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| Monday, February 12, 2007 |
| Iraq bomb blasts: 55 killed, over 100 hurt as bombs go off in Baghdad |
In continuing violence in Iraq, two car-bombs and a bomb hidden in a plastic bag exploded in the market districts in central Baghdad on Monday.
At least 55 people were killed and over 100 others were wounded in the blasts, police said.
The violence started around 11.50 a.m. when a parcel-bomb exploded in a crowded area near a popular take-away restaurant in the Bab al-Sharqi area. At least nine people were killed and 19 others wounded in that blast.
About 30 minutes later, two cars packed with explosives blew up in quick succession near the Shorja market district, smashing a building and setting stores on fire.
The two blasts occurred within 100 metres of each other.
Mohammed Najaim, a shop owner, whose business caught fire, said one of the cars was parked in a garage under a two-story market called Al-Arabi, next to the Iraqi Central Bank. Flames were coming out of the garage, which holds hundreds of cars, he added.
The attacks came as Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged followers not to take revenge against Sunni Arabs on the first anniversary of the bombing of a Shiite shrine that took the country to the brink of civil war.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the bombing of the Samarra mosque, which has been blamed on Sunni militants, had plunged Iraq into a cycle of "blind violence" and called on Shiites to exercise restraint during a day of mourning.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in a wave of sectarian attacks triggered by the destruction of the al-Askari mosque, one of the holiest in Shiite Islam. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced to flee sectarian cleansing.
The reclusive Sistani, who lives in the holy city of Najaf, is regarded as a voice of moderation. Sistani, who heads the Shiite religious establishment, or Marjaiya, has repeatedly urged Shiites not to get sucked into sectarian conflict.
Sectarian violence triggered by the Samarra bombing has complicated Washington's plans to withdraw about 130,000 troops from Iraq.
Over 3,100 American soldiers have been killed since the US-led invasion to of Iraq topple Saddam in 2003.Labels: iraq |
posted by a correspondent @ 9:13 PM   |
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| Wednesday, January 24, 2007 |
| Iraq violence: Two car bombs kill 80 in Iraq |
About 80 people were killed and over 140 others wounded in near-simultaneous car-bomb explosions at a crowded street market in central Baghdad, Iraq.
The twin explosions left the pavement scattered with shards of metal, tattered vending carts, and bloodied human remains.
The daylight attack at the Bab al-Sherji market was the second mass-casualty bombing in Baghdad in a week and the deadliest in 2007.
Those who were targeted were T-shirt vendors, DVD dealers, and fruit peddlers who are mostly working-class Shi'ite Muslims -- a sign that the Sunni Muslim insurgency remains capable of inflicting heavy losses even as the Iraqi and the United States forces are preparing for a security crackdown on Sunni rebels.
The attack came as Shi'ite Muslims observe Ashura, a 10-day religious holiday commemorating the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson in the seventh century.
The car-bombs exploded within seconds of each other around noon -- the peak shopping time -- and sent a dark mushroom of smoke high into the blue sky over Baghdad.
Witnesses said a suicide attacker drove in with one of the bombs, veering his vehicle into a cluster of stands before blowing it up.
A second car exploded about 150 yards to the north-east along the same street.
At the Baghdad market, a female customer had just asked fruit vendor Ali Khadhim for oranges. As he turned from his wooden trolley to fill her order, the force of the explosion threw him about 10 yards away, he said. By the time he recovered his possessions, the woman was gone.
The bombing was the worst carnage since the November 23, 2006, attack in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City that killed over 200 people.
In all, 65 people had been killed in a bombing at a university in Baghdad on January 16, 2007.
Iraqi officials see a connection with the earlier attacks and have blamed the Sunni Muslim insurgents and supporters of the former government of Saddam Hussein.
"One can say there is a pattern emerging. They are attacking the infrastructure of our society. One is the university, one is the marketplace. It is really very, very, worrying. The government must take this very seriously," Haider al Ebadi, a Shiite member of Parliament, said.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 8:06 AM |
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| Saturday, January 20, 2007 |
| US Defence Secretary meets allied commanders in Iraq |
United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates met General George Casey, Washington's top military commander in Iraq, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Friday.
Robert Gates and General George Casey also met commanders of the British forces who are policing southern Iraq, including Major-General Jonathan Shaw, the new commander-in-chief of the British forces.
Later, Gates meet commanders from Poland, Australia, Denmark and Romania, and had lunch with the coalition troops who are training the Iraqi army.
Britain – which has the largest contingent of troops among the US allies with about 7,000 soldiers in the Basra area – is planning to withdraw a major portion of them this year.
Gate's unannounced trip, part of a tour that has taken him to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, was his second journey to Iraq in a month.
Robert Gates was appointed Defence Secretary after Donald Rumsfeld resigned in November 2006, amid escalating public unease in the US over the Iraq conflict.
Gates had announced at the start of his week-long Middle East trip that he knew the security situation in southern Iraq is different from that in Baghdad, where the US is bolstering the strength of its forces.
On his first visit to Iraq after assuming charge as US Defence Secretary, on December 18, 2006, Robert Gates had held talks in Baghdad with US commanders and Iraqi government leaders. This was a few weeks before US President Bush announced his new strategy for Iraq, which includes sending an additional 21,500 troops to Baghdad and the western Anbar region.
Meanwhile, sectarian conflict and an insurgency aimed at ousting foreign troops and toppling the new government is threatening to destroy Iraq.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others uprooted since the US-led invasion toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Kidnappings and suicide bombings have forced several international organisations out of Iraq. Many aid workers have been abducted and killed.
Before the invasion, Iraqis had suffered decades of dictatorship, wars and international sanctions – all of which crippled its economy and shattered its infrastructure.
The invasion had brought an end to sanctions and paved the way for elections and a new constitution. Billions of dollars have poured in as aid to rebuild the country, but the awful security situation and corruption in the country have hampered reconstruction.
In 2006, a report by the International Crisis Group had warned that Iraq is "teetering on the threshold of wholesale disaster."Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 9:36 PM |
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| Wednesday, January 17, 2007 |
| Iraq imbroglio: Condoleezza Rice seeks Arab support |
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's appeal to America's Arab allies to help support the fragile government in Iraq drew lukewarm response on Tuesday from Saudi Arabia, the Bush Administration's staunchest ally in the region.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said his country hopes that US President Bush's plans to turn around the situation in Iraq becomes successful, but he was doubtful whether the Iraqi government is capable of doing its part.
"We are hoping these objectives will be implemented, but the means are not in our hands," Saud al-Faisal said. "They are in the hands of the Iraqis themselves."
Al-Faisal spoke at length about the centuries-old civilisation in Iraq where Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims have been living together for years, but are now threatened by sectarian violence that has killed thousands of people.
Condoleezza Rice thanked the Saudis for their past help in urging national reconciliation in Iraq, but did not press new requests for help from the predominantly Sunni kingdom.
Though a distinct minority, Sunnis had dominated the government in Iraq until the US-led ouster of Saddam Hussein left Shias in control.
Condoleezza Rice sounded more optimistic than al-Faisal about the will of the Iraqi government. She said: "As President Bush has said, Iraqis have to decide what kind of country they will be," alluding to Bush's assertion that the ultimate future of Iraq is in the hands of the Iraqis.
Rice and al-Faisal made their comments after a Tuesday morning meeting that followed a Monday evening dinner for Rice hosted by Saudi King Abdullah.
Later on Tuesday, Condoleezza Rice will be in Kuwait to meet her counterparts from eight Arab countries to continue her quest for assistance to Iraq.
The Arab leaders are eager for the US to take a larger role in brokering peace between Israel, the Palestinians and others in the region. While in Egypt, Rice had announced that she would bring together the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming weeks for a summit dedicated to exploring ideas for an eventual Palestinian state.
Before she left Washington, Rice had told Congress that Saudi Arabia should do more to help the Iraqi government because a "failed state" next-door to the kingdom would ensure an expanded role in the region for old rival Iran.
Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rice had said the "single best thing" Saudi Arabia could do would be to provide debt relief for Iraq. She was responding to a question from committee chairman Tom Lantos, (Democrat-California), who said the Saudis should use revenues from high oil prices to ease America's financial burden in Iraq.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 10:26 AM |
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| Barzan's decapitation angers Sunnis in Iraq |
The hanging of two of Saddam Hussein's aides Monday by the Iraqi government has further enraged the Sunni Muslims in the strife-torn country. What angered the Sunnis most was the decapitation of Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim's on the gallows.
Barzan Ibrahim's head was snapped off at the end of his fall through a trap door toward the execution chamber's floor 18 feet below. A government video screened for reporters showed Ibrahim's body passing the camera without its head.
Ibrahim and Hamed al-Bandar, leader of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, were hanged at 3 a.m. on Monday.
The video of the execution shown to reporters was muted as was the official video of Saddam's execution two weeks ago.
The pictures of the hanging of Saddam were broadcast by television networks worldwide. Ali al-Dabbagh, the government spokesman, said the video of Monday's hangings would not be made public.
A video of Saddam's execution, taken by a mobile phone camera and leaked to Arab television stations and internet websites, showed Shi'ite witnesses taunting Saddam in the last moments of his life. This scene drew worldwide protests.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that the executions were mishandled and she hoped those responsible for the mobile phone videos of Saddam's execution would be punished.
Late on Monday, about 3,000 enraged Sunnis assembled in Ouja for the burial of Ibrahim, who also served as Saddam's intelligence chief, and al-Bandar. The town of Ouja is just outside Tikrit, Saddam's power base near the Tigris river, 80 miles north of Baghdad.
Saddam, Ibrahim and al-Bandar were found guilty of crimes against humanity for having killled 148 Shi'ites after an assassination attempt against Saddam in Dujail in 1982.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 10:21 AM |
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| Civilian casualties in Iraq over 34,000: UN report |
With over 80 people being killed in three bomb attacks around Baghdad, capital of Iraq, on Tuesday, a United Nations report estimates that more than 34,000 civilians were killed across Iraq in 2006.
The UN also warned that the violence was likely to continue in the absence of a functioning justice system in place.
Two bombs exploded in quick succession at Baghdad University as students were leaving classes, killing at least 60 people and wounding 110 others.
In two other bomb attacks, at least 15 people died and 70 others were wounded by another pair of bombs in central Baghdad in a market, near a Sunni mosque. The mosque was not believed to be the target.
Two members of an elite police bomb disposal unit and two civilians were killed when a pair of bombs, which the officers were trying to defuse, exploded.
The UN report gives a chilling picture of the civilian deaths, underscoring the depth of the security problem facing the US military officials as they prepare to deploy more troops in Iraq as a part of a new strategy that, for the first time, makes the protection of civilians the war effort's highest priority.
The report by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq was based on figures provided by from the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad and hospitals around the country. It is estimated that 34,452 civilians were violently killed in 2006 – an average of 94 a day – and that 36,685 others were wounded.
The UN report said the level of violence appeared to have declined toward the end of 2006 – 3,462 violent deaths were recorded for November and 2,914 for December, compared with 3,345 in September and 3,702 in October.
The head of the UN mission, Gianni Magazzeni, told reporters that a cycle of revenge killings and reprisals has escalated in the absence of an effective and impartial justice system. "If people don't have a sense that justice is done, unfortunately this sectarian violence is likely to continue," Magazzeni arned.
The UN report spoke of a "growing sense of impunity for ongoing human rights violations," a development which "leads people to take law into their hands and rely on militias or criminal gangs. The law-enforcement agencies are ineffective and militias and criminal gangs increasingly work in collusion with or have infiltrated the official security forces."
The report was also critical of American and other international troops, whose operations, it said, "cause severe suffering to the local population." It called on the coalition troops to "refrain from any excessive use of force."
There is no official Iraqi estimate of civilian deaths. In an unofficial estimate during an official visit to Vienna in November, 2006, Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shimari had said 150,000 Iraqis had been killed in violence since the war began in 2003.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 10:16 AM |
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| Tuesday, January 16, 2007 |
| Saddam’s aides - Barzan Ibrahim, an ex-intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar - hanged |
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, an ex-intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were hanged on Monday for their roles in the killing of 148 men and boys in Iraq in 1982.
The two men were executed at the same time, a government source said. There were witnesses to observe protocol.
Two officials in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the hangings took place around 6 a.m. local time.
The two Saddam aides were executed at the same location where the former Iraqi president was hanged on December 16, 2006. The execution site was a building where Saddam Hussein’s intelligence officers had hanged many people. The building is located in the Shiite neighbourhood of Kazimiyah.
The two were to have been hanged along with Saddam on December 30, 2006, but Iraqi authorities had decided to execute Saddam alone on what National Security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a “special day.”
Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had urged the government to delay the executions. “In my opinion, we should wait,” Talabani had said on Wednesday, at a news conference with US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. “We should examine the situation,” he had said, without elaborating.
Badia Aref, a lawyer for former judge Awad al-Bandar, told CNN that his client and Saddam’s half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan had been hanged.
However, Jaafar al-Moussawi, chief prosecutor in the case, told Reuters that he was unaware of an execution and was seeking information. By law, one of the prosecution team must be present at hangings. His deputy in the case, Munkith al-Faroon, denied reports that he had confirmed that the executions took place.
Worldwide controversy over Saddam’s hanging has made Iraqi officials reluctant to speak on record about the executions.
The illegal recording on mobile phone of Saddam being taunted by Shi’ite observers at his execution had angered many in his Sunni Arab minority, embarrassed the Shi’ite-led government and the United States Administration as well as triggered sectarian tensions in Iraq.
Barzan was a feared figure in Iraq at the head of the intelligence service in the 1980s. Bandar presided over the Revolutionary Court which sentenced 148 Shi’ite men and youths to death after an assassination attempt on Saddam in the town of Dujail in 1982. The two had been convicted, along with Saddam, on November 5, 2006, of crimes against humanity by the US-sponsored High Tribunal.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 12:49 AM |
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| Bush bent on defying Congress on new Iraq plan |
United States President George W Bush and other senior Administration officials have vowed to press on with their controversial plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq, notwithstanding opposition in Congress, including threats to cut off funding for the new troop deployment.
President Bush, in a television interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, was defiant: “Congress could try to stop me from doing it, but I made my decision, and we’re going forward.”
However, Bush admitted that that the US had made errors in Iraq and that Iraq was more unstable now than it was under Saddam Hussein. “I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better,” Bush said.
He also admitted that the execution of Saddam Hussein had been mishandled, describing the event as “discouraging.” He said he had only watched a part of the execution on the internet, because he had not wanted to watch Saddam fall through the trap door.
However, he stood by his decision to invade Iraq and topple the dictatorship, and his aides had defended his move last week to intensify US action against Iranian agents in Iraq.
Democrats in Congress are expected to introduce a non-binding resolution later this week condemning the President’s Iraq plan. But Vice-President Dick Cheney had said on Sunday that such a resolution “would not affect the President’s ability to carry out his policy.”
Democratic opposition to the plan would just ‘revalidate’ the views of America’s enemies in the region, that “if you kill enough Americans you can force us to quit,” Cheney said in a television interview. “The US,” he declared, “cannot run a war by committee.”
Both Bush and Cheney also sounded defiant on the Administration’s controversial pursuit of Iranians in Iraq.
While Bush warned Iranian leaders that “if we catch your people inside the country harming US citizens or Iraqi citizens, you know we will deal with them,” Cheney declared that the White House was not prepared to moderate its aggressive stance toward Iran, however vocal the criticism from inside and outside Congress.
“Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq and the threat that Iran represents is growing,” Cheney said.
Meanwhile, the confrontation between the US and Iran over Iraq has escalated as Tehran demanded the release of five “diplomats’ captured in northern Iraq, while the Bush Administration insists that the detainees are elite Revolutionary Guards fomenting the insurgency and warned that America was going to “deal with” Iranian activity in Iraq.
Hours after Bush unveiled a tough new policy on Wednesday to “seek out and destroy” Iranian and Syrian-supported networks supplying Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias, five Iranians were seized by American forces from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
A US military statement said that an initial investigation found the detainees were linked to the Qods force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, “an organisation known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilise the government of Iraq and attack coalition forces.”
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman denied the claims, insisting that the detainees had been working to build a consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan and had diplomatic immunity.
As part of the offensive against militias, Iraqi soldiers arrested 50 suspected insurgents and seized 2,000 Katyusha rockets in a Shia area north-east of Baghdad. Over 30 suspected insurgents were detained near Abu Ghraib.
RICE PLEA TO ARAB ALLIES: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a tour of the Middle East, asked Arab allies to help support the fragile government in Iraq, on whose success much of President Bush’s new plan to turn the war around will depend.
Rice met diplomats and leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Monday, a day after a similar session in Jordan.
The scheduled meetings with Sunni Arab leaders fell on the same day that Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged in Iraq on Monday morning.
The top US diplomat is also meeting on Tuesday with counterparts from eight Arab countries in Kuwait. Moderate Arab governments plan to tell Rice that they will help Washington stabilise Iraq if the US takes more active steps to revive a broad peace initiative between Israel and its neighbors, Arab officials and media said.Labels: International Politics, iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 12:47 AM |
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| Monday, January 15, 2007 |
| Democrats want Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay prisons shut |
Leaders of the Democratic Party in the United States Congress have outlined plans to force the Bush Administration to close the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.
The two detention facilities that have sparked an international furore over the Bush Administration’s war policy.
Representative John P Murtha, chairman of the powerful Defence Appropriations Subcommittee and a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, says he wants to close both prisons by cutting their funding in order to “restore our credibility worldwide.” If he succeeds, it would force the Administration to find a new facility to detain suspected hard-core terrorists.
The effort to close the two prisons, which Murtha said Nancy Pelosi supports, illustrates how Democrats in Congress are confronting President Bush over his war policies. The aggressive push to change the war’s course has escalated after the President’s address to the nation on Wednesday night in which he announced plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.
Democratic leaders will try to include the measure to close the prisons in a spending Bill designed to pay for war operations, Murtha said, and added that closing Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo would be more symbolic than substantive.
Abu Ghraib gained international disrepute in 2004 after pictures of US soldiers torturing and sexually abusing Iraqi prisoners came out in the open.
The Guantanamo facility, which has housed Al-Qaeda members and other terror suspects for over five years, has been a rallying point for criticism of the US policies in combating terrorism. Several human rights groups and a United Nations commission have called for Guantanamo to be closed down.
President Bush has defended the detention centre as a “necessary part” of the war on terror. He had declared in June 2006: “I would like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognise that we are holding some people that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts."
Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the Speaker is not going to make a final judgment on whether the prisons should be closed until after Murtha's committee has hearings on the issue.
Murtha’s plan is the outcome of a new series of attacks on the President’s war plans being played out on Capitol Hill.
Democratic leaders of House and Senate say they still hope to change the President’s mind about the “troop surge” in Iraq by passing a non-binding resolution of disapproval in the coming weeks. But a growing number of Democrats say that, since Bush is almost certain to ignore such a resolution, more must be done to hasten the end of the war.
According to many Democrats, the most likely step would involve spending restrictions on the war budget.Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 7:57 AM |
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| Saturday, January 13, 2007 |
| Bush sending 21,000 more troops to Iraq |
Marking a new turn in the American presence in Iraq, US President George W Bush is sending over 21,000 extra military personnel to the strife-torn country next week. Of the new deployment, 17,000 troops will be sent to Baghdad and 4,000 to the violence-ridden Anbar province, where President Bush is promising a showdown with al-Qaeda. However, the President has warned the American people to prepare themselves for more deaths. “The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve,” he said in a televised address to from the White House. Bush admitted that not sending more troops to Iraq earlier had been a mistake. Said he: “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” It may be noted that the US political scenario has dramatically changed since the mid-term elections in November 2006. The Democrats, who made huge gains in the polls, are openly calling for troops withdrawal. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin commented: “Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election. Instead of a new direction, the President’s plan moves the American commitment in Iraq in the wrong direction. It’s time for President Bush to face the reality of Iraq. And, the reality is this: America has paid a heavy price. We have paid with the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. And we’ve paid with the hard-earned tax dollars of the families of America.” Meanwhile, in Baghdad Iraqis voiced scepticism over whether more troops would help. Analysts fear that President Bush’s decision to send more US troops to Iraq poses serious risks, including a rise in casualty rates, and its success will depend on many factors beyond America’s control. The increase of about some 21,000 soldiers and Marines will take the number of US troops in Iraq to over 153,000. The US has already suffered heavy casualties but has failed so far to check the spiralling violence. The US troop levels reached a peak of 159,000 in January 2005, according to Pentagon figures. Which raises the question whether the increase in the number of troops will be enough to quell violence that has intensified – a complex mix of sectarian, insurgent, Islamist militant and criminal attacks. The sectarian violence, in particular, escalated since the bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February 2006. Advocates of the hike in the US troop level pin much of their hopes on the fact that the US forces will now hold areas of Baghdad once these areas are cleared of insurgents and militia fighters. So far, over 3,000 US soldiers have died and more than 22,000 others have been wounded in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. UK NOT SENDING TROOPS: Meanwhile, Britain has said it has no intention of sending additional soldiers to Iraq. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, while welcoming US President Bush’s announcement to send additional US troops to Iraq, on Thursday distanced the British Government from the US policy in Iraq. “It is not our intention at the present time to send more troops,” Beckett told reporters at Downing Street. Labels: iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 5:53 AM |
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| Bush warns Iran, Syria against aiding Iraqi rebels |
United State President George W Bush, in his speech to the nation, has warned Iran and Syria, charging them with taking “deliberate action” against the US forces in Iraq and enabling transfer of aid to Iraqi rebels. Bush said the US will take action against “Iranian proxies” in Iraq and vowed to find and destroy the networks supplying these groups with weapons and training. The President also said the US would work “with others” to block Iran from developing nuclear arms and dominating the region.
The Bush Administration had recently leaked details of clandestine Iranian operations in Iraq, as well as what the President described as direct assistance for insurgents who are targeting American soldiers.
He stressed that success in Iraq would come only “after Iran and Syria are addressed.” However, at a briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, had said there were no plans for military operations inside Iran. General Pace told reporters that “we can take care of the security for our troops by doing the business we need to do inside of Iraq.”
Both Syria and Iran were quick to condemn Bush’s warning. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said “the US decision to send more troops to Iraq is a continuation of the occupation and would only contribute to the insecurity, danger and anxiety in Iraq, and will not help solve the problems.”
Syria’s Vice-President Farouk al-Shara remarked that President Bush’s decision to reinforce the US forces in Iraq would only “add fuel to the fire.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said those calling for dialogue with Syria and Iran fail to realise that these countries are seeking to undermine stability and that talks with them are unlikely to yield results.
Condoleezza Rice, who scheduled to visit the Middle East this weekend, explained that it is the Bush Administration’s policy to cooperate with moderate states interested in stabilising Iraq as well as the Middle East. She was referring to President Bush’s statement that the US would “work with others” to block Iran from developing nuclear arms and dominating the region.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee that the US troops were trying to crack down on the spread of Iranian-supplied explosives into Iraq. Thereby, he explained, the Administration is “making it clear that those who are involved in activities that cost the lives of American soldiers are going to be subject to actions on the part of the United States inside Iraq.” Labels: International Politics, iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 5:50 AM |
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| Monday, January 08, 2007 |
| US confirms kidnapping of American citizen in Iraq |
The United States embassy in Baghdad on Saturday confirmed the kidnapping of an American citizen, who has been working in Iraq as a private security contractor.
“I confirm the disappearance of the American. He is a private security contractor,” US embassy spokesman Louis Fintor said.
On Friday, the American and his two Iraqi interpreters were kidnapped from Al-Haritha, north of Basra, local police said.
The three were travelling in a car when three other cars full of gunmen ambushed them and kidnapped them, according to the police.
The kidnapping raised to six the number of private security contractors now held hostage in Iraq, after four Americans and an Austrian were kidnapped on November 16 from Safwan, near Basra.
Their captors had released a video earlier this week in which they appeared healthy but showed the hostages asking for the release of all detainees in American-run and British-run prisons in Iraq.
Several Islamist and nationalist resistance groups operate in Iraq, along with illegal political militias, corrupt security force units and criminal gangs who seize hostages for ransom.
NEW ASSAULT PLAN: Iraqi forces, backed by the US troops, will begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assault on militants in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad this weekend. This is a first step in the White House’s new strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shi’ite death squads, key advisers to the Iraqi Prime Minister has said.
The first details of the plan, which is fresh attempt to bring peace to Baghdad, emerged a day after US President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke for nearly two hours by video conference. Both leaders are expected to detail their vision of a new strategy in the coming days.
The aides of Al-Maliki would not disclose the scope of the planned assaults nor where they were specifically planned.
The Iraqis, however, continue to disagree with the US on key issues, including Al-Maliki’s unease over the introduction of more US troops.
Another point of contention is Al-Maliki’s repeated refusal of the USdemands to crush the militia of anti-American Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful supporter of the Prime Minister.
Analysts fear that any serious campaign to curtail the extreme chaos and violence in Baghdad would put not only the American forces but also Al-Maliki’s Iraqi army in direct confrontation with Al-Sadr’s Mahdi army.
The militants are gaining more and more ground as they kill Sunni residents of the city and drive others from their neighborhoods.
In his discussions with Bush, Al-Maliki continued to press for a rapid US withdrawal from Baghdad to bases on the outskirts of Baghdad, an Iraqi official said. The Prime Minister, he said, has claimed that his forces would be ready to assume control of security for the whole country by summer.Labels: International Politics, iraq |
| posted by a correspondent @ 7:21 AM |
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