.

 

 

"We have the same desire," al-Maliki said in a videotape of the remarks to Iraqi journalists on Saturday.

 

Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Labib Abbawi said Sunday that Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem had accepted an invitation to visit Iraq, though no date was set.

The opening to Syria comes with the expected release in the United States of recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

 

It was believed the commission would recommend trying, among other things, to engage both Syria and Iran , Iraq's eastern neighbor.

Baghdad Sadr City bombings kill 30

 

by Ammar Karim

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Insurgents have killed at least 30 people and wounded 95 in a series of bombings in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City.

 

One car bomb exploded at a market in Sadr City, a regular target for Sunni insurgents in the sectarian conflict that has killed thousands in Iraq.

 

Minutes before the blasts masked gunmen launched a daring raid on the health ministry, trapping about 2,000 people inside the building.

 

The explosions that killed 25 people and wounded 75 in Sadr City included three car bombs, the security source said.

 

He said one device went off at a market, a regular target for Sunni insurgents in the sectarian conflict that has killed thousands in Iraq.

 

In an audacious raid about 100 masked gunmen also attacked the health ministry in central Baghdad, clashing with guards and Iraqi army soldiers, deputy health minister Hakim al-Zamili told AFP.

 

He was trapped in the building with around 2,000 employees.

 

"First a series of mortars were fired at the building from the nearby Al-Fadhel neighbourhood, and then about 100 masked gunmen holding machine guns attacked the building," said Zamili.

 

"About 2,000 employees are trapped in the building. I am also in the building," he added.

 

"The gunmen came in civilian cars and pick-up trucks and started shooting at the building and wounded a number of employees."

 

A security source said: "Fierce clashes are going on at this moment between the gunmen and guards of the building who are backed by Iraqi army soldiers."

 

"There are casualties but we do not have any details."

 

On Sunday gunmen kidnapped deputy health minister Ammar al-Assafar from his home in Baghdad's northern Adhamiyah district, while Zamili himself escaped an assassination bid on Monday.

 

Two of Zamili's guards were killed in the ambush.

Insurgents have recently stepped up attacks against the government by targeting state-owned institutes and buildings.

 

On November 14 dozens of men wearing security forces uniforms assaulted a scientific research institute of the ministry of higher education and kidnapped around 150 people.

 

About 80 people, many of them employees of the ministry, are still believed to be hostages.

 

 

Sadr City, the impoverished district of followers loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, was also the site of an early morning incident involving US troops.

 

"US troops fired on a minibus carrying workers and killed a number of them in Al-Falah street at 6 am today," Imam Abdel Zahra al-Suwaidi from the Sadr movement told AFP.

 

"I condemn this shooting that targeted the workers and accuse US forces of repeating such acts which leave many victims every day," Suwaidi said.

 

A medic at the Sadr City hospital said four people were killed and eight wounded, including two women.

 

An Iraqi security source also confirmed the incident.

 

"US forces fired on the minibus as the vehicle was seen on the streets before the dusk-to-dawn curfew was lifted," the source said.

 

But the US military said that Iraqi forces fired on the vehicle during a raid to detain the leader of a kidnapping cell.

 

"A vehicle displaying hostile intent was identified as an immediate threat to Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces fired on the vehicle to neutralise the threat," the military said without mentioning civilian casualties.

 

The security source said the workers were headed to a market in the Jamila neighbourhood near Sadr City at the time.

 

A daily curfew is imposed on Baghdad from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am (1800 GMT to

0300 GMT).

 

US forces have regularly raided Sadr City to hunt for leaders of kidnapping cells who the military alleges are militiamen loyal to Sadr.

On Wednesday a UN report said that Iraq's sectarian conflict killed at least 3,709 people in October -- the highest monthly death toll since the 2003 US-led invasion.

 

The figures, from data provided by the Baghdad health ministry and morgues, compared with a previous high of 3,590 in July, which the United Nation called "unprecedented" at the time.

 

 

The report blamed the militias for the bloodshed.

 

"Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the report said.

 

"Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."

The UN mission regularly received reports that security forces were either "infiltrated or act in collusion with militias, while police and military security operations continued to be based on massive sweeps", the report said.

 

It came a week before a meeting between US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan on November 29.

 

The US military said Thursday that three more soldiers were killed in Iraq, bringing its losses since the invasion to 2,866, according Pentagon figures

 

Police also recovered eight bodies near the central city of Diwaniyah, while in the restive city of Baquba 12 people were reported killed.

Attack on Baghdad Shiite slum kills 161

 

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

 

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni Muslim insurgents blew up five car bombs and fired mortars into Baghdad's largest Shiite district Thursday, killing at least 161 people and wounding 257 in a dramatic attack that sent the U.S. ambassador racing to meet with Iraqi leaders in an effort to contain the growing sectarian war.

 

Shiite mortar teams quickly retaliated, firing 10 shells at Sunni Islam's most important shrine in Baghdad, badly damaging the Abu Hanifa mosque and killing one person. Eight more rounds slammed down near the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni Muslim organization in Iraq , setting nearby houses on fire.

 

Two other mortar barrages on Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad killed nine and wounded 21, police said late Thursday.

 

The bloodshed underlined the impotence of the Iraqi army and police to quell determined sectarian extremists at a time when the Bush administration appears to be considering a move to accelerate the hand-over of security responsibilities. President Bush plans to visit the region next week to discuss the security situation with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

 

"We condemn such acts of senseless violence that are clearly aimed at undermining the Iraqi people's hopes for a peaceful and stable Iraq," said Jeanie Mamo, a White House spokeswoman.

 

Iraq's government imposed a curfew in the capital and also closed the international airport. The transport ministry then took the highly unusual step of closing the airport and docks in the southern city of Basra, the country's main outlet to the vital shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf.

 

Leaders from Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities issued a televised appeal for calm after a hastily organized meeting with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The U.S. Embassy said it had nothing to report about the session.

 

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, also went on state TV and blamed Sunni radicals and followers of Saddam Hussein for the attacks on Sadr City.

 

The coordinated car bombings — three by suicide drivers and two of parked cars — billowed black smoke up into clouds hanging low over blood-smeared streets jammed with twisted and charred cars and buses.

 

Hospital corridors and waiting rooms were awash in blood and mangled survivors of bombs that struck at 15-minute intervals in the sprawling Shiite slum, which is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key al-Maliki backer.

 

The militia and associated death squads are believed responsible for the slayings of hundreds of Sunnis since suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants bombed a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra last February.

That attack set off a surge of retaliatory killings between Shiites and Sunnis that have raged all year.

 

Al-Sadr associates, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said the cleric feared that the Sadr City bombings would make it impossible for him to hold back his heavily armed fighters from a furious round of revenge attacks.

 

In a television statement read by an aide, al-Sadr urged unity among his followers to end the U.S. "occupation" that he said is causing Iraq's strife. Al-Sadr said the attacks coincided with the seventh anniversary of the assassination of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Shiite religious leader. The anniversary reckoning was by the Islamic calendar.

 

"Had the late al-Sadr been among you he would have said preserve your unity," the statement said. "Don't carry out any act before you ask the Hawza (Shiite seminary in Najaf). Be the ones who are unjustly treated and not the ones who treat others unjustly."

 

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pre-eminent Shiite religious figure in Iraq, condemned the bombings and issued condolences to family members of those who were killed. He called for self-control among his followers.

 

Iraq is suffering through a period of unparalleled violence. The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the most in any month since the war began 44 months ago, and a figure certain to be eclipsed in November.

 

 

The Sadr City slaughter occurred just moments after U.S. helicopters and Iraqi armor had to intervene to stop an attack by 30 masked Sunni gunmen who tried to storm the Shiite-dominated Health Ministry, about a mile west of the Shiite slum. Seven ministry guards were wounded.

 

Residents also reported heavy mortar fire and gunbattles in Hurriyah, a now-largely Shiite neighborhood in northwest Baghdad. There were pitched battles between gunmen and the army on Haifa Street, a dangerous thoroughfare running north from the Green Zone, site of the American and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government and parliament.

 

Iraqis also reported heavy fighting around the Jadriyah Bridge near Baghdad University and AP personnel saw 12 pickup trucks loaded with men armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and heavy machine guns driving through the center of the city.

 

Counting those killed in Sadr City, at least 233 people died or were found dead across Iraq on Thursday.

 

Before dawn Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.

 

The raid was the fourth time in six days that coalition forces raided the district looking for U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Ann Arbor, Mich., resident who was snatched from the street while he was visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on Oct. 23.

 

The Mahdi Army is believed to have grabbed al-Taayie as well as dozens of people during a raid on a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad on Nov. 14. The ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab.

 

During the 4:30 a.m. raid coalition forces searched houses and opened fire on a minivan carrying Iraqi workers in al-Fallah Street, killing four and wounding eight, said police Capt. Mohammed Ismail. He said coalition forces also detained five Iraqis.

 

In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed the raid and said it was part of the effort to find al-Taayie. It confirmed the detention of five Iraqis and said a vehicle was shot at by Iraqi troops after "displaying hostile intent." The statement did not report Iraqi casualties.

 

The military also reported that three Marines were killed during combat in Anbar province, where many Sunni-Arab insurgents are based. That raised the U.S. death toll so far this month to 52.

Associated Press correspondents Thomas Wagner, Bassem Mroue and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report.

Iran says will help U.S. if it quits Iraq

 

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran was ready to help the United States and Britain in Iraq but only if they pledged to change their attitude and withdraw their troops.

 

The remark comes amid growing calls for Washington to engage Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria , to help prevent Iraq plunging into civil war.

 

A senior U.S. official said this month Washington was "in principle" ready to discuss Iraq with Iran but said the timing of such talks was unclear. Ahmadinejad has previously said he would talk but only if Washington changed its behavior.

 

"The Iranian nation is ready to help you get out of that swamp (in Iraq) on one condition ... you should pledge to correct your attitude," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a parade of the Basij religious militia.

 

"Go back and take your forces to behind your borders and serve your own nations," he added.

 

Ahmadinejad regularly condemns the U.S. occupation of Iraq and complains about U.S. bases in the region. Washington accuses Iran of seeking to foment unrest, while Iran blames the violence on the presence of U.S. troops.

 

The Iranian president also criticizes what he says is a hostile U.S. and British attitude to Iran, particularly over its disputed nuclear programme.

 

Western countries, including the United States and Britain, accuse Iran of seeking to develop atomic bombs, a charge Iran denies. It says its aim is to generate electricity.

 

Ahmadinejad urged countries in the region to work together to expel foreign forces from their soil.

 

"Let us put our hands together and expel enemies who are against humanity from our countries and our sacred lands," he said.

 

Iran has in the past called for a security pact between Iran and other regional states, but Gulf Arab countries, dominated by Sunni Muslims, have long been suspicious of Shi'ite Muslim Iran's intentions in the region.

Army moves to reduce strain on troops

 

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Army, strained by unrelenting violence in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is considering ways it can speed up the creation of two combat brigades while shifting personnel and equipment from other military units.

 

 

Under the plan being developed, the new brigades could be formed next year and be ready to be sent to Iraq in 2008, defense officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not final.

 

The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, told a commission Thursday that he wants to increase the half-million-member force beyond the 30,000 troops authorized in recent years. And he warned that the Army "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves.

 

Though Schoomaker didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time, saying 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year. Schoomaker has said it costs roughly $1.2 billion to increase the Army by 10,000 soldiers.

 

Officials also need greater authority to tap into the National Guard and Reserve, long ago set up as a strategic reserve but now needed as an integral part of the nation's deployed forces, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces.

 

"Over the last five years, the sustained strategic demand ... is placing a strain on the Army's all-volunteer force," Schoomaker said during a Capitol Hill hearing. "At this pace ... we will break the active component" unless reserves can be called up more to help, he said.

 

Accelerating the creation of two combat brigades would give the Army greater flexibility to allow units to return home for at least a year before having to go back to the battlefront. Brigades average 3,500 troops.

 

Since 2003, the Army has been restructuring in order to increase the number of brigades in each combat division from three to four. The purpose is to increase the pool of brigades available for troop rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan and to make each brigade more self-sustaining.

 

White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to characterize President Bush's response to Schoomaker's comments, but he said Bush "takes seriously any of the requests from the service branch chiefs."

 

Schoomaker's testimony and the new Army plans came as Bush continues his assessment of the Iraq war. Bush held three days of urgent meetings with top generals and other advisers. Federal agencies have presented their options to Bush and the White House National Security Council and are providing additional details and answering questions.

 

The military options being considered include a short-term surge in troops to stem the violence and an increased effort to train and equip Iraqi forces.

 

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Schoomaker acknowledged that Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, is looking at several military options, including shifting many troops from combat missions to training Iraqi units.

 

The Army in recent days has been looking at how many additional troops could be sent to Iraq if the president decides a surge in forces would be helpful. But,

Army officials say, only about 10,000 to 15,000 troops could be sent and an end to the war would have to be in sight because it would drain the pool of available soldiers for combat.

 

"We would not surge without a purpose," Schoomaker told reporters. "And that purpose should be measurable."

A number of administration officials have suggested privately that — while Bush has considered the possibility of a short-term troop increase — there is no consensus from the military on the wisdom of injecting a large number of additional troops.

 

Another option under discussion is increasing the number of U.S. troops who are placed inside Iraqi army and police units as advisers, boosting the training of the Iraqi forces so they can more quickly take control of their own security.

Saddam Hussein executed for war crimes

 

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Clutching a Quran and refusing a hood, Saddam Hussein went to the gallows before sunrise Saturday, executed by vengeful countrymen after a quarter-century of remorseless brutality that killed countless thousands and led Iraq into disastrous wars against the United States and Iran.

 

In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate the former dictator's death. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.

 

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.

 

The execution took place during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 108.

 

President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

 

He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

 

On Saturday, a bomb planted aboard a minibus exploded in a fish market south of Baghdad, killing 15 people, said Haidr Nahi, service director of the al-Furat al-Awssat Hospital.

 

Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he heard of Saddam's death.

 

"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.

 

"We are looking for a new page of history despite the tragedy of the past," said Saif Ibrahim, a 26-year-old Baghdad resident.

But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.

 

"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.

 

As a security precaution, police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days.

 

State-run al-Iraqiya television initially reported that Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, also were hanged. However, three officials later said only Saddam was executed.

 

"We wanted him to be executed on a special day," National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told state-run al-Iraqiya.

 

Sami al-Askari, the political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told The Associated Press that Saddam briefly struggled when he was taken from his cell in an American military prison but was composed in his last moments.

 

He said Saddam was clad completely in black, with a jacket, trousers, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb.

 

 

Shortly before the execution, Saddam's hat was removed and Saddam was asked if he wanted to say something, al-Askari said.

"No I don't want to," al-Askari, who was present at the execution, quoted Saddam as saying. Saddam repeated a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.

 

"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a hood," al-Askari said. "Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab.'"

 

Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. The neighborhood is home to the Iraqi capital's most important Shiite shine, the Imam Kazim shrine.

 

Al-Askari said the government had not decided what to do with Saddam's body. Issam Ghazzawi, a member of Saddam's defense team, said he was worried the body would be buried in an unmarked location.

Photographs and video footage were taken, al-Rubaie said.

 

"He did not ask for anything. He was carrying a Quran and said: 'I want this Quran to be given to this person,' a man he called Bander," he said. Al-Rubaie said he did not know who Bander was.

 

"Saddam was treated with respect when he was alive and after his death," al-Rubaie said. "Saddam's execution was 100 percent Iraqi and the American side did not interfere."

 

The station earlier was airing national songs after the first announcement and had a tag on the screen that read "Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history."

 

The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982. Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.

 

A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.

 

Al-Maliki had rejected calls that Saddam be spared, telling families of people killed during the dictator's rule that would be an insult to the victims.

The prime minister's office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a "strong lesson" to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people.

 

"We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only represented his evil soul," the statement said. "The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq."

 

U.S. troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq.

 

"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, of Philadelphia, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"

 

Sgt. Elston Miramonte, 25, of Monticello, N.Y., said Saddam got what he deserved.

 

"All the people that he killed, did they deserve to die? He had a fair trial, and it was time to execute him," he said.

 

The execution was carried out around the start of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic world's largest holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Many Muslims celebrate by sacrificing domestic animals, usually sheep.

 

Sunnis and Shiites throughout the world began observing the four-day holiday at dawn Saturday, but Iraq's Shiite community — the country's majority — was due to start celebrating on Sunday.

 

Human Rights Watch criticized the execution, calling Saddam's trial "deeply flawed."

 

"Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can't justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program.

 

The hanging of Saddam, who was ruthless in ordering executions of his opponents, will keep other Iraqis from pursuing justice against the ousted leader.

 

At his death, he was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.

 

Many people in Iraq's Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds.

Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

 

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

 

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told the AP by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

 

A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

 

In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. "Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.

 

One of Saddam's lawyers, Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings.

 

The message called on Iraqis to put aside the sectarian hatred that has bloodied their nation for a year and voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency against U.S.-led forces, saying: "Long live jihad and the mujahedeen."

 

Saddam urged Iraqis to rely on God's help in fighting "against the unjust nations" that ousted his regime.

 

Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said U.S. authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni Arabs.

 

"This is the end of an era in Iraq," al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. "The Baath regime ruled for 35 years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country."

 

Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.

 

Saddam's own regime used executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror.

 

In the months after he seized power on July 16, 1979, he had hundreds of members of his own party and army officers slain. In 1996, he ordered the slaying of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan but returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees of safety.

 

Saddam built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies, but then plunged the country into an eight-year war with neighboring Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and wrecked Iraq's economy.

 

During that war, as part of the wider campaign against Kurds, the Iraqi military used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians.

 

The economic troubles from the Iran war led Saddam to invade Kuwait in the summer of 1990, seeking to grab its oil wealth, but a U.S.-led coalition inflicted a stinging defeat on the Iraq army and freed the Kuwaitis.

 

U.N. sanctions imposed over the Kuwait invasion remained in place when Saddam failed to cooperate fully in international efforts to ensure his programs for creating weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled. Iraqis, once among the region's most prosperous, were impoverished.

 

The final blow came when U.S.-led troops invaded in March 2003. Saddam's regime fell quickly, but political, sectarian and criminal violence have created chaos that has undermined efforts to rebuild Iraq's ruined economy.

While he wielded a heavy hand to maintain control, Saddam also sought to win public support with a personality cult that pervaded Iraqi society.

 

Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports and shops and on Iraq's currency.

Iraqis Say They Were Better Off Under Hussein

 

Angus Reid Global Monitor

Thursday, January 4, 2007

 

Many adults in Iraq believe the coalition effort has been negative, according to a poll by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies and the Gulf Research Center. 90 per cent of respondents think the situation in their country was better before the U.S.-led invasion.

 

The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 3,000 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 22,500 troops have been wounded in action.

 

There has been no official inquiry on the actual number of Iraqi casualties. A volunteer group of British and U.S. academics and researchers—known as Iraq Body Count (IBC)—estimates that more than 52,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the military intervention.

 

In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister.

 

The survey was conducted in November 2006, before the publication of the Iraq Study Group’s findings in the United States, and Hussein’s execution for crimes against humanity. Late last month, Al-Maliki called on the "followers of the ousted regime" to "reconsider their stance as the door is still open to anyone who has no innocent blood on his hands to help in rebuilding Iraq."

 

Polling Data

 

Do you feel the situation in the country is better today or better before the U.S.-led invasion?

 

Better today

5%

 

Better before

90%

 

Not sure

5%

 

Source: Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies / Gulf Research Center

Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 2,000 Iraqi adults in Baghdad, Anbar and Najaf, conducted in late November 2006. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

George Bush like a disaster walking on two legs

Its no surprise really. At least they don't have to worry about getting blown up all the time.

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war

How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches

 

Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb

London Independent

Sunday, January 7, 2007

 

#

 

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

 

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

 

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

 

#

Are they lawmakers and politicians or gangs and group of thieves?

Why does the Iraq News deserve a whole thread?

To save us creating lots of threads about things happening in Iraq.

Saddam half brother, ex-official hanged

 

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

 

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, had been found guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

 

"They (the government) called us before dawn and told us to send someone. I sent a judge to witness the execution and it happened," al-Faroon said.

 

Two aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed that the executions had taken place. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the government had not yet released the information.

 

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh was to hold a news conference later Monday and was expected to announce the hangings.

 

The executions reportedly occurred in the same Saddam-era military intelligence headquarters building in north Baghdad where the former leader was hanged two days before the end of 2006, according to an Iraqi general, who would not allow use of his name because he was not authorized to release the information. The building is located in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

 

The two men were to have been hanged along with Saddam on Dec. 30, but Iraqi authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what National Security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a "special day."

 

Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay the executions.

 

"In my opinion we should wait," Talabani said Wednesday at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. "We should examine the situation," he said without elaborating.

 

Saddam's execution became an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of the execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the gallows.

 

On Tuesday, al-Maliki said that Khalilzad asked him to delay Saddam's execution for 10 days to two weeks, but added that Iraqi officials rejected the demand.

 

A lawyer for the two men told The Associated Press recently that they were taken from their cells and told they were going to be hanged on the same day Saddam was executed.

 

Issam Ghazawi, a member of Saddam's defense team for the past two years, said he met individually with Ibrahim and al-Bandar recently, and that Ibrahim told him they were escorted from their cells and told they were also going to be executed.

 

"The Americans took me and al-Bandar from our cells on the same day of Saddam's execution to an office inside the prison at 1 a.m. They asked us to collect our belongings because they intend to execute us at dawn," Ibrahim reportedly said.

 

He said the two men were also told to write their wills.

Al-Bandar and Ibrahim were taken back to their prison cells nearly nine hours later, according to Ghazawi.

 

"Their execution should be commuted under such circumstances because of the psychological pain they endured as they waited to hang," he said.

 

 

Ghazawi quoted as Al-Bandar as saying he "wished to have been executed with President Saddam." Ibrahim, the lawyer said, "was in the worst condition.

 

He kept crying over the death of his brother and said it was a great loss for the family and the Arab world."

 

After Saddam's execution but before Ibrahim and al-Bandar's, Human Rights Watch released a report calling the speedy trial and subsequent hanging of Saddam proof of the new Iraqi government's disregard for human rights.

"The tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due process rights of all of the defendants," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program.

I heard that Barzan head separated from his body

I heard that too.

Iraqis: At least 200 insurgents killed

 

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi officials said Monday that U.S.-backed Iraqi troops had targeted a messianic cult called "Soldiers of Heaven" in a weekend battle that left 200 fighters dead, including the group's leader, near the Shiite holy city of Najaf. A military commander said hundreds of gunmen planned to disguise themselves as pilgrims and kill clerics on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar.

 

The Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said the raid on Sunday in date-palm orchards on the city's outskirts was aimed against the fringe Shiite cult that some Iraqi officials said had links to Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign fighters. Officials said the group was hoping the violence it planned would force the return of the "hidden imam," a 9th-century Shiite saint who Shiites believe will come again to bring peace and justice to the world.

 

U.S. and British jets played a major role in the fighting, dropping 500-pound bombs on the militants' positions, but President Bush said the battle was an indication that Iraqis were beginning to take control.

 

"My first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something," Bush told NPR.

 

The fighting began Sunday and ended Monday. U.S. officials said an American military helicopter crashed during the battle, killing two soldiers on board, but gave no further details. Maj. Gen. Othman al-Ghanemi, the Iraqi commander in charge of the Najaf region, said the aircraft was shot down. It was the second U.S. military helicopter to crash in eight days.

 

Both Mohammed al-Askari, the defense ministry spokesman, and al-Ghanemi said 200 terrorists were killed and 60 wounded, lowering previous estimates. Al-Ghanemi said 150 had been captured, while al-Askari put that figure at 120.

Authorities said Iraqi soldiers supported by U.S. aircraft fought all day Sunday with a large group of insurgents in the Zaraq area, about 12 miles northeast of Najaf.

 

Provincial Gov. Assad Sultan Abu Kilel said the insurgents had planned to attack Shiite pilgrims and senior clerics in Najaf during ceremonies marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar commemorating the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The celebration culminates Tuesday in huge public processions in Najaf, Karbala and other Shiite cities.

 

Al-Ghanemi said the army captured some 500 automatic rifles in addition to mortars, heavy machine guns and Russian-made Katyusha rockets in what amounted to a major test for Iraq's new military as it works toward taking over responsibility for security from U.S.-led forces.

 

The commander said the leader of the group, called the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven, was among those killed and identified him as an Iraqi named Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, who went by several aliases and was armed with two pistols when he died. Abdul-Hussein Abtan, deputy governor of Najaf, said the cult leader had been detained twice in the past few years, although he did say why.

 

Abtan also said a few women who were believed to be residents of the area were among those taken into custody.

 

Al-Ghanemi said the area where the men were staying was once run by Saddam's al-Quds Army, a military organization the late president established in the 1990s. The commander said "the gunmen had recently dug trenches in preparation for the battle." He added that the area of full of date palm groves. Other officials in Najaf said Saddam loyalists bought the groves six months ago.

 

Al-Ghanemi said 600 to 700 gunmen had planned to disguise themselves as pilgrims and attack Najaf on Tuesday, the day they believed that the Imam Mahdi, or the "hidden imam," would reappear. He said leading Shiite ayatollahs consider such fringe elements as heretics.

 

Their aim was to kill as many leading clerics as possible, al-Ghanemi said.

Najaf government officials indicated the militants included both Shiite and Sunni extremists, as well as foreign fighters. Although Sunni Arabs have been the main force behind insurgent groups, there are a number of Shiite militant and splinter groups that have clashed from time to time with the government.

 

The mortar attacks and bombings appeared to be part of the sectarian reprisal killings that have pushed Iraq into civil warfare over the past year, violence that Bush hopes to quell by sending up to 21,500 more American soldiers to Baghdad and surrounding areas.

 

Bombings, mortar attacks and shootings killed at least 36 people elsewhere on Monday.

 

 

In one of the worst attacks, mortar rounds rained down on a Shiite neighborhood in the Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar, 40 miles south of Baghdad, Monday morning, police spokesman Capt. Muthanna Khalid said. He said 10 were killed, including three children and four women, and five other people were wounded.

 

A wounded boy lay next to his bloodstained father at a hospital in the nearby town of Musayyib, while six bodies were covered with blankets in the morgue.

 

The strike came a day after mortar shells hit the courtyard of a girls' school in a mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad, killing five pupils and wounding 20. A Sunni organization, the General Conference of the People of Iraq, blamed Shiite Muslim militias with ties to government security forces.

 

Also Monday, a prominent Shiite leader renewed his calls for setting up federal regions in Iraq, saying that would solve the country's problems.

 

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite bloc in the 275-member parliament, spoke at a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad to mark Ashoura. "I reaffirm that the establishing of regions will help us in solving many problems that we are suffering from. Moreover, it represents the best solution for these problems," he said.

 

Al-Hakim said his concern cut across sectarian lines. "I sympathize with our Sunni brothers in their ordeal with the terrorists as I sympathize with the Shiites in their ordeal with the terrorists," he said. "I condemn the killing of Sunnis as I condemn the killing of the Shiites."

More than 60 killed amid as Shiite festival ends

 

As violence rages in Iraq, details emerge about arrests after a raid that killed five U.S. soldiers.

 

 

By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer

January 31, 2007

 

BAGHDAD — Sectarian warfare directed mostly at Shiite Muslim pilgrims and worshipers celebrating the climax of an important religious holiday left more than 60 Iraqis dead Tuesday.

 

In addition, details emerged about arrests in the wake of a bold Jan. 20 insurgent raid on a joint U.S.-Iraqi security compound in Karbala in which a U.S. soldier was killed and four other American soldiers were captured and shot to death miles away.

 

A police official in Hillah said four Saudi Arabians staying in a Karbala hotel were arrested in connection with the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. and Iraqi officials had seized maps and other documents.

 

The official also said U.S. officials were heading the investigation of the well-synchronized raid, in which gunmen posing as American soldiers or contractors stormed the compound, disabled U.S. vehicles and whisked away the soldiers.

 

Four others of undetermined nationality also were arrested near the site where the gunmen shot the soldiers, shed their equipment and fled.

 

Aside from a news release issued Friday, U.S. officials have declined to comment on the raid.

 

Thousands of Shiite pilgrims from around the world, including Saudis, descend on Karbala for Ashura, the religious festival.

 

Tuesday's violence was concentrated in religiously mixed areas of the capital and a province to the northeast.

 

The day's deadliest incident took place in Diyala, a religiously and ethnically mixed province that borders Iran. In the Balad Ruz region, 40 miles east of the provincial capital, Baqubah, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt among worshipers engaged in Ashura street demonstrations, killing at least 23 Shiites and injuring 57.

 

In nearby Khanaqin, a town of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites along the border, at least eight people were killed and 30 injured when a bomb planted along a roadway near a mosque exploded during an Ashura procession.

 

In southwest Baghdad, at least 18 pilgrims were killed and 18 wounded when gunmen opened fire on buses ferrying people home from Karbala, the shrine city where hundreds of thousands of Shiites commemorated the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

 

Mortar battles raged between Sunni and Shiite enclaves of the capital. At least a dozen mortar shells landed in Adhamiya, home to an important Sunni shrine, killing 10 people and injuring 16.

 

A mortar shell struck a building in the northern Baghdad district of Kadhimiya, home to a Shiite shrine, killing one and injuring nine. Another struck a house in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Jihad, inflicting casualties on the family inside.

 

Gunmen in the Sunni-dominated Dora district shot to death a Shiite man helping his mother remove furniture from their home, which they had abandoned because of sectarian threats, police said. The mother was also killed and the man's wife wounded.

 

Iraqi authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of at least eight young men who had been fatally shot in apparent sectarian death-squad killings.

 

A U.S. soldier was killed Monday near the southern city of Nasiriya when his vehicle rolled over in an accident, the U.S. military said Tuesday. The death brought the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion to 3,081, according to icasualties.org.

 

The U.S. military also reported a weekend suicide bombing of a fire station that killed 16 people near Ramadi. A driver plowed a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank into the compound.

 

"There are no indications of any casualties caused by the release of chlorine gas," the military statement said.